VirtualDub 720p HD settings for YouTube! [Good quality, small file size]
I often record gameplay clips from video games I’m playing with FRAPS. Usually in 1920×1200 or 1680×1050 resolution depending on the game and the FPS I get with FRAPS running. For transcoding the raw footage to something bearable to upload I usually use only VirtualDub, sometimes MediaCoder.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with settings, and I think I found some good ones. Good video and sound quality with small file size were my goals. I think roughly 100 mb for a 5 min. clip and about 300mb for the full 10 min. in full 720p HD quality is awesome.
I’m still experimenting with sound compression but I think with 192 kb/s AC-3 I have a good start.
Please bear in mind that the higher your resolution is the bigger your file size will be and vice versa. Those 100 mb respectively 300 mb are based on my 1920×1200 resolution!
My settings for VirtualDub are as follows: Link
A warning about the Option “Multithreading” -> “Threads” don’t set it higher than [# of your CPU Cores * 1.5] because then your whole system will start chugging.
For example a Core 2 Duo would be 2 Cores * 1.5 = 3, a Q9550 would be 4 Cores * 1.5 = 6 and an AMD Phenom II X3 would be 3 Cores * 1.5 = 4.5.
This is by no means a guarantee that it will or will not work on your system. Each system, its components and its software are unique. You’ll probably have to experiment a bit on your own. But those mentioned numbers are a good start.
It also might be necessary for you to adjust the audio volume to your liking. I have -10 dB, because the sound I record is terribad. My onboard sound sucks, period.
On a side note: When you have uploaded your clip on YouTube and YouTube processed it the quality then will be lowered again. There’s nothing you or I can do about that, it’s up to YouTube.
The whole tutorial is also available on YouTube as a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9XOgnaJ_Hs
A few links to my own HD clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIW6KsBTqVM&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6M737fwCxU&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCwECTbX_GU&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPCyNTY_wh4&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buGMBLejdQg&fmt=22
Addendum:
I’ve been getting emails asking me what kind of codecs I’m using and where to get it. Here’s the Wikipedia article for h.264 codec. I’m using a complete codec pack called “K-Lite Mega Codec Pack“. The h.264 is only contained in the mega version of it!
Addendum 16.September 2009:
Since version 1.9.4 it is possible to use the GPUs processing power (if your GPU supports it, which most modern GPUs do) as part of whole the transcoding process. This way you can speed up the whole transcoding process significantly (depending on your compression settings!).
On my computer this cut my transcoding time from an average 1h for a 10 min. clip to some 40-ish minutes.
Under “Options” -> “Preferences” enable those settings:
Addendum 16.05.2010:
I’ve been getting mixed messages. Apparently using “3d accel” causes it to render slower than usual on some systems. I can confirm that. With 3d accel turned on, a 10min video takes about 1 hour 10-20 minutes, while turned off it takes about 1 hour max. You’ll have to experiment on your system!
And if you are running on a multicore cpu, don’t forget to enable threading!
Addendum 23.10.2009:
There’s currently a problem causing VirtualDub 1.9.4/5/6/7, crashing under Windows 7. The culprit is 3D accel! Turn it off under “Preferences” -> “3D accel” and enjoy VirtualDub once again!
Update 22.03.2010:
Updated Setting Screenshots
Related posts:
- Fraps & VirtualDub: How to save disk space and enjoy good quality, small file size HD video clips
- Real-Time Screen capturing/recording easily done with VirtualDub and VHScrCap
- Demigod – Can you smell what “The Rook” is cookin’? [HD gameplay clips]
- Simple Text- and Movie-effects made easily with Sony Vegas Movie Studio
- Fallout 3 goes into the Pit – “The Pitt” HD game play clips!
Tags: 720p, good quality, HD, high definition, high quality, high resolution, HQ, screen capturing, screen recording, settings, small file size, transcoding software, vdub, video, video editing, virtualdub, youtube
you swhould include the config file
No can do, because my pc hard- and software setup aren’t the same as yours. Therefore the config file is specifically made for my pc. Won’t work with others.
i did follow your steps. (thanks a lot btw, the quality is really great), but youtube says it can’t process it….(saved .avi and .mkv…tried both)….did i miss something?
YouTube should’ve no problem processing .avi. But how you managed to save .mkv with VirtualDub is beyond me, since VirtualDub doesn’t support anything other than .avi .
Try the newest VirtualDub 1.9.8
Hiya, I followed your tutorial, used the newest VirtuablDub, and tried to compress some fraps clips of Bad Company 2. However the compressed video blinks, like a broken light bulb. I have compressed 3 different videos so far and all of them have the same corruption. Do you know what is it happening?
No idea, sorry
. But do tell when you’ve reached a solution! If I had the problem I’d do this, it’ll be a chore and pain in the a** but this way I’ll know what’s wrong:
Activate 1 option, compress, activate next option, compress, activate next option, compress, change value, compress.
You can take a small video, about 30-40 mb, 10 sec or something, and check after each compression. Until you’ve found the problem that’s causing the blinking.
Okay, finally, I’ve found out the problem. It’s due to Max consecutive B-frames, had to set it to 0 (default value) in order to get rid of the blinking. I’m using i7 920, 6GB of RAM, ATI 5850 and Windows 7 Ultimate. Thanks for the suggestion
Did you use the same settings for your Fear 2 Mission 1 gameplay as well?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPCyNTY_wh4
Because after Youtube’s post processing my upload looks a lot more pixelated than yours. Your crosshair although really slim looks sharp enough.
Yes, the same.
Hello, i recorded a video with Fraps, my problem is I dont know how to upload it correctly, the clip got split into 3 different (about) 3minute clips which are roughly 4Gb each, do you have any tips on how to getting down the file size or what format i should upload them, or maybe how to get them into ONE film clip that still matches youtubes restrictions?
@Patrick: Seriously? Have you even read this article? This article is precisely what you need in order to reduce your filesize
.
As for your question about how to merge 3 files into 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eM7ikdwjU !
Hey thank you for this tutorial, I’ve been looking for one working on my computer for some time.
The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack didn’ t show me the codecs needed in the options settings so I downloaded each separately.
The first time I clicked on “save as AVI” it didn’t work well: it took a second to get the file and it wasn’t readable by VLC. I don’t know what happened but I tried again and it worked.
Then the first time I tried to upload on Youtube it gave me an unknown error message, second try it worked.
So thank you again I’m now able to put some vids on Youtube
Do you know how I could change the settings to get a better quality video on Youtube ? (I already have 720p but maybe better 720p or 1080p could be possible)
I record the game with fraps in 1440*900 resolution and I don’t mind about the time needed if I can get better quality.
@Yarska: To get better quality, experiment with the quality slider. 1 is best, 51 is worst.
To get 1080p you need to change the 1280 and 720 into 1920 and 1080. But because you are recording in 1440*900 it would mean quality-LOSS to go to 1920x1080p. You’ll have to expirement again with the slider and the sharpen filter. Section “Upscaling and Sharpening”.
So i tested the quality slider first.
51 gave me a strange video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8DMb__Rxg
However I didn’t notice much difference between 25: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-lNDp6PDfM
and 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVsRDt_Fc8
Then I tested the sharpening by 64 filter and I noticed a difference between quality slider to 25: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeguo4v5MW4
and 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWHbQwnus8I
The sharpening seems to improve some graphics but also decreases others which look more blurred than without sharpening.
Quickly looking at these videos, would you have any other ideas of Virtual Dub settings that could give me a better quality ? (at the moment I only record this game with these resolution/graphic settings)
So what’s the problem? 51 gave you the “strange” video, because 51 is the WORST quality.
25 looks better because it’s about the middle. 1 looks even better, because 1 is the BEST quality.
And why are you using sharpening? If you record in 1440*900 then you don’t need to sharpen anything, since resizing from 1440*900 to 1280*720 doesn’t “lose” any quality.
If you were to record in half-resolution, meaning 720*450, then and only then, in my opinion, should you use the sharpening filter if you resize from 720*450 to 1280*720, because UPSCALING, that’s what it’s called, is always linked with loss of quality.
But you’re not UPSCALING, you’re downscaling from 1440*900 to 1280*720. You actually “put in more quality” this way.
Let me try to explain it. For example in 1440(*900) to 1280(*720), looking at the width, you have 160 (1440-1280) pixels worth of redundant information which can be used any way you see fit. Whereas in 720(*450) to 1280(*720) you’re actually MISSING 560 (720-1280) pixels worth of information which have to be interpolated (equals loss of quality) by algorithms.
All you have to do with your 1440*900 raw footage is resize DOWN to 1280×720, move the slider to your convenient quality (I’d recommend 23-25), use the VirtualDub settings I provided and that’s it.
Ultimately YouTube WILL lower the quality of your video, even if you upload your videos in the best possible quality there is. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s YouTube fault, because they re-encode the whole video with their own settings.
You talked about the slider and sharpen filter, so I thought I should use the sharpening filter.
But if I already have the best quality possible on Youtube, it’s fine.
[...] Now I’ve been using mostly VirtualDub, a superawesomewtfbbqomgz application by the way, for encoding my recorded raw footage into acceptable size and quality. The guides I wrote can be found here and here. [...]
quote:
“Utzu January 18th, 2010 at 09:06 PM
i did follow your steps. (thanks a lot btw, the quality is really great), but youtube says it can’t process it….(saved .avi and .mkv…tried both)….did i miss something?”
quote:
”
Don Salva January 18th, 2010 at 09:17 PM
YouTube should’ve no problem processing .avi. But how you managed to save .mkv with VirtualDub is beyond me, since VirtualDub doesn’t support anything other than .avi .
Try the newest VirtualDub 1.9.8″
I’m having VirtualDub 1.9.9 and having the same problem as Utzu is…
Any help?
Thank you
PS: Otherwise great tutorial, videos are awesome!
I’m guessing you’re using the Mega K-Lite Codec Pack 6.1.0? If so, go back to 6.0.4, if this error still appears try 6.0.0 or even 5.9.0.
Apparently 6.1.0 has a faulty h264 codec. 6.0.4 works for me, but for some it doesn’t.