« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 29, 2005
framerate
cpu constraints force me to most of the time only release full framerate (usually 59.94 fps in ntsc and 50 fps in pal) video in the hq. and for 2d games that likely employ 60 hz blinking effects (basically every 2d game ever made up until a few years ago) i have to cut the framerate down even further to 19.98 fps (ntsc) or ~16.67 (pal) in the mq/lq to avoid invisible sprites/no blinking. that means that even though the mario 2 run has issues, the hq still looks way better. imo, once you get hooked on full framerate, you can't go back.
when it's possible (i.e. i have enough cpu time), i try to release a fourth quality retaining the full framerate, but usually having half the bitrate of hq. this won't help more people play it, as it's the framerate that is usually the problem, but it will cut the download time in half. this is never done with d1 runs as i feel they need all 4 megabaud to look decent. in situations where i release all four qualities, the new quality steals the name 'high quality' (so ~2 megabaud), while what used to be high quality becomes 'insane quality' (~4 megabaud). can't remember if such a run has actually been released on the site as yet. it should become more common, as submissions have starkly dropped in the past few weeks.
also, if you've had trouble playing hq in the past, you might try downloading hq of a d4 run (320x240 in ntsc; usually anything done on a system released before 1999 except saturn) to see if that plays, as even my ancient power mac g4 dual 1 ghz (using only one of the cpus) can play that fine, while it chokes on d1.
Posted by njahnke at 6:19 PM | Comments (5)
September 15, 2005
it begins
recapturing tape 1 of 2 of the 0:55 now.
it's a surprisingly, abnormally bright tape ... during calibration i had to turn the brightness all the way down to 135 - that's 50% of the normal correction (usually 138, with 128 as the default), my "one-size-fits-all" solution so that i don't have to recalibrate the brightness for every single run i get. i guess i was unwittingly quite lucky to have her back in the days of the dv bridge with its permanently weak brightness pickup.
the picture looks spectacular ... way better than i'd hoped. also, i don't have to go through the receiver to lower the audio level, which is great news, as well. i wish there were something i could do for her that would make her feel as good as i do right now because of how perfect her stuff is. i mean, this isn't like, "oh, this run would be perfect IF ..."
this run is perfect. period.
Posted by njahnke at 7:49 PM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2005
vhs-hell ii: the sequel
i encountered what was easily the worst video signal i've ever seen today - and my expensive equipment rose to the task.
this was the mario 2 all levels run. at first when i saw it i thought there was no way i was going to be able to do it, because the vsync was virtually gone, so the image was rotating vertically every few seconds. it later turned out that it was only doing that in certain spots, but then there was still that the odd field was several lines higher than the even field, for a truly seizure-inducing 60 hz vibration of the picture. i tried dropping every other half-frame (making 29.97 fps, or 'f2' as i call it), and that solved it, but there would be no chance of a high quality version if i went with that solution.
then i tried capturing without the standalone tbc just to see what would happen. the shuddering problem (where the odd field was several lines higher than the even field) was gone, but i couldn't capture anything - without the standalone tbc's help, up to half the frames were being dropped by the capture card. the tbc would be necessary to capture this run.
so i played with the settings on the uber vcr a bit and tried turning on the "stabilizer" (which disengages the uber's tbc in exchange for a processor that tries to hold the vsync on the picture). bingo - the image was stabile through the standalone tbc, which allowed it to be captured. it's still really nothing to look at - distortion everywhere - but the fact that i didn't drop any frames due to the bad signal means there can be a full framerate (hq) version and a dvd version of this run.
here's to my over $600 in technology truly being worth every penny once and for all.
Posted by njahnke at 9:18 PM | Comments (6)
September 11, 2005
another productive day
finished capturing all of the runs in the queue today, as well as recapturing the final run in the 'tertiary group' (runs already on dvd but needing recapturing) - d.darch's single-segment 1% in fusion (dvd #001).
everything should be imported into imovie and ready for encoding by this time tomorrow: approximately five to ten dvds will be appearing soon with most of the recent content from vhs, as well as a redone #001.
i am eagerly anticipating finally recapturing scarlet's 0:55 100% tomorrow in the first step toward the #003 special edition dvd set. this blog will probably turn into 'scarlet central' in the coming weeks as my focus shifts from capturing and encoding new runs to working on her dvds. the number of ideas i have for it is already quite insane, and tons of stuff always pops up while i'm working on projects like it, so it ought to be a blast. this should be the most awesome thing i have created in my entire life: success is a foregone conclusion when i am this enthusiastic.
also today radix discovered the lost 'divx data files location' option in the 'advanced' settings of divx 6 - it had been 'lost' since divx 5 - but, unfortunately, even setting it to a different location did not allow me to successfully run more than one multipass job at a time, as every instance of virtualdub always crashed with a divx out of bounds memory access violation at the end of the job. radix recommended running the vdubs as different users to try to mitigate this, but i'll have to play with it some other time.
Posted by njahnke at 9:46 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2005
vhs-hell (oder: ich bin ein kluger held)
well, today marked the largest vhs catastrophe to date, and the closest i've come to losing a run.
when i began to fast forward the second tape of the single seg legend of mana run (i always fast forward and rewind every tape before capturing it to get rid of any sticky spots in the tape), it made a horribly loud noise, like putting your ear next to a motorcycle engine or something. i am not exaggerating at all when i say this noise was far louder than i ever would have expected could be produced by a vhs unit. the noise grew in pitch and volume as the tape sped up, and i feared that something bad was about to happen, so i decided to stop the tape and take it out.
as i tried to pull the tape out of the vcr, my worst fears were realized - the tape was outside of its enclosure and caught somewhere inside the unit. i tried reinserting the tape to see if it would come uncaught the next i ejected it. no luck, but there was more tape outside of the enclosure now, enough to pull the enclosure completely out of the vcr and reach in with my hands to try to dislodge the tape from the inner workings of the unit. luckily, the tape was apparently only caught in one place, and i was able to quickly disentangle it and extract the whole mess from the unit.
once removed, i used my trusty dvd labeling pen to turn the tape's uptake wheel. unfortunately, the tape stopped coming when all the slack was on the uptake wheel. i tried turning the uptake wheel harder, but the source wheel wouldn't budge. i got out my screwdriver set and opened the carriage.
the inside of the enclosure looked normal enough. however, as i turned it over (the screws are on the bottom of vhs tapes for some reason), pieces of the one-way locking mechanism fell out of the carriage. so i had to hunt around for a tiny, thin spring and the white plastic piece it held in place to reassemble the carriage. (the one-way locking mechanism consists of two pieces of plastic and two springs that fit over them. these plastic pieces act like gears touching the two reels, making sure that the tape does not move backwards unless it is being rewound.) after this reassembly i was able to get the source wheel turning again.
when i put the reassembled tape back in the vcr, it made it to the end of the tape fine, but when it tried to rewind, it ate the tape again. i wondered if i hadn't incorrectly reassembled the one-way lock. but some tape was on the source wheel ... so it had successfully rewound maybe a minute or two. that said to me there was something wrong with the carriage outside of the one-way locking mechanism (either that or the uber vcr had failed). i left for work not knowing if the tape would be capturable.
when i got back from work, i opened up a brand new tape i had and began to transplant the legend of mana tape into its carriage. but when i tried to take the legend of mana tape out of its original carriage, i noticed that the source wheel was caught on something. it all made sense when i saw that the metal seesaw-like strip used to hold the reels flush with the carriage had partially broken off of the carriage and was leaning down into the reel. the seesaw strip had become caught in the source reel! no wonder it couldn't turn ... and that also explained where the motorcycle engine noise had been coming from (the seesaw thrashing against the source wheel as the tape wound).
i carefully extracted the seesaw strip from the source reel and set the tape down into the new carriage. the second half of the run is capturing normally now. i expect that there will be a considerable decline in the picture quality in the area of tape that had come outside of the enclosure the first time the vcr ate the tape, though i don't have to worry about the second area, as it was after the run finished on the tape.
Posted by njahnke at 1:11 PM | Comments (4)
September 3, 2005
dvds, part 3
just formally launched the new data dvd service and raised the prices on the existing products to $15 each with no bulk discount. hopefully it will go over well.
Posted by njahnke at 6:39 PM | Comments (1)
too loud
radix pointed out some audio overpeaking in the capture of sparky's new metroid prime frigate escape record. turns out that my jvc hr-s9911u (the "uber" vcr) has all kinds of controls, but not a playback volume control. therefore, it was necessary to connect an old sony receiver between the full frame tbc (datavideo tbc-1000) and the all in wonder. i'm not happy with this solution, because the audio has to go through two adapters to get back to rca and to the card (i had to use the receiver's headphone port to be able to control the output volume), but it will work for now. the problem is not actually with the aiw, but with my capture machine's crappy built in sound hardware (the lowest recording level for the line in is too high).
looking forward to trying out the tbc with a pal tape soon (as i don't have a built-in tbc on my pal vcr).
Posted by njahnke at 4:04 PM | Comments (0)