The general purpose of this thread is to help people understand how it is possible to create a video of you playing AudioSurf. I'll be brief, for the sake of people not wanting to get confused. This is probably not the best encoding formular, hence discussion on your favorite settings can be made and perhaps this guide can eventually be edited. Enough crap, time for a guide.
PrepareFor this, you will need the following.
AudioSurf
A reasonable computer.
Fraps/
GameCam/
CCCP/A Screen Capture Program of some kind.
VirtualDub Or any other Video Encoding Software
DivX CodecK-Lite Codec Pack if you feel like experimenting with different encoders.
This is my computer spec.
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4400 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
OS: Windows XP 64bit Professional
If your computer is better than mine, then you will have absolutely no hinderances. I consider my computer to be around a year old... though I only built it around 4 months ago
Prepare your Video Capture ProgramOpen your video program of choice. If you are using fraps, then these are the settings I used.
Take notice of the following.
Video Capture Hotkey - F9 is a pretty good placement. I suggest you leave it there, since it won't interfer with anything.
Half-Size/ Full Size - This is the dimensions of the video being recorded. I play the game at around 1280x1024 (I think?), which shrinks the size to 640x480. A decent size for Youtube, as well as general viewing.
xx fps - If you put it at 30, you will get a decent file size to work with and encode. The time it takes to encode a song will take hardly any time and it'll look alright when you look at the video on youtube.
Note that when you are recording a video, the speed in game drops to 30fps This doesn't effect general gameplay too much.
Sound Input Stereo Mix allows you to record the music and game. If Stereo Mix doesn't appear here, then do the following.
1. Click the following: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Sound Recorder
2. Look at my loverly Sound Recorder Panel
Click Options, you'll get the following screen.
Notice how my Sound Card has SoundMAX HD Audio I and O. I have to set it to I in order to access the recording button. You might already have access to it, but mine is seperate for some weird reason. Set it to recorder, and click ok.
Make sure Stereo Mix is right up, but not selected. It will allow Fraps to collect sound when video is being captured.
Recording in AudioSurfWhen you open Audio Surf, you should get some numbers in the corner (as long as you are using Fraps anyway. For GameCam, you get a grey menu at the side)
Play a song, press F9, and check the directory you are dumping video in. Kill your game, and check the video in media player (has seemingly no problems processing raw video). You can judge the quality yourself, but with the settings I have it at, the frame rate looks nice.
It really is as simple as that.
For a 5 minute video, at these settings, you should get a 2.5GB file.
EncodingNow that you have your raw, unprocessed
meal video. It is time to
cook encode it. Youtube unfortunatly isn't able to accept your 2.5GB file and compress it. You need to aim for a 100mb video file, which is 10 minutes long.
The most important thing you want to remember is this. You want to strike a balance between good speed and quality.
Setting up Virtual DubOpen Virtual Dub
Open your raw unprocessed video
Click Audio > Full Processing Mode (this lets you configure the sound compression, which ill explain later)
VideoNow that you've done that. You can now configure the settings to encode your video. As long as you've installed the K-Lite Encoder/Decoder pack, you should have enough options to tweak and play with.
I will be using a DivX codec for it's simple ease and use. Go to Video > Compression and a new menu appears. Select the following codec. It should be there. If it's not, then download it from
here
Click Configure.
Certification Profile - Unconstrained
Encoding Presets - 4
Rate Control - 1 pass at 1500kbps.
Click Ok, Click Ok.
You now need to set up your Audio.
Audio > Compression
Find the LameMP3 (as shown in the picture above) Codec and configure it to the following settings
44100 Hz 64kbs CBR, Mono 8Kb/s
I cannot stress this enough. Setting it to stereo will ramp up the file size, and can actually make the song sound like crap. Mono is a lot better on the internet it seems. If you honestly must set it to stereo, then by all means do it, but this is a personal preference.
Click Ok
Now to finally encode your video with these settings. File > Save as AVI
The program will now begin encoding your file. It shouldn't take long, unless you are on a slow computer.
Quick explination of things.
Current VideoFrame / Current AudioSample - How far along the video is to being fully processed.
Video/Audio Data - How large the current size of the video is
Porjected File Size - An estimation of the file size
Video Rendering Rate - How fast the video is compressing. Since the video is at 30FPS, a video compressing at 60FPS is compressing twice as fast as the video itself.
When the video has finished encoding. Rejoice. You have converted your first video!
