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[Capo]

Lately i have some problem recording videos for the youtube channel, first problem is that some videos recorded with the dosbox recorder are displayed like this:



I read it should be a xvid problem but i even havent xvid installed..


Secondly the dosbog recorded has split my last video in 6 parts, the only program i know that can merge them is windows movie maker but somehow it crashes (virtualdub need identical files to be able to merge them).
Any suggestion will be appreciated

[Japo]

I don't know about that video problem. The codec used by DOSBox doesn't modify the video, it just zips it. Try re-installing it, it can be done from a shortcut in the DOSBox folder in the Start menu.

It may be due to scaler settings, how come the size is 668x418? What game is it? If you take screenshots instead of video, are they OK or do they look the same? What size are the screenshots? Try running DOSBox with its default settings.

For merging, clipping, etc. I've used the free edition of this program in the past:

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/..._Overview.aspx

It's better than Movie Maker in that it allows you to control resolution, scaling, stretching, letterboxing etc. precisely.

[Capo]

Originally Posted by Japo

It may be due to scaler settings, how come the size is 668x418? What game is it? If you take screenshots instead of video, are they OK or do they look the same? What size are the screenshots? Try running DOSBox with its default settings.

The game is death gate, the problem is only with the video, the size of a screenshot is 640*480, i dont think is a dosbox problem since most of the video made with it have no problem.

For merging, clipping, etc. I've used the free edition of this program in the past:

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/..._Overview.aspx

It's better than Movie Maker in that it allows you to control resolution, scaling, stretching, letterboxing etc. precisely.

Cool, are you sure is free ?

[Japo]

EDIT: Death Gate is OK for me: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15818997/dgate_001.avi
Make sure you try setting the DOSBox configuration to default. Use the "reset options" shortcut in the start menu, back up the .conf file beforehand if you want. And first of all try re-installing the codec (from the start menu too).

Originally Posted by Capo

Cool, are you sure is free ?

Yep, I have it right here. It's a subset of Expression Studio, and it has less options that the encoder tool of the Studio. For example for output codec you're stuck with WMV, anyway if it's for YouTube choose a high quality since they'll be converting it a second time. Too bad you can't keep the output at lossless ZMBV, I think with the paid Studio you'd be able.

Bro tip: the codec used by DOSBox is lossless, but when transcoding to anything else artifacts will appear; and the point is that when resolution is very low, pixels will be big and artifacts will be accordingly big, resulting in a very poor result even at high quality settings. The solution is to scale the video.

In principle you should scale according to integer ratios to avoid loss. But you can make the same aspect correction that DOSBox can do ([render]aspect), since in the old PC resolutions 320x200 and 640x400 pixels weren't mean to be square.

So regardless of the initial resolution (320x200, 640x400 or 640x480) select 640x480 as output resolution, stretching, no letterboxing. This has the added benefit that YouTube won't have to scale it further, which would result in more loss.

[Capo]

I've resolved the first problem simply restoring the default setting of the video player, strange since before i've tried to check and uncheck every single option of the program

Then i have downloaded expression encoder and seems way better than wmm!
Anyway looks like one of the file of the video i have to merge is corrupted so i will try to record the whole video again, gosh..
For now thanks a lot Japo

[Capo]

I have recorded the video again, if i try to encode it while in avi the video has strange colors on it, if i convert the files in wmv then Expression stop the enocode after some time due corrupt file. What i have to do ?

[Japo]

I can't tell what could be wrong from that. Do the files play OK in the media player before you convert them?

[Capo]

Yes.

[Japo]

Sorry, no idea, I guess it could be because of any number of reasons. Try re-installing the codec if you didn't already. I can't think of anything else.

[Smiling Spectre]

Do you have enough free space on target drive for output file - and enough space on main Windows disk?