Tutorial: Record Gameplay And Youtube HD

Foltern - Sanctuary

Hello, The reason for this thread is to share one method of recording your PerfectWorld game play and preparing it for upload onto YouTube in HD 16x9 Wide screen. This guide is very basic and simple designed only to provide basic information on how to do this. There are many ways a person can do this and probably better ways also. This is not my method, However it is one way it can be done easily. By no means am I an expert on the subject of video encoding or video editing.

Using a more complex video editing program, Such as Sony Vegas Pro, Video transitions, credits and other effects can be added to both audio and video. That will not be covered in this tutorial. This tutorial will discuss how you can record game play with sound. How to make basic splits and how to encode the video so that is much more compact and can be uploaded to YouTube in HD quality.


Here is a Sample Clip of the video quality you can expect from using the methods below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFlYcaDWGSY



What you should know:

This guide assumes you already know how to perform the following tasks on your own to shorten the guide and to simplify things:

- How to check your free hard drive space
- Change your desktop resolution
- Download, save or install software
- Unzip archives
- Use Google to locate software
- Verify which version of Windows you are using
- Close open programs using the Windows task manager or customized selective start-up mode
- Creating a YouTube account and how to upload videos
- How to browse and locate files on your hard drive
- You may have worked with Fraps previously or currently ( This is not required )
- You have previously recorded videos and uploaded them onto Youtube. Perhaps with low windows movie maker quality. (Highly recommended)
- You do not need screenshots to follow written instructions. You can take initiative to do investigate and re-read to understand the content.

Before you get started, this information applies only to Windows XP. I assume you have the 32 bit version, Although the instructions may apply to other versions of Windows XP or other versions of Windows, It has not been personally tested by me and I cannot guarantee success by following this guide even though it may and probably will work properly.

This guide assumes you have the latest video card drivers installed as well as the latest version of Directx for your operating system, you have all the latest windows updates installed and you are logged into a user account on your computer which has administrative rights / unrestricted access. If you are not sure if you have those things taken care of, You can follow the guide and see if it works fine or not. If you do not have problems with graphical lag, strange colors while playing the game or problems with your computer in general, Your recordings should be fine.


What you need:

- Preferably the latest full version of Fraps to record game play. The trial version only allows 2 minute clips. If you intend to record duels, You can probably use the limited trial version with no problems.
- About 60 GB of free hard drive space or more depending on how long your recorded video might be. ( 60 GB is recommended for long recordings. Duels will require about 10 GB.)
- VirtualDub to combine video clips, make basic splits and to re-encode the video.
- x264vfw is the codec which is used to compress the original video to a smaller size and it allows your computer to play the compressed video also.


As of this threads post date, the software required can be downloaded from the following locations:

At the time of this writing Fraps can be acquired from. ( Fraps 3.01 )
http://www.fraps.com/

At the time of this writing VirtualDub can be acquired from: (Release build -- 1.9.7)
http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

At the time of this writing x264vfw can be acquired from. (20_1195bm_19501)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/


Prepare the software:

- Install Fraps to the default location
- Install the x264vfw codec and encoder using all default options
- Unzip VirtualDub to it

Foltern - Sanctuary

Preparing Fraps:

- After you have all the programs required and they are installed / prepared. Open Fraps and click the “Movies Tab”
- You will notice there is a hot-key which you can press during game play to record video
- A path is displayed for the location where Fraps recordings are saved. One trick you can use to potentially get better recording performance results is to save recorded videos to a different hard drive other than the drive Windows is installed if you have a secondary with a lot of free space.
- Verify the “Record Sound” radio button is selected and active as well as “Detect best sound output”.
- Verify “29.97 Fps” is selected as well as “Full Size”
- For the very best quality possible you can check-mark “Force lossless RGB capture” although this will not make a world of difference to the end quality on YouTube, it will provide more slightly more sharpness overall but is not worth the video lag it might cause. Older versions of Fraps do not have the feature, The rest of the options should be the same.

Recording conditions:

- It’s best to ensure no other programs or services are running while playing Perfect World and recording game play, other than the basic Windows services and programs as well as any driver software or system protection software. I also recommend you give your computer a fresh restart before you start a recording session. Which means that if you think you might record some footage before you start playing the game, Restart your computer then log in. This way you have a clean environment and free system resources.
- The hard drive where Fraps recording will be saved should be defragmented as well as the drive Perfect World is installed. This is not a requirement but highly recommended.
- Your desktop resolution should be 1280x1024
- After starting Perfect World and logging into your account, The in game resolution should be 1280x720. This is ideal because YouTube's HD 16x9 resolution requires the resolution of uploaded video’s to be 1280x720. This allows us to record at that very same resolution so that later on during the compression of the footage to a smaller size, We can save time and some video quality by simply recording at this resolution.
- When it comes to the in game quality settings, You must use your best judgment, You know if your computer can run the game with all setting maxed or not. You should let the software auto-detect the best setting for your computer if you are unsure of what in game quality settings you should use. You can access the auto-detect function from the launcher screen after you first launch the game, then click settings. If your game play is graphically laggy, your recordings will be also. Video related lag should be tested in an area with minimal players and an area which has a reasonable amount of mobs.
- I personally recommend disabling the video option “Soften”. It makes recorded video blurry as opposed to sharp.
- Make sure the in game volume is set to your liking. For example if you want to hear only sound effects or only music. Mute one or the other. Make sure the volume is turned up on both if you want to hear both on YouTube. If the volume is low, it will record low and it will be low in YouTube as well.
- I recommend not playing music or other sounds from other sources while recording game play, Fraps may detect that music or sound instead of the sound in PerfectWorld.

Re-encoding and editing:

- After following the instructions listed above you can start PerfectWorld and press the video recording hot-key and record a small sample clip, then press the hot-key again to stop recording. Depending on how long you have recorded, You may have one large file or several large files about 4096 MB in size or 4 GB~. The program automatically splits the files when they reach a very large size. The files are very large because they are not compressed yet, The program does not have time to compress the video to a smaller size as it’s being captured in real time. This requires too much processing power from your computer. We need to do that later on with VirtualDub.

Working with a single clip:

- If you have a single clip to work with, Like a duel for example; open VirtualDub, then drag and drop the clip into the main area of the program or click “File” in the upper left hand corner, then select “Open”, browse to the video then double-click on it to import it into VirtualDub.
- - If both the video and sound was to your liking, You do not need to make any edits and you just want to compress it now for uploading onto YouTube, click “Video” at the top, them choose “Compression”. Scroll down and select X264vfw, then click configure.
- From the main tab, Choose “Single Pass” Bit rate based.
- For my latest videos ( Duel Level 69 Barb Video) I use a bitrate of 10,000 for really good crisp video quality. 10,000 might be too high for video’s longer than 10 minutes, However this is fine for 10 minute clips. You wil not exceed Youtube’s 2 GB file size limit in that timeframe.
- The higher the bitrate the less compression has to be done, This generally means it is faster to do and it preserves quality.
- Once you decide on a bitrate (Which must be a multiple of 4) , type it into the input box on the right hand side, then click the “Analysis and Encoding” tab. On the left hand side it reads “ Max frame references” type “3” and click “Ok”, then click “ok” once more.
- For the audio, click “Audio” at the top and make sure “Direct Stream copy” is chosen.
- Before compressing the video and saving the compressed version, Make sure no other programs are running including PerfectWorld. It’s also a good idea not to use the computer during the compression process.
- Next click “File” and “Save as avi”, Browse to a location to save the compressed version of your video, type a name and click “Save”
- The time it takes to compress a copy of the video depends solely on the processing power of your computer. The time remaining will be displayed. Again it is important that you let the software perform this task uninterrupted, Otherwise you may notice video artifacts and it may take longer.
- After the conversion if finished you can watch it or preview it in your video playback program to see what the final quality looks like. If it looks different from how it looked while it was recorded in the game, It’s an issue with either your video playback program’s settings, Specifically overlays or your video-card's overlay and quality settings.
- The video footage is ready to upload on YouTube. If you recorded the video while PerfectWorld was running in 1280x720, YouTube will detect this after it is uploaded and after YouTube finishes processing the video, the HD logo will be shown and the video can be viewed in 16x9 HD quality. That button will also be available to views. If everything was done properly, the quality should be great and reasonably similar to the uncompressed compressed video stored on your computer.


In the near future, Depending on the feedback this thread generates, I may explain how to perform basic splits and combine multiple clips as well. I hope this helps you in some way and You can use it to publish great content on Youtube.

If you use this method to publish HD content on Youtube, please post a link so I can see it ^__^

Regards, SemperHacker.

SemperHealer Level 73 healer
Foltern Level 65 Archer

Foltern - Sanctuary

This post is reserved for future instructions

Centetric - Lost City

sorry didnt wanna read the whole wall o text xD but good post i guess xD

Maiya - Lost City

Alternatively, if you have good internet speed and tons of space. You can simply throw all the clips recorded from Fraps into Windows Movie Maker (you don't need a good video editing program to make a watchable video). The compression method I like using on my Vista 64 bit laptop is Windows Media HD for Xbox 360.

Taarloor - Harshlands

bookmarking this for future reference, i was just thinking the other day "I really gotta learn to make a PW vid."

ty b:victoryb:pleased

Foltern - Sanctuary

Taarloor - Harshlands wrote: »

bookmarking this for future reference, i was just thinking the other day "I really gotta learn to make a PW vid."

ty b:victoryb:pleased

Excellent!! I hope you can use the information ^^

Regards

Foltern - Sanctuary

Maiya - Lost City wrote: »

Alternatively, if you have good internet speed and tons of space. You can simply throw all the clips recorded from Fraps into Windows Movie Maker (you don't need a good video editing program to make a watchable video). The compression method I like using on my Vista 64 bit laptop is Windows Media HD for Xbox 360.

Thank you for this information. I have no knowledge of the Windows Vista version of Windows Movie Maker. Can you please provide a link to some videos? I would be interested to see what kind of quality that method generates on YouTube. That would be much easier for Vista users.

Also your right you don't need embellished video editing software to publish watchable content. However watchable is an ambiguous term in my opinion. the purpose for making this information available is to empower and encourage people to upload high quality content. It is an alternative to using Windows Movie Maker 2.0 for Windows XP. Which it seems to be the program used most widely for compressing Fraps videos.

VirtualDub is the program used to perform the steps I have outlined and x264 is the codec. Which is very widely used and popluar. The x264 codec is far superior to the Windows Media Video codec used in Windows Movie Maker 2.0 in terms of compression algorithms and manual user controls. Virtualdub is free and opensource. This process yeilds visually pleasing results. Often times videos published using Windows Movie Maker 2.0 which, technically a person can see, resembles action sequences from an 8 bit Nintendo game. If a person can get past the freezing, extended encoding times and misleading timeline. Even the best video quality I was able to output using Movie Maker 2.0 , is very poor when compared to the results using the x264 codec.

Regards

Haiz - Lost City

I tried out movie maker 2.0 and virtualdub and I liked virtualdub a lot more. Though I do believe my very first video (lvl 1 tw) was made from movie maker 2.0. After that one I started using Sony Vegas Pro. I also use a bit rate of about 7,000 and on 10 minute videos it turns out to be about 400~500 MB.

Maybe if I make another video I'll try a higher bit rate and see how much it changes. I never really played with the settings much.

Foltern - Sanctuary

Haiz - Lost City wrote: »

I tried out movie maker 2.0 and virtualdub and I liked virtualdub a lot more. Though I do believe my very first video (lvl 1 tw) was made from movie maker 2.0. After that one I started using Sony Vegas Pro. I also use a bit rate of about 7,000 and on 10 minute videos it turns out to be about 400~500 MB.

Maybe if I make another video I'll try a higher bit rate and see how much it changes. I never really played with the settings much.

Ahh great ^^. Yes, I much prefer VirtualDub as a free alternative to Movie Maker. It does not support as many editing functions as MovieMaker however it is free, fast and powerful. If a user has other codecs installed VirtualDub can utilize them giving you more granular control over how compression decisions are made and such.

I recently acquired Sony Vegas, I think it's a great program although the preview window is less than savory for me and some of the user interface as well. Overall it's the best video editing program I have used. The sample at the top shows 10000 bitrate quality and a slight adjustment to frame references.There are definitely a lot of preferences when configuring encoders and several inside Sony Vegas. I have taken notice, That especially with videos where there is fast changing scenes and alot of movement a higher bitrate seems much more beneficial. It seems there is less "Blocks" and blurring, it seems more crisp.

Increasing the bitrate of course increases the final size and time to upload on Youtube. A picture is worth 1,000 words, A video is worth 1,000 pictures. If video can be uploaded in very good quality why not take the time to make the content available in the highest quality you can? Thats how I see it anyway. In my personal opinion, high quality content is definitely worth any extra time, Especially if it can be done while your asleep. If I find a Youtube channel with HD or very high quality PWI videos, I subscribe immediately.

Regards

AlbireoTwo - Lost City

I skipped the post because I didn't know the stuff you said we should know how to check. I dont know if this is HD, but couldn't you just use xfire?

Foltern - Sanctuary

AlbireoTwo - Lost City wrote: »

I skipped the post because I didn't know the stuff you said we should know how to check. I dont know if this is HD, but couldn't you just use xfire?

That is an excellent question. I have no knowledge of Xfire whatsoever. I am downloading it currently. Thank you.

Regards

Downloaded and installed. It requires registration. Allthough using the program is free. I will try this program shortly.

I was unable to get the software to record gameplay inside PerfectWorld. I did visit the forums and it seems the program works a bit similar to Fraps. Video is recorded and is not compressed. Because I was unable to get the software to work, I could not learn more about it or the videos it produces. I did watch several recordings in the video contests. The videos uploaded to their servers are compressed and not in any way close to HD quality in appearance or resolution.

If a person uses the software to record gameplay in 1280x720 which is the required resolution for 16x9 HD videos, My best guess is that they could use Xfire to capture the video, use Virtualdub, and the x264 the codec to the video editing program and compress the video in the very same way as I instructed with fraps.

For myself only, I noticed Xfire is a chat program, It tries to install a toolbar, It has an automatic gaming program update function and several additional functionality. Functionality I would definitely not use. Fraps on the other hand only records video and captured screenshots. The trial version which is free does not require registration and captures 2 minute clips. For someone who does not want to manually encode video themselves or has no need to edit video or intention of publishing the content on YouTube, I would say Xfire is a good program for that. You only need some space on your computer, the program is free and it requires very little knowledge to get gameplay footage out there

Unfortunately video captured using Xfire can be edited manually by the end user or uploaded to their servers and shared among their Xfire community only. If a user wants to publish that footage on YouTube in HD quality or add music and video effects. They would need to capture video with Xfire and still manually use a program like virtualDub and choose a codec to re-encode the original video and compress it for Youtube. The process would be similar to the one I have outlined here. Thank you for bringing this program to my attention, it probably can be used to capture uncompressed video , just the same as Fraps, however it is free. Although I could not get it to work properly inside PWI.

Regards

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Maiya - Lost City

Foltern - Sanctuary wrote: »

Thank you for this information. I have no knowledge of the Windows Vista version of Windows Movie Maker. Can you please provide a link to some videos? I would be interested to see what kind of quality that method generates on YouTube. That would be much easier for Vista users.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Royblazer#g/p

Foltern - Sanctuary

Maiya - Lost City wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/user/Royblazer#g/p

Oh wow. Thank you these are great. That is acceptable viewing quality in my opinion. I have been wanting to know more about the cube and learn the cube for a long time. ~ Subscribed

I don't know what extensions PWi is written to take advantage of in terms of directX. The game looks very nice on your system. It seems more detailed than mine. Of course Windows XP really only supports DirectX 9.0c.

The video quality is sharp and crisp as well. Thank you for sharing that advice for Vista users.

Regards

Maiya - Lost City

I have two computers, so the video footage has been taken on two different systems. My laptop is Vista, and it can't handle max settings, but my desktop which is XP, can. However, I make all the videos in Vista.

eatwithspoons

Moved to the correct sectionb:victory

Foltern - Sanctuary

Maiya - Lost City wrote: »

I have two computers, so the video footage has been taken on two different systems. My laptop is Vista, and it can't handle max settings, but my desktop which is XP, can. However, I make all the videos in Vista.

That would explain the extra detail from textures / Bumpmaps. I would really like to have DirectX10 or 11 But I refuse to use Windows Vista at this time. Again thank you for sharing those great videos an your method.

Regards