The Game Video Recording/Editing Topic (programs, settings)

[fragger]

Thanks for all the input guys, much appreesh

I don't exactly churn out videos by the ton so I'll probably stick with OpenShot, since I've gotten to know that devil to some extent. In the 3D world I'm currently trying to get my head around Daz Studio (a character-creation product like Poser) and I only want to struggle up one learning curve at a time

[Art Blade]

kind of same here, I do upload a lot by comparison but only a handful of which need editing. For that matter, OS is just fine.

[Art Blade]

I downloaded that VirtuaDub and simply put, it doesn't compare to OpenShot.

It is most of all a video capture program that on top requires a capture card. It may be used to process a video but it's not a "hands on" video editor the type of OpenShot.

[LowPolyOWG]

  Good to know.

[Dweller_Benthos]

If it's the same program I used years ago, I think it's main strength is not only capture but splitting into separate audio/video streams, adding subtitles and re-encoding. If it's the one I'm thinking of that is.

[LowPolyOWG]

Digital Foundry use VirtualDub for capturing console/PC gameplay for their frame time analysis.

[Art Blade]

Dweller, makes sense, seems to be it. But it's a different type of program compared to OpenShot that allows you to manipulate everything from zoom level to overlays, a proper editing program.

And speaking of which, OpenShot just got an update and it was WAY smoother than before.

[Art Blade]

OBS was updated and among a lot of things added Vulkan game capturing needed for games like RDR2.

Just so you understand: before the update it was impossible to record the game alone like I was used to do with Hitman. Instead, I had to capture the entire screen rather than only the active game which meant that when I wanted to check whether or not I was recording, while I was recording, the whole desktop with taskbar and everything would be visible, same as what I actually saw, and get recorded. Now, after the update, focus on active game, when I check whether or not I'm recording, you'll only see the game going into pause menu without seeing what I was doing. MUCH better

Of course I could have edited stuff like that but I'd much rather it didn't get recorded in the first place and now it works as it should. This feature is far more important for streaming. If you're live and want to check some settings, you'd much rather not show the world the details of your desktop and file system and all that.

[nex]

So it's like recording your desktop, D3DGear have the option of either recording
desktop or recording game.
I like the option, a while ago I needed to download a video clip but couldn't, by using
the record desktop function I managed to record the clip perfectly.

[Art Blade]

that's indeed possible, recording the desktop is recording anything you see.

What I forgot to mention about the "game only" recording: steam messages won't get recorded. That's one of the most distracting if not annoying events: recording something and then a message pops up loaded with curses and personal info.. heh. I've watched a couple of vids here where I was the culprit, seen my own messages popping up in other people's vids

[fragger]

Thanks for the heads-up about the OpenShot update, Art. I'll attend to that in due course

[Art Blade]

welcome

one thing worth mentioning that really, REALLY slows down OS: speeding up vids. I did that with one of my recent vids, up to 16x and the program ground to a halt, not reacting and reacting in turns, 3 frames per second rendering "power" and about 20 minutes rendering time for barely over a minute footage as result.. made me rethink the project and luckily, cancelling the rendering process still left a usable mp4 behind, the last part being sped up. So I deleted the parts already rendered, inserted the new one instead, and went from there. The result is cool.

If you want to check it out, look for the thumbnail "just BUY those handcuffs"

[Art Blade]

video recording with OBS (Replay Buffer)

I remember Dweller repeatedly mentioning something like a standby recording, I think it's a software that can be bundled with the nVidia drivers package, the "nVidia experience" and the software I believe is called Shadowplay. I remember I tried it long, long ago but wasn't satisfied for whatever reason and ditched it. Most likely because I am no fan of "suites" that come along with all kinds of stuff I never use so I actually ditched the "experience" and along with it, that Shadowplay.

However.

I've been using OBS for over a year now and I've tweaked it many times so meanwhile, it handles every game I've got and I am really satisfied with the output video files. No stutter, excellent quality, and an erm, reasonable, file size. The size depends on many things but most notably on the bitrate which I've set to variable (VBR) with a minimum of 16,000 and a maximum of 200,000(!) so I can record fast movements in detailed environment without stutters and that may inflate a vid file significantly. But at least it's still a MUCH smaller file size for hi-res vids than I'd get from D3DGear which I stopped using just because I'd either get a really *bleep* quality or insanely huge file sizes. Which actually made me dig into OBS again back then and I'm glad I did.

What I hadn't tried yet was OBS's "shadowplay" function which is simply called Replay Buffer and can be found under

Settings > Output,
there choose "Advanced,"
and there click on the tab "Replay Buffer" and enable it.

Two more steps:
1) define the duration of the potential video, which is the replay buffer size in seconds, like 300 seconds for 5 minutes to cover enough "story" you wish you had (and actually have) recorded
2) assign a hot-KEY to save the Replay Buffer and actually turn it into a video.

You don't need to assign a start/stop key because you can actually start recording into the buffer from the front page of OBS where you can start, pause and stop normal recordings but also start recording the Replay Buffer (once you set it up as described before) which also makes it more comfortable because you don't have to worry about accidentally stopping or not having restarted the recording after stopping.. you just do it before you start or resume playing your game and done.

If you came across something worth recording, you just hit the previously assigned hotkey and ding! that's when OBS creates a video file of what happened during (in this example) the last five minutes. And it keeps recording to the buffer so you can just play on until you want to save the last funny moment or whatever happened during the last five minutes. Rinse and repeat, and later you stop recording the same way you started it: from the front page of OBS.

I've decided to do that because recording Red Dead Redemption 2 is different from what I did when recording Hitman 2. I mostly recorded short videos about planned missions. In RDR2, especially the free roam gaming, random encounters may or may not occur, and weird sh.. may happen at any time, and there's a lot of stuff worth sharing. But I didn't much like the idea of recording one video for hours. And smaller ones.. afraid of missing out on just that one bit that's cool.. not easy. Actually recording a vid hoping something happens and then having to stop the recording because you're constantly worried about producing videos that you're going to delete anyway or having to check out any number of recently recorded videos for usable content.. you're more focussed on the recordings than on playing the game. And producing lots of videos in quick succession quickly uses up disk space and results in hundreds of gigabytes of footage that you may or may not have watched yet and it's entirely possible that you recorded 20 minutes without anything happening except for at the end and then you'll have to keep that huge file just for the last 20 seconds of that recording.

I'll see how well 5 minutes w0#k. I guess just OK because I tried 10 minutes and kept saving overlapping recordings, creating unnecessary redundancies. Having changed the buffer size to 5 minutes should produce videos ranging from about 600MB to about 1.5GB file sizes (depending on what's being recorded) at what I'd chosen for maximum bitrate (200k, that's a lot) I think it should be OK. As long as I don't want to record entire missions (which I still can) by actually starting a video recording rather than filling up the Replay Buffer, I may just hit the "save Replay Buffer" key once more after a couple of minutes. I can always edit videos and create a new one out of them.

One more thing worth mentioning:

Profiles

You can just use all your settings which include hotkeys, bitrates, replay buffer or no replay buffer and so on and create a profile out of it from the main page menu bar. In the previous example I named it "RDR2 replay buffer" and also within the settings, the file name just like the profile and the hotkeys are not set to record videos but to save the replay buffer.

I then duplicated that profile and then changed its name, the output file name, disabled the replay buffer and changed the hotkeys to toggle recording on off and to toggle pause recording on off.

That way I can use the same hotkey (num block zero) for recording videos and when using the other profile, for saving the replay buffer. I love that

[fragger]

Great info there, Art That definitely warrants a +1

If I ever get into OBS at some point, this info (and all the other info you have previously supplied) will be invaluable.

Thanks, buddy

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah the Nvidia driver package has that though I don't know if they still call it Shadowplay or not, I think it's just "replay now" or some such. I don't have it on all the time, but when I know there may be something happening in a game, I'll turn it on and if I save the video afterwards, fine, if not, there's nothing to clean up after. It's definitely a handy feature of any recording program and I think even the older programs had a feature like that years ago. Getting the buffer size right is the key, too short and you may miss something, too long and like you said, you're overlapping or keeping long video files for just a few minutes actual time.