Video CO's Screen Carpathian M. Sept 30 Germany

[E-Male]

Can't quite get the resolution I want in the final product with Sorenson Squeeze, as a result the video is quite grainy. It consists of one minute interval screen shots. Trying to find a way to put these together in a reasonable video format. Advice needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxhnH54zZJ0

E-Male

[Exploding_Silver]

This could be the answer for you

As an experiment I tried to make an animated gif movie, the procedure I used was;

• I went commander on single player
• Catures 10 jepg images using www.fraps.com
• I did not compress or change image size at all
• Each of the 10 images was approx 150K, totaling 1.12Mb
• I imported the 10 jpeg images into Gif Movie Gear (GMG)
• GMG converted the jpegs to GIFs
• I set each frame to appear on screen 140 milli seconds
• At this point the animated GIF was 2 Mb
• I then compressed the GIF with GMG, this reduced the size to 31% of before, to only 622Kb

End result is here (622Kb)
Clear enough to read the text of ingame text

In a 45 min game, with 1 min interval screenshots, that would be 45 screens to make a 2.8MB movie approx
At 30 sec screen shots, that would be a 5.6Mb movie approx

The compression works by replacing on screen only changed pixels from the previous image see here

GIF Movie Gear is a 30 day trial then $30 to unlock, get it here
I did not check out other GIF movie products, as i had this one on my desktop

Worth an experiment for you eh E-Male

[WhiskeySix]

looks good guys - main problem I see is that 1min intervals is too long - there isn't any continuity between the shots... looks more like a bunch of random CO screen caps. Maybe you could try 1-5 seconds per shot... then you get flow.

[Exploding_Silver]

Originally Posted by WhiskeySix

looks good guys - main problem I see is that 1min intervals is too long - there isn't any continuity between the shots... looks more like a bunch of random CO screen caps. Maybe you could try 1-5 seconds per shot... then you get flow.

The screen shots are random really and in the wrong order, I was testing to try and see if an animated GIF could be clear, without being an unreasonable size.
That was the experiment, they don't tell any kind of story of the battle

E-Male will be able to produce a meaningful one, I'm sure

[E-Male]

Very interesting -- will try to duplicate once I get the software.

Thanks!

E-Male

[Acid]

Or, could you set fraps to capture video at 0.5 frames per second?

[Exploding_Silver]

Following Whiskeys suggestion my 2nd & 3rd trys are to make meaningful stories in the animated GIFs

1st movie try = 10 pics = 622KB = 62.2KB per frame average (same animated gif as above post)
2nd movie try = 19 pics = 570KB = 30 KB per frame average (pic taken every 10 secs, displayed for 50ms)
3rd movie try = 39 pics = 1464KB = 37.5 KB per frame average (pic taken every 5 secs, displayed for 50ms)


if I was to take an approximate average of 45KB per frame
in 45 min game
pic every 15 secs = 180 pics = 8.1 MB
pic every 10 secs = 270 pics = 12.1 MB
pic every 5 secs = 540 pics = 24.3 MB

540 pics displayed for 50ms each (same as my 3rd try) would make a 45 min game into a 4min 30sec movie


this is all guestimate, but it does show it could be done
the speed of the film can be controlled with how long each pic is displayed for
One disadvantage of an animated gif is that there is no pause and rewind like in an mpeg movie

go to it E-Male, lets see you DTS in action

[BigGaayAl]

Loking forward to final result. Nice work, E-male and silver.

[E-Male]

Mangaged to get a good set on screen captures last night. I need help getting back into my ~e-male web site at tg. When i log on with my ftp client I do not see any directory or public.html file.

E-Male

[Lorian]

PM Apo about that.

[marstein]

This is really cool. You can follow how the battle developed. One suggestion: put a 'start' screen at the beginning. The movie seems to loop and it is unclear where the start is. This could also serve for credits.

[Bodofooko]

This could be really cool if it was done during a full blown scrim, great idea.

[Exploding_Silver]

1st movie try = 10 pics = 622KB = 62.2KB per frame average (random pics)
2nd movie try = 19 pics = 570KB = 30 KB per frame average (pic taken every 10 secs, displayed for 50ms)
3rd movie try = 39 pics = 1464KB = 37.5 KB per frame average (pic taken every 5 secs, displayed for 50ms)

**NEW**
4th movie try = 58 pics = 3723KB = 65 KB per frame average (pic taken every 3 secs, displayed for 50ms)
**NEW**

Notice there is a distinct choppiness of frames when zoomed in close to a flag when played in internet explorer.
When played on a desktop graphics package there is no chopiness.
This chopiness is to do with internet explorer as an application, but it is still a weakness in this movie format,
add it to the no pause and rewind weakness.

[ThePenguineer]

Neat stuff, though I tend to get thrown off when you zoomed in. Too bad there's no way to see all the current orders for the squads at once through the CO screen.

[BigGaayAl]

Originally Posted by Exploding_Silver

**NEW**
4th movie try = 58 pics = 3723KB = 65 KB per frame average (pic taken every 3 secs, displayed for 50ms)
**NEW**

Nice ad you in advertising?