FRAPS Users - "Stutter" Removal from Vid-Captures?

Soniclight wrote on 11/28/2011, 4:00 PM

What this posting comes down to really is really a do-I-need-to-get-a-new-video-card? one. The opening post back in July http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=769723here[/link] gives you the full specs of my current card and general situation I'm in. But below are just the specs themselves plus basic system setup which are probably sufficient.

From that thread and an other on this general video card subject, it seems that I don't really need one in terms of Vegas. But I'm wondering if it would help with Fraps.

I've sent a tech support Q to them but I'm also needing Vegas user input, hence this thread. I use Fraps mainly with NASA World Wind (to make faux fly-overs using satellite images. Since one can tilt and so on much like in Google Earth, there is a certain realism that beats just doing a Ken Burns pan over a 2-D sattelite image.

At this point, I have not figured out how to adjust the speed of "flight" in the new Java version of WW, so this is default speed, and in this case I simply spun around over the San Francisco bay (download the no-audio 960x480 32 Mb. WMV test render at link below; it has some minor FX added via Color Curves, Color Correction, Color Balance, 0.3 Sharpen

As you will see, I captured at 60fps and at 29.27, both at Fraps "Full Size" as uncompressed .AVI. Then rendered out in Vegas together at 0.50 playback for I know I end up doing some slow mo with such captures.

The problem is that both the 60 and 29.97 "jitter" - the first is in smaller increments which a bit smoother yet blurry too, the second sharper but the jitters are naturally twice as long in duration.

There will always be some glitter-type artifacts with Fraps in such captures especially towards the horizon line when the satellite image is tilted to give it a 3-D perspective, but those can be washed out a bit with some tweaking in Vegas.

But it's these jitters that make the captures un-usable.

Q:

As always, thanks for you input.

~ Philip

http://www.compassionsensuality.net/Other/VEGAS_Forum_Q/FRAPS_60+29.9fps_at_0.5_speed.wmvFRAPS_60+29.9fps_at_0.5_speed.WMV[/link]
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System Specs

Windows Version:7 64-bit
RAM:16 Gb. DDR3
Processor:AMD X6 1090T Phenom II Black Edition 6x3.2 Ghz - no overclocking
Hard Drives: SATA2 7200 Rpm.
Video Card:nVidia GeForce 6800 XT
Sound Card:M-Audio Delta Audiophile (Analog I/O)
Video Capture:Onboard and TI chip IEEE PCI card
CD Burner:Asus DRW 24B1ST
DVD Burner:Asus DRW 24B1ST
Camera:Canon HV30 HD

nVidia GeForce 6800 XT[b][/b] XFX version

Series: GeForce 6
GPU: NV41
Release Date: 2005-09-30
Interface: PCI-E x16
Core Clock: 325 MHz
Memory Clock: 350 MHz (700 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 22.4 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 2600 MOperations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 2600 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 2600 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 325 MVertices/sec
Framebuffer: 128,256,512 MB
Memory Type: DDR
Memory Bus Type: 64x4 (256 bit)
DirectX Compliance: 9.0c
OpenGL Compliance: 2.0
PS/VS Version: 3.0/3.0
Process: 130 nm
Fragment Pipelines: 8 (12)
Vertex Pipelines: 4 (6)
Texture Units: 8 (12)
Raster Operators 8

Comments

farss wrote on 11/29/2011, 4:07 AM

Step 1:

Where is the problem coming from.
When you play the animation using WW without FRAPS loaded how does it look?

Bob.

amendegw wrote on 11/29/2011, 5:15 AM

I don't know much (anything) about FRAPS, but if you load your video into Vegas and step thru it one frame at at time, blur is observable in alternate frames:

That would suggest a mismatch in framerates between the FRAPS source and the Vegas render (and "Disable Resample" was not selected).

Suggest running MediaInfo on the FRAPS capture and post the results back here.

...Jerry

Soniclight wrote on 11/29/2011, 10:39 AM

First:

N.B
_____________________________________

OK, that out of the way, my thanks for responses.

"When you play the animation using WW without FRAPS loaded how does it look?"

Smoother, but not perfect. When I was capturing on my old XP system with the old #C based WW (which can no longer retrieve images from the NASA servers due to their being shut down), it was smooth a silk even when I bumped up my desktop resolution to increase capture resolution.

That said, most of my saved older captures were not in as high resolution as the later ones before I had to replace my 32-bit XP system with my new 64-bit Win7 one. Which is the reason I want to re-do and/or create new ones.

The current Java-based version of WW has its own new server location/s and as stated above, I have yet to build its SDK version to bring back more control on the speed of fly-over (it seemed slower, more graceful in the #C version). My DSL connection is faster and so is my system than when I captured before. The only thing that hasn't changed hardware-wise is the video card.

I'll check into this though part of the blur may also be due to the .5 slow-mo.

John Cline sent me this feedback:

There is a "lock framerate" option which I have checked/activated. Fraps does offer some options in compression but I (perhaps incorrectly thought) that the less compression occurring, the smoother the capture and so I've captured in uncompressed format.

amendegw wrote on 11/29/2011, 11:44 AM

"I'll check into this though part of the blur may also be due to the .5 slow-mo.Could be. Did you try Disabling Resample? And does it look any better?

Ideally, what you'd want to do is capture at 59.94fps, control drag to .5 slomo, disable resample & render to 29.97fps. (since I'm not a FRAPS user, I don't know whether that's even possible).

...Jerry

farss wrote on 11/29/2011, 1:53 PM

"Smoother, but not perfect. When I was capturing on my old XP system with the old #C based WW (which can no longer retrieve images from the NASA servers due to their being shut down), it was smooth a silk even when I bumped up my desktop resolution to increase capture resolution.

Seems to me then that your system is barely able to playout the video in the first place. Then you load FRAPS which increases CPU load and the problem has to get worse. Java demands more of the CPU than C# as well.

That explains the "cogging" I see in your sample video. The WW app cannot keep up at the target frame rate, it might be able to manage say 16 fps i.e. only 1 in n frames are actually delivered. FRAPS cannot keep up either and it might also be only capturing 1 in n frames. Neither are syncronised so the actual result is not even smooth low fps video, you get a few frames with one amount of motion and then some with a different amount of motion. Add into the mix the lack of motion blur and it is going to look very ugly.

None of this is a Vegas problem. I cannot say with any certainty that throw money at the proble by buying a faster CPU, GPU and even a faster Internet connection is going to help.
Such problems can be helped by removing the video capturing from the computer. You can do this by using the Edirol VC-300HD scan converter to capture the output of the video card and then taking the HDV over firewire output of the converter to a HDV VCR. Another cheaper approach is to simply point a camera at the monitor on your computer.

You could investigate a completely different approach where each frame of video is created and captured using a CGI application. That totally avoids the problem as it is not realtime.. It's been a while since I've played with Bryce but last time some members of the community were working on projects similar to yours and getting good results.

If you can get from NASA a high resolution image of the earth you can also map it onto a sphere using anyone of a number of free or paid for applications. I've done exactly this using After Effect. You could use Bryce for example.

Bob.

[edit] The other solution would be to modify the WW JAVA app to go from trying to create realtime video to one that renders a frame, writes it as an image to disk and then renders another frame etc, etc. If there is a development community working on this as an open source project you'd probably do well asking them for help.

imaginACTION_films wrote on 11/29/2011, 5:50 PM

Interesting problem. Here's my approach:

In FRAPS, ensure you have the latest version 3.4.6, turn off sound, Uncheck locki framerate whiloe recording. Frame rate 30fps Full Size

In Vegas,
ensure project settings match video clip exactly (Properties> Match Media Settings, top right)

Enable Video Supersampling (View>Video Bus Track). In Video Bus Track right click track header and select Insert envelope>Video SuperSampling.

Raise the envelope to a fairly high value, eg 6 or more.

Render your clip to a new track using identical settings to your clip. I used x6 SS and wmv HD. THEN TURN SUPERSAMPLING OFF.

The clip was noticably smoother. One final trick could be as follows:
Duplicate the supersampled track. In the top track add the minimum amount of Gaussian Blur (0.001). Adjust the opacity envelope on the top track so you add just the tiniest amount of blur. This can reduce flickering of fine detail.

Consider rendering to Cineform first up AND PROCEEDING FROM THERE AS ABOVE. Because it's 4:2:2 colour space you may get superior rendering.

Let me know if this works for you.
Cheers
David Smith
imaginACTION

Soniclight wrote on 11/29/2011, 7:03 PM

Jerry, Bob, David,

Thanks for your in-depth replies. Long day and burned out on Vegas working on an unrelated project so too brain-and-body dead to dive, study and apply your suggestions. I do have someone at the NASA community who has been most helpful so I may run a couple of the things mentioned here by him.

One thing I noticed is that I still have some of my old WW Cache from who knows when -- so it means there is a way to have local files. Ideally, I'd love to buy a 1-2 Terrabyte drive just to have my own WW stock to use for Frapin'... but not sure how much one can or cannot download for local use. Something to ask about too.

As to my system, sure, it's not a high level i7 system but it's not that shabby - it's got 6 cores and I have 16 Gb. of RAM. Definitely a step up from my olde but faithful Pentium D. As to DSL speed, I have 1.5mbps-3.0mbps download - 384kbps-512kbps upload and a reliable ISP (Sonic.Net).