Recording gameplay video

[TheChosen]

Im testing out this USB-doohickey that lets me connect console cabels to my computer. So far the test videos are in varying quality, and I'd like to hear your feedback.

First Test
SdWchXnx_LU

Second Test. Fiddled with resolution and display settings. Messed with sound settings a bit too and seems like it took care of the minimal audio cracking.
IUPDokN4Yf0

Third Test. This time I tried how it looks with Super Nintendo games.
NUuhOA61YdE

Fourth Test. Added some kbs's and tried a game with faster gameplay.
Kp72x9kWsvQ

Fifth Test. Now with dropped FPS (seems like it goes a lot smoother now).
jKRMbKowx4w

This is all on mpeg2. mpeg4 or avi would obviously be better, but its recording like, 100mb per second.

It could be that I need a better program. Im not exactly sure what the device is called (still looking for the box it was in), but the program is called PVR-plus, which's original purpose was to record TV shows.

So, feedback and helpful hints are welcome.

EDIT: What Im trying to get here is hopefully a flawless video. No lagging, cracking or anything like that. Im not trying to get a top HD quality, but something watchable, and you can make out details in it and its not too blurry.

[Lulu_Jane]

What is the game (is it a game?) in the first video?

Also, would you like me to move this to the tech section? You might get more help there :)

[TheChosen]

The first and second video are from We Love Katamari, the second Katamari Damacy game (Very Japanese as you can see.)

I forgot that we actually have a tech corner here. Yeah, go ahead and move it.

[Lulu_Jane]

I've never gotten around to playing Katamari, but that first video made me laugh and get confused, so I'll be playing them soon :D

[DarthHelmet86]

If the files are coming out too large put them through Windows Movie Maker or another movie editing software. That will compress the file and have minimal loss of quality. Also is the thing called a Dazzle, that is at least the most popular usb Tv capture thing out there.

Getting perfect recording is most likely not going to be possible, but keep playing with the settings till you have the best you can get out of it.

[Japo]

Windows media player has limited choice of output resolutions, and what's worse, most times you won't be able to keep the same resolution. For converting I prefer Xmedia Recode (http://download.cnet.com/XMedia-Recode/3000-2194_4-75450128.html). For cutting and clipping I usually prefer the free version of Microsoft Expression Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Encoder4_Overview.aspx), as long as I don't need to edit (overlay text etc).

[DarthHelmet86]

Youtube will force convert your videos resolution anyway. 16:9 and 4:3 are the two it uses if I remember right.

[Japo]

You're right, although I meant resolution (e.g. 1920x1080), not just aspect ratio (e.g. 16:9). But I don't know if TC wants these videos for himself, for YouTube, or both.

For YouTube I guess the best approach may be to convert the video yourself into a resolution directly supported by YouTube, to control the resizing, cropping or letterboxing if necessary. Again sadly, Movie Maker doesn't give you any control over this. And I guess you should keep quality high, if YouTube is going to re-encode even without changing the resolution.

I don't really do a lot of video manipulation myself. But I found, when I made the ImagiNation Network video, that for example if the original video has a very low resolution, and a lossy compression must be used, it may be a good idea to upscale the image, for example 200%, before encoding with loss. Simply because with the same quality ratio, the artifacts that appear on a very low resolution image are too huge, even if they are relatively subtle they will be very apparent. In extreme cases (320x200 or so) it may very well be advantageous even in terms of bitrate--you may get better quality in less MB by upscaling first, then using a more aggressive compression.