(old) ZMV to AVI video conversion [[archive me]]

General area for talk about ZSNES. The best place to ask for related questions as well as troubleshooting.

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Nach
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Post by Nach »

Welcome to page 11.

To record a video you need one of the latest work in progress builds of ZSNES. Get them here: http://zsnes.ipherswipsite.com/

You will need a copy of mencoder. For Windows users, I recommend getting mencoder here: http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php
Place mencoder.exe in the same location as zsnesw.exe, you do not need any codecs or other movie programs installed.
Linux users, having mencoder in your path is fine.

If you want to compress the outputted audio, or compress it before it goes into the video as opposed to during, you will need a copy of LAME.
If you use Windows, you must get LAME from here: http://geocities.com/joecool22us/lame.zip
Any other copy of LAME for Windows will not work due to a bug in LAME.

Before you are able to dump an AVI, you must have recorded a movie first, it converts movies, it does not just dump video on the fly.

To play back movies, you'll either need the proper codecs or a video player with built in decoding of the video mode you selected.
I recommend getting mplayer which decodes anything created with mencoder. For Windows, you can get mplayer here: http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php You can download the GUI version.

Advanced users can edit zmovie.cfg and tweak the settings if they want, and even use something other than mencoder and LAME as long as it supports encoding via stdin and you set it up properly.

________
snkcube wrote:
xamenus wrote:
snkcube wrote:There's a slight problem I found with the latest version of mencoder. After I upgraded to the Mar 23, 2006 build, I can't choose the x264 lossless option to record. If I do, I won't get a picture while playing the video file. However, choosing xvid lossless will work. This never happened to me before so I was wondering if this affected other users.
Nach wrote:Remember, mencoder from the site I linked offers bleeding edge x264 encoding (builds are generally never more than 3 weeks old). Most H.264 decoders aren't up to date.
Well, I guess I missed reading that. :oops: Thanks!
Which is why you should get an mplayer from the same site to playback, or see if there is an updated build of FFDShow.
Last edited by Nach on Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
May 9 2007 - NSRT 3.4, now with lots of hashing and even more accurate information! Go download it.
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Qyzbud
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Post by Qyzbud »

Hahaha, I can't believe you guys did this for each and every page. That's very nice of you. Almost too nice...
But cheers, at very least that should cut down on the confusion of newcomers (AKA me). :wink:
Super NES... Still the best.
Ichinisan
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Post by Ichinisan »

Qyzbud wrote:Hahaha, I can't believe you guys did this for each and every page. That's very nice of you. Almost too nice...
But cheers, at very least that should cut down on the confusion of newcomers (AKA me). :wink:
Did you get the 6-up balloon yet?
Tomasz420
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Post by Tomasz420 »

when i dump it says mencoder is missing... i got mplayer and i think mencoder off the links provided.... pasted them to the same folder with the wip, and it still says mencoder is missing... what can i be doing wrong?


:edit: i figured out what was wrong... i suck thats what.. so easy... i got it to work... just for that im going to make a real awesome clip and post it here...


you rule Nach
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Post by Qyzbud »

Ichinisan wrote:Did you get the 6-up balloon yet?
Nope, I think I remember something about that balloon from when I was little, but I can't for the life of me remember how you get it. If you do things right, there's a bouncy tyre on top of the exit cave. Is that right?
Super NES... Still the best.
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Post by Ichinisan »

Qyzbud wrote:
Ichinisan wrote:Did you get the 6-up balloon yet?
Nope, I think I remember something about that balloon from when I was little, but I can't for the life of me remember how you get it. If you do things right, there's a bouncy tyre on top of the exit cave. Is that right?
Yes. Undocumented in the official players guide, I don't know how the hell I discovered it myself. You have to have Rambi, jump, then jump off at the height of Rambi's jump (hard to tell when you're off the screen, but easy if you know the timing). Time your next jump to bounce off of the tire that you can't see. Do it fast enough, you get two blue balloons that are way off the screen before they float away.
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Post by Qyzbud »

Holy crap yeah... Then there's a blast barrel which sends you back a screen or so into a clearing... I'm not surprised I had a hard time working this out. :wink: You sure know your DKC!
Super NES... Still the best.
Tomasz420
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Post by Tomasz420 »

quick question...

sometimes, rarely, when i dump the video sometimes when theres alot of action on screen it can lag abit. any ideas on why this is happening?
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Post by Jipcy »

Tomasz420 wrote:quick question...

sometimes, rarely, when i dump the video sometimes when theres alot of action on screen it can lag abit. any ideas on why this is happening?
You should expect "lag" while dumping a video. The video recording features turn off auto frame skipping (in order to dump every frame), so the output speed may not stay constant.
[url=http://zsnes-docs.sf.net]Official ZSNES Docs[/url] | [url=http://zsnes-docs.sf.net/nsrt]NSRT Guide[/url] | [url=http://endoftransmission.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=394]Using a Wiimote w/ emulators[/url]
cotti

Post by cotti »

Whoa, this software combo is working great here :D

Say, I had kind of a dumb idea. I'm gonna make lots of videos in Zsnes, and then make some videoclips featuring some musics of people I know.

So, I would like to know if someone here knows how and/or where I can get some right codec or anything in order to be able to put the Xvid videos in Sony Vegas, for example.

Or there's another video format avaliable in Zsnes that is better to do that?

EDIT: Alright, I got my ways here, no more desperately needing help, thanks!

Besides, the first thing I put on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGai7XDOcYU&watch2

A goal I made in the most famous game hack in history, at least here in Brazil. "Futebol Brasileiro '96", from Internation SuperStar Soccer Deluxe. It was not that beautiful, I put this one to test it out ^^'
Tomasz420
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Post by Tomasz420 »

Jipcy wrote:
Tomasz420 wrote:quick question...

sometimes, rarely, when i dump the video sometimes when theres alot of action on screen it can lag abit. any ideas on why this is happening?
You should expect "lag" while dumping a video. The video recording features turn off auto frame skipping (in order to dump every frame), so the output speed may not stay constant.
so youre saying there aint no way in sure as hell i can get no lag?...damn
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Post by Ichinisan »

Why does it matter if the lag does not appear in the resulting video file anyway?
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Post by Jipcy »

Tomasz420 wrote:so youre saying there aint no way in sure as hell i can get no lag?...damn
When you are dumping a movie, ZSNES is automatically playing back a previously-created movie, and sending every single frame to MEncoder for encoding/compression. The priority here is to capture every single frame, as in not skip any, even if it slows down the current playback. In the end, you get a nice-looking movie, with every frame.

ZSNES may not have to slow down at all if your computer is capable of both emulating the game and encoding it at full speed.

Otherwise, don't worry about. Just let Nach's code do its magic, and you will get a beautiful and smooth movie.
[url=http://zsnes-docs.sf.net]Official ZSNES Docs[/url] | [url=http://zsnes-docs.sf.net/nsrt]NSRT Guide[/url] | [url=http://endoftransmission.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=394]Using a Wiimote w/ emulators[/url]
Tomasz420
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Post by Tomasz420 »

cool, whatever... not a big deal...
a start... first thing i wanted to do when i figured out how to record:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PG0HujVE0as
Roland
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Better tutorial?

Post by Roland »

I've done everything outlined in this thread, and NOTHING works. Everytime I do it, my rawvideo file stays at 0 bytes. It dumps the audio (although I can't play it back, as it freezes WMP), but no video.

Can anyone offer up a better tutorial than the fragmented pieces offered in this thread?

Edit:
Downloaded XVid, then tried using that output in ZSNES. Got a 5kb .avi file that refused to play in anything, including MPlayer. Now, everytime I try to output a file, in ANY format, nothing works. No file is created. And yes, I've created a .zmv file. A hundred times, deleting and remaking every so often to see if that fixes the problem.

I've read every single post in this thread, and not a single one offers a concrete explanation of how to produce a movie out of all this. I have followed every step, and then some, and nothing is working. So what do I have to do, step by step?

I should also note that whenever I try to "dump video", when something pops up under the command line, it goes by entirely too fast to be read, at all. So any error messages or useful information I could glean from the cmd line screen is non-existant.

And now, no matter what I do, I can't even produce an .avi file, and my rawvideo.bin file is still always at 0 bytes. NOTHING WORKS. I have EVERYTHING I should need, and then some, and absolutely none of it works. Why is this?
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Post by Jipcy »

Do you have MEncoder in your path?
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Post by Roland »

Jipcy wrote:Do you have MEncoder in your path?
If it were that simple, I wouldn't be stuck! I said I've done everything outlined in this thread, and nothing is working.

I have all the programs, including MPlayer / MEncoder, LAME (Nach's version), and even XVid. But none of it is working. Something must be wrong, because it just doesn't want to work.
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Post by Deathlike2 »

I'm assuming you're missing some obvious step if you're still having problems.

Make sure you have obtained one of the later ZSNES WIP builds from the site Nach linked. (Additionally, you should delete the older .cfg+.dat files if you were using them.)

Make sure the mencoder+LAME executables are in the same folder ZSNES is located.

(Note: This is already mentioned by Nach so if you fail to figure it out to this point, then noone can help you there.)

Load a ROM... start recording a movie (This actually means you will have hit the "Record" button at some point). Stop when you done recording (this means you probably have hit the "Stop" button at some point and the current status at the bottom does not say "Recording". Select the appropriate format you wish to use and the audio set to "merge with video" and then click on "Dump Movie". The whole movie will play itself (you MUST wait for the whole movie to play itself in ZSNES) and it will be done when you reach the end of the movie.
Continuing [url=http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?board=13.0]FF4[/url] Research...
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Post by Roland »

Deathlike2 wrote:I'm assuming you're missing some obvious step if you're still having problems.

Make sure you have obtained one of the later ZSNES WIP builds from the site Nach linked. (Additionally, you should delete the older .cfg+.dat files if you were using them.)

Make sure the mencoder+LAME executables are in the same folder ZSNES is located.

(Note: This is already mentioned by Nach so if you fail to figure it out to this point, then noone can help you there.)

Load a ROM... start recording a movie (This actually means you will have hit the "Record" button at some point). Stop when you done recording (this means you probably have hit the "Stop" button at some point and the current status at the bottom does not say "Recording". Select the appropriate format you wish to use and the audio set to "merge with video" and then click on "Dump Movie". The whole movie will play itself (you MUST wait for the whole movie to play itself in ZSNES) and it will be done when you reach the end of the movie.
I did everything you said about twenty times last night before I gave up. I'm not missing any "obvious" steps. It. Just. Isn't. Working.

This isn't going to be cured by some sudden lapse of stupidity on my part. This is a consistent problem. NOTHING is being outputted, period. I have re-downloaded the LATEST (3/29/06, IIRC) WIP from Ipher's site, and downloaded the appropriate LAME version from Nach, as well as a full install of MPlayer AND MEncoder. And yes, MEncoder.exe and LAME.exe are both in the same, seperate folder as ZSNES (seperate from my old 1.42 copy of ZSNES). And I have deleted all the config files NUMEROUS times, to no avail. It simply isn't working.

Hasn't anyone had similar problems WITHOUT it being their own fault? I'm telling you, it's not me. Whether it's the programs or my machine, I don't know, but it is not anything I am doing wrong.

Edit:
BTW - Why does it have the command "-demuxer" in zmovie.cfg? Shouldn't that be -demixer, or am I just chasing after shadows here? Here's a copy of my zmovie.cfg file, completely unchanged from the original:

Code: Select all

md_raw_file="rawvideo.bin" ; Only for Raw Video
md_pcm_audio="audio.wav" ; AVI dumping always dumps audio seperatly
md_compressed_audio="audio.mp3" ; For when selecting compressed

md_ntsc="59649/995"
md_pal="50/1"

md_file="video.avi"
md_prog="mencoder"
md_raw="-demuxer rawvideo -rawvideo format=0x42475218:w=256:h=224:size=172032"
md_other="-aspect 4:3 -mc 0 -vf decimate=60:64:128:1"
md_no_sound="-nosound"
md_sound="-oac mp3lame -lameopts aq=0:preset=64:mode=1"
md_x264="-ovc x264 -x264encopts qp_constant=0:frameref=15"
md_ffv1="-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=ffv1:vstrict=-2:aspect=4/3"
md_xvid="-ovc xvid -xvidencopts fixed_quant=2"

;Valid variables to use in the next four lines are:
;$md_file, $md_prog, $md_raw, $md_other, $md_no_sound, $md_sound, $md_pcm_audio, $md_compressed_audio
;and $md_video_rate, $md_vcodec
;These variables are defined above.
;$md_video_rate is $md_ntsc or $md_pal depending on the game as needed
;$md_vcodec is $md_x264, $md_ffv1, or $md_xvid depending on the codec selected

md_command="$md_prog $md_other $md_no_sound $md_raw:fps=$md_video_rate $md_vcodec -o $md_file -"
md_merge="$md_prog $md_other $md_sound -audiofile $md_pcm_audio -force-avi-aspect 4:3 -ovc copy -o merged.avi $md_file"
md_audio_compress="lame -m j --preset 64 -q 0 - $md_compressed_audio"
md_merge_compressed="$md_prog $md_other -oac copy -audiofile $md_compressed_audio -force-avi-aspect 4:3 -ovc copy -o merged.avi $md_file"
And here is my zsnes.cfg file, almost completely unchanged except for the file storage folders:

Code: Select all

; ZSNES Configuration file

; Frame Skip: 0 = Auto, 1-10 = Skip 0 .. 9

FrameSkip = 0

; Player 1/2 Input Device.  Use the GUI to set these values
; NOTE : Using this to select joysticks manually will NOT work!

Player1Device = 1
Player2Device = 0

; Keyboard Scancodes/Joystick Mappings for Keyboard 1 & 2
; In order of Right, Left, Down, Up, Start, Select, B, Y, A, X, L, R
; Use the GUI to set these values

ScanKey1 = 205, 203, 208, 200, 28, 54, 44, 30, 45, 31, 32, 46
ScanKey2 = 209, 211, 207, 199, 26, 27, 38, 37, 25, 24, 23, 36

; Share Player 3 and 4 control inputs with Player 1 and 2 to allow
; 2 devices to be shared on a single player.  This feature automatically
; disables MultiTap (Multiplayer 5) support.  Set this to 1 to enable.

Pl34to12Share = 0

; Percent to Execute [50 .. 150]

Execute = 100

; Video Mode, 0 - 32
;   0 = 256x224   R WIN       1 = 256x224   R FULL
;   2 = 512x448   R WIN       3 = 512x448   DR WIN
;   4 = 640x480   S WIN       5 = 640x480   DS WIN
;   6 = 640x480   DR FULL     7 = 640x480   DS FULL
;   8 = 640x480   S FULL      9 = 768x672   R WIN
;  10 = 768x672   DR WIN     11 = 800x600   S WIN
;  12 = 800x600   DS WIN     13 = 800x600   S FULL
;  14 = 800x600   DR FULL    15 = 800x600   DS FULL
;  16 = 1024x768  S WIN      17 = 1024x768  DS WIN
;  18 = 1024x768  S FULL     19 = 1024x768  DR FULL
;  20 = 1024x768  DS FULL    21 = 1024x896  R WIN
;  22 = 1024x896  DR WIN     23 = 1280x960  S WIN
;  24 = 1280x960  DS WIN     25 = 1280x960  S FULL
;  26 = 1280x960  DR FULL    27 = 1280x960  DS FULL
;  28 = 1280x1024 S WIN      29 = 1280x1024 DS WIN
;  30 = 1280x1024 S FULL     31 = 1280x1024 DR FULL
;  32 = 1280x1024 DS FULL    33 = 1600x1200 S WIN
;  34 = 1600x1200 DS WIN     35 = 1600x1200 DR FULL
;  36 = 1600x1200 DS FULL    37 = 1680x1050 DR FULL

VideoModeWin = 3

; Sound Emulation = 0 or 1 (1 = ON)

Sound = 1

; Sound Sampling Rate
;   0 =  8,000 Hz, 1 = 11,025 Hz, 2 = 22,050 Hz
;   3 = 44,100 Hz, 4 = 16,000 Hz, 5 = 32,000 Hz
;   6 = 48,000 Hz

SoundRate = 5

; Stereo (0 = off, 1 = on)

Stereo = 1

; Stereo Reversed.  Swaps left channel with right. (0 = off, 1 = L <-> R)

ReverseStereo = 0

; GUI Disable (1 = Disable GUI, 0 = Enable GUI)

GUIDisable = 0

; New Graphics Engine (1 = Enable, 0 = Disable)

NewGfx = 1

; Scanlines (0 = Disable, 1 = Full, 2 = 25%, 3 = 50%)

Scanlines = 0

; Interpolation (1 = Enable, 0 = Disable)

Interpolation = 0

; VSync (1 = Enable, 0 = Disable) - Wait for Vertical Sync (Fast cpu reqd)

VSync = 0

; Disable Echo  (1 = Yes, 0 = No)

EchoDisable = 0

; Sound Volume Level (0 .. 100)
; Note : Setting this too high can cause sound overflow which degrades quality

Volume = 100

; Set this to 1 if you do not want ZSNES to save the configuration files.

DontSave = 0

; Savefile directory.  Leave it blank if you want the save files to be in the
; same directory as the games.  It should be in a format like : C:\dir\dir

SaveDirectory = C:\ZSNES MOVIES\

; Game directory.  This is the directory where the GUI starts at.
; ZSNES automatically writes the current directory here upon exit.

GameDirectory = C:\ROMS\SNES
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Post by Deathlike2 »

Roland wrote:And yes, MEncoder.exe and LAME.exe are both in the same, seperate folder as ZSNES (seperate from my old 1.42 copy of ZSNES).
You mind want to reword that.. it is unclear what you actually did.

Code: Select all

; Savefile directory.  Leave it blank if you want the save files to be in the
; same directory as the games.  It should be in a format like : C:\dir\dir

SaveDirectory = C:\ZSNES MOVIES\

; Game directory.  This is the directory where the GUI starts at.
; ZSNES automatically writes the current directory here upon exit.

GameDirectory = C:\ROMS\SNES
For the sake of trying it... can you change the save directory to one that has no spaces in the directory name? (For simplicity, you will have to rename the save directory folder as well.)
Continuing [url=http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?board=13.0]FF4[/url] Research...
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Post by franpa »

did roland get mencoder from here... http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php or did he get it from... http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

the first link is correct where as the second link is incorrect.
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Post by Nach »

Post name of zip file which contained the mencoder you are using. Post which CPU you have. Post which version of Windows you have. Post which video options were selected when you hit dump video.
May 9 2007 - NSRT 3.4, now with lots of hashing and even more accurate information! Go download it.
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Post by Nach »

Oh yes, one last stupid question, are you using the DOS or Windows version of ZSNES?
May 9 2007 - NSRT 3.4, now with lots of hashing and even more accurate information! Go download it.
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Post by franpa »

quick question... does anyone know why mencoder's file size increased from 3.6mb (approx.) to 10.03mb (approx.)?
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Post by SquareHead »

franpa_9 wrote:quick question... does anyone know why mencoder's file size increased from 3.6mb (approx.) to 10.03mb (approx.)?
They forgot to compress?
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