[game_preservation] Gameplay movies, audio and video compression

[Andrew Armstrong]

Hey all,

I wondered if anyone here could give me a idea about what kind of file 
format / dimensions / compressions they use (if anyone does!) for 30FPS 
video content of gameplay movies.

I intend to do some tests, capturing video gameplay segments to show 
what a game is, how it is played. At the moment its PC games only. I'm 
using FRAPs and capturing full screen (1680x1050 usually, although it 
can be anything else my monitor supports, like square resolutions) at 
30FPS. I might go and do half-capture at 60FPS for some parts, if there 
is a lot of action full screen 30FPS capture can go below 30FPS, thus 
not looking right.

I'll likely, if it is a good thing to do, work on having actual full 
screen video, half screen and probably quarter screen available. That 
is, unless someone can say that a very high quality half sized video is 
better to do. For gameplay dynamics I am not sure myself.

Therefore, knowing a good video compressor would be great, and perhaps 
some suggested settings (I am willing to tinker). I'm currently 
investigating DivX 6.X, XviD 5.X and WMV 9 (although I don't like WMV 
much), and I'll likely try MPEG-2 as well. I'm looking mainly at full 
screen conversion - for some reason XviD seems to get corrupted with my 
test. Not sure why. Not tried any of the H.XXX MPEG's either, not sure 
entirely what download you need installed to use them in fact (ffdshow 
perhaps?)

I also would love any information on a good choice for audio conversion. 
FRAPs captures are 44100Hz PCM WAV, so needs cutting down. I also intend 
to possibly have a second audio track with commentary (although I've 
found out its near impossible to do this with one PC, FRAPs and a 
microphone plugged into the PC), so any ideas on container formats which 
support this would be welcome.

Thanks in advance for any help, and no worries if no one knows, I'll 
still investigate myself anyway. DivX seems to be working okay for 
instance...hmmm...but does it work cross platform well, hmm....

Andrew Armstrong