Ideas for .dem to .flv Conversion

[BennyDacks]

I know someone has to have tried this before. Perhaps someone has already done it?

I'm thinking the process could go something like this:

- .dem is uploaded to server with fast enough video card to render the game at 640x480 ultra settings
- avi is then encoded to flv with ffmpeg, screenshot extracted
- package is then uploaded to youtube and cross-posted on websites x,y,z containing player info, stats from the demo, anything else relevant

other ideas:
- auto-link to map download of demo you're watching
- auto-link to clan/player's website based on tags in name checked against a known list of registered clans
- .dem / flv available for download
- upload a mp3 for a soundtrack
- simple time-stamp based editing to cut out best parts for rendering ie: Clip 1: 2:30, End: 3:34 | Clip2 Start: 4:40, End 5:10

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[merlijn]

I know someone has to have tried this before. Perhaps someone has already done it?

What? Converting to videos has been done for ages, and FLV is likely to be one of the worst formats ever to store video in. This is why there is OGV support directly in Nexuiz, so it isn't even needed to re-encode it.

I'm thinking the process could go something like this:

- .dem is uploaded to server with fast enough video card to render the game at 640x480 ultra settings
- avi is then encoded to flv with ffmpeg, screenshot extracted
- package is then uploaded to youtube and cross-posted on websites x,y,z containing player info, stats from the demo, anything else relevant

ANY machine is able to convert a demo to a movie in Ultra settings, it will just take a bit longer as it get's less FPS. And why upload this? The Nexuiz server can do this just fine using serverside demos, or clients can do this after they finished playing.

To be able to use serverside demos you might want to check out the demo tools in /misc/tools/, this allows cutting in demos and only capturing a small portion to a video.

Again - use OGV format, it allows you to upload this directly on a webhost like omploader.org. This saves a needless re-encode step and does not depend on clients having proprietary flash junk installed.

other ideas:
- auto-link to map download of demo you're watching
- auto-link to clan/player's website based on tags in name checked against a known list of registered clans
- .dem / flv available for download
- upload a mp3 for a soundtrack
- simple time-stamp based editing to cut out best parts for rendering ie: Clip 1: 2:30, End: 3:34 | Clip2 Start: 4:40, End 5:10

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

This all sounds reasonable, and the last bit can be done using the demotc.pl in /misc/tools/.

[FraNcoTirAdoR]

Why the heck would you want to encode it to flv before youtubeing? Btw in my experience when you upload flv to youtube it will result decreased quality (really strange).

[BennyDacks]

Why the heck would you want to encode it to flv before youtubeing? Btw in my experience when you upload flv to youtube it will result decreased quality (really strange).

Good point, I didn't think of that. I thought FLV was more of a standard than an obstacle since almost everyone has flash...

What? Converting to videos has been done for ages, and FLV is likely to be one of the worst formats ever to store video in. This is why there is OGV support directly in Nexuiz, so it isn't even needed to re-encode it.

Never heard of OGV... I'll check it out!

I guess its time to brush up on my Perl =]

Thanks for the input merlijn and FraNcoTirAdoR!

[paperclips]

the only (I guess) reason for (re)encoding in anything other than ogv and that would be h264 for utilization of hardware accelerated video as with VDPAU

(For smooth HD on ubuntu use Nvidia Vdpau Team, PPA ).

Look here for encoding/recording of demos and related matters.

[BennyDacks]

hmm... thanks papercips ill check it out. some good info in that thread.