** Official Recording/Streaming Tips & Tricks Exchange **

[Surfer]

There isn't - I suppose we could keep a listing in the first post of this thread or something (but at the same time the idea was to keep this focused on sharing tips etc. rather than promoting, so maybe we could make a separate thread for it?)

I'm not bothered either way, up to them

 

[dakaiez]

* Recording: ShadowPlay for PC gameplay and Elgato Software with my Elgato HD60 Pro Capture Card for Console Capture and streaming.
* Hardware: Logitech desktop mic but soon the Audio Technica AT2020, Logitech C290 webcam
* Editing: Audacity for audio, Sony Vegas Pro for editing although i've only just started so learning the ropes still.

 

[arc@css]

So I just downloaded the Dxtory free trial to play around with and was wondering what codec you all use when recording with it? I download the Lagarith codec (or however you spell it) and it didn't really work. It only recorded 8 seconds of footage and when I tried to play it back in VLC nothing showed up. When I recorded with the Dxtory video codec everything seemed to work well.

Am I missing something? Also the mouse cursor seemed to jump around a bit in the video that I recorded which seemed a bit weird. The mouse cursor is really stable and smooth when I record with Fraps. Although thinking about it I have bought a new mouse since I last did my recording and it is much faster / more sensitive than my previous mouse so maybe that is the cause.

Here is what settings I've started to use. I don't know if these are the very best possible.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I don't know what the deal is with the free trial not working properly for you.

In my case, I may well go back to ShadowPlay; although the IQ of Dxtory is better, I don't feel the performance and file size is worth it for me. It looks superior, sure, but not by that much, and the performance drop compared to ShadowPlay is quite noticeable, imo, not to mention 200GB for what was a modest recording session the other evening (52 mins).

 

[Cromulent]

Here is what settings I've started to use. I don't know if these are the very best possible.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I don't know what the deal is with the free trial not working properly for you.

In my case, I may well go back to ShadowPlay; although the IQ of Dxtory is better, I don't feel the performance and file size is worth it for me. It looks superior, sure, but not by that much, and the performance drop compared to ShadowPlay is quite noticeable, imo, not to mention 200GB for what was a modest recording session the other evening (52 mins).

Thanks for the settings. I just checked what I have and it is pretty much the same. I might just buy it because then I can start having game audio in the background again due to it recording two different audio tracks.

Even if the Lagarith codec doesn't work the quality from the Dxtory video codec looks really good. Having said that I think the problem might be because I am using the trial version.

Which reminds me before I actually purchase it I need to make sure I can edit the created footage in Adobe Premiere Elements.

 

[arc@css]

Thanks for the settings. I just checked what I have and it is pretty much the same. I might just buy it because then I can start having game audio in the background again due to it recording two different audio tracks.

Even if the Lagarith codec doesn't work the quality from the Dxtory video codec looks really good. Having said that I think the problem might be because I am using the trial version.

Which reminds me before I actually purchase it I need to make sure I can edit the created footage in Adobe Premiere Elements.

You should be fine. AVI is very well supported.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Here's something I've been thinking about...

So far on our channel we've been mostly focusing on co-op (i.e. local sitting next to each other co-op) but in the back of my mind I've been trying to work out how we might be able to get a 2 PC setup going; with the goal being that we can play online co-op titles together...

Typically when I've seen other Youtuber's doing something like this it's a collaboration between 2 different channels, so they end up uploading the two recorded perspectives separately onto each channel... but in this case it's slightly different, so I'm trying to work out possible ways to do it...

Recording the video:
Clearly I could just record the raw footage on each PC separately (as I do now), assuming both machines have the power to do so. But if I instead had a dual-input capture card installed in one high spec PC and then route both its own and the other PC's output through it, maybe that would be better? (I guess if it was for Streaming this would give me 2 sources in OBS I could position on the stream window, similar to what they do for events like AGDQ... but for recording for Youtube maybe it wouldn't be any better than simply splicing 2 separate recordings together in an editor)

Recording the Audio:
This seems a lot harder... if we are sat at 2 side-by-side desks we will probably be too far apart to sit close together around a single microphone (as we do currently), but if we pick up a 2nd microphone will it be a problem that each recording will be picking up the other person's voice in the background? Or will it be alright once sync'd up?... Or maybe we can drop the sensitivity down and just both get really close to our own microphones to minimise the background noise...?

How to present the final product?
I think it makes sense to either overlay the two perspectives in a "semi-splitscreen" kind of way (not exactly splitscreen as it would screw up the aspect ratios too badly, but also not overlapping too much)... OR to always have one perspective fullscreen with the other in a small frame in the corner (picture-in-picture type of thing) and then periodically switch the two around depending on what is happening in-game (and have maybe an indicator showing who's view is currently the main one)

Has anybody else thought about this? We want to get the 2nd PC either way as there are a lot of online-only co-op games we think would be really fun to play together, but if we can find a way to do a few videos around the idea as well it would be really cool

 

[Raumarik]

Rufus are you just wanting to record it or stream?

I think separate mics might be an issue to be honest, even when sync'd there would be a lot of additional noise, a single input would be vastly better.

Honestly not sure what to suggest, quite a complicated thing you want to do

Talking about lag. I'm headed back to Lagarith with DXTory as I'm finding my current h264 codec causing lag between video and audio on recordings. I can manually correct it but it's a pain.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Rufus are you just wanting to record it or stream?

Probably mostly wanting to record it for YouTube, but if the option were there to stream a double-output setup as well that would be cool as well...

I think separate mics might be an issue to be honest, even when sync'd there would be a lot of additional noise, a single input would be vastly better.

Honestly not sure what to suggest, quite a complicated thing you want to do

Yeah that's what I figured too I suppose maybe we can try to find a way to setup the desks so that we are still sitting very close together allowing one mic to still work...

Talking about lag. I'm headed back to Lagarith with DXTory as I'm finding my current h264 codec causing lag between video and audio on recordings. I can manually correct it but it's a pain.

I find DXTory to be really good; having used ShadowPlay, Fraps and OBS as well... a lot of people seem to say that DXTory is too complicated but I've always found it to be fine

 

[arc@css]

I thought I'd give Afterburner a go again due to Dxtory not playing ball when trying to record Fallout 4. I used similar settings (lossless codec like lagarith), & I was rather pleased with the result. Smoother performance than Dxtory + Lagarith, too.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Interesting... I never did try Afterburner (despite having it installed) - maybe I'll give it a go at some point. Presumably it doesn't do multiple audio tracks so I'd have to go back to recording our mic with Audacity and doing a sync?

Having said that it might not be worth it... I find DXTory to have no impact on the smoothness in-game (but perhaps that's the difference in CPU for the encoding duties? 3770K vs 3570K; it might make enough of a difference in the right games)

 

[arc@css]

Interesting... I never did try Afterburner (despite having it installed) - maybe I'll give it a go at some point. Presumably it doesn't do multiple audio tracks so I'd have to go back to recording our mic with Audacity and doing a sync?

That's a good question, but I'm not the person to ask as I don't yet do commentary. It's something I'll be interested to find out, though.

Having said that it might not be worth it... I find DXTory to have no impact on the smoothness in-game (but perhaps that's the difference in CPU for the encoding duties? 3770K vs 3570K; it might make enough of a difference in the right games)

I doubt it's that, well not in this instance anyway - though you could be right. My testing is a too small a sample size to be conclusive, but Afterburner with this codec (below) did seem smoother than Dxtory / Mirillis when recording.

Spoiler

 

[Raumarik]

I'll stick it out with DXTory being able to grab all the audio channels I have in one file with video is incredibly useful, get the feeling it'll be a minor change needed but as with anything and DXTory it'll require testing, more testing and more tweaking

 

[arc@css]

Initially, although I was impressed with the IQ of Dxtory (and others), I decided to not use it as much due to the huge file sizes. However, now I'm not as sure; after having used the aforementioned software to help produce the last few videos, I can definitely see the appeal of it, but on the other hand I can't justify spending a stupid amount on a 2TB ssd, so I guess that leaves something like a several TB hdd. What's a good bang for buck drive - one of the WD Reds? And why do I seem to keep reading that I should stay away from Seagate?

 

[Raumarik]

Easier than expected! Looks like I sorted it by enabling "Syncronous surface lock" and "wait for available buffer". It's having an impact on FPS but not by much, still faster than I find Mirillis.

 

[Raumarik]

Initially, although I was impressed with the IQ of Dxtory (and others), I decided to not use it as much due to the huge file sizes. However, now I'm not as sure; after having used the aforementioned software to help produce the last few videos, I can definitely see the appeal of them, but on the other hand I can't justify spending a stupid amount on a 2TB ssd, so I guess that leaves something like a several TB hdd. What's a good bang for buck? One of the WD Red drives?

I'd probably look at the members market first as many people are ditching their mechanical ones for SSDs or upgrading their storage boxes. I have heard of some 3TB ones having issues so do a bit of research first.

I use an old 1TB drive, only has 80MB/s write but handles 1080P/60FPS really well

 

[uncle_rufus]

Initially, although I was impressed with the IQ of Dxtory (and others), I decided to not use it as much due to the huge file sizes. However, now I'm not as sure; after having used the aforementioned software to help produce the last few videos, I can definitely see the appeal of it, but on the other hand I can't justify spending a stupid amount on a 2TB ssd, so I guess that leaves something like a several TB hdd. What's a good bang for buck drive - one of the WD Reds? And why do I seem to keep reading that I should stay away from Seagate?

I bought a 2TB Seagate Barracuda... from what I could tell they aren't considered super reliable but amongst mechanical drives have some of the highest speeds, so it was perfect... Cost like ~£50

The reliability isn't a major concern since I use the whole 2TB exclusively for recording - if the drive dies I might lose a few hours of recorded footage at the worst (but I try not to let too much unedited video build up in the first place)

 

[arc@css]

I bought a 2TB Seagate Barracuda... from what I could tell they aren't considered super reliable but amongst mechanical drives have some of the highest speeds, so it was perfect... Cost like ~£50

The reliability isn't a major concern since I use the whole 2TB exclusively for recording - if the drive dies I might lose a few hours of recorded footage at the worst (but I try not to let too much unedited video build up in the first place)

Yeah, I might have to go down that route. I've just played less than 35 mins with Fraps - which admittedly isn't what I normally use, but it chewed up almost a third of a TB!

 

[Raumarik]

Well I've altered my setup, I'm now recording audio with DXTory only and using Shadowplay to record game video footage + game audio.

Reason is I just can't get DXTory audio to stay in sync over longer periods (40mins+) and it's unfixable with handbrake or using audio tools in Sony Vegas or premier pro, it's out of sync by an irregular amount during that period so although I can match it at the start and at the end the middle portion will remain out of sync. The only other option I had was to split the recordings into 10 minute chunks whilst recording then join them up, easy enough but too noticable.

I tested Shadowplay + DXtory this morning, worked perfectly. The game audio stays in-sync on Shadowplay so I just throw on my mic/ts chat afterwards.

Tested everything to sort DXTory, turns out this is a very well known problem that affects some people, for me it didn't matter what codec, settings or what HDD/SSD I used at some point it'd desync.

 

[felton1592]

So does shadowplay seem to be the way to go for PC recording? I have a 980ti and I used to use dxtory in the past. I figured streaming wasn't for me so returning my webcam and selling my elgato, but definitely keeping my blue yeti mic and mic arm for recording with friends, etc.

 

[arc@css]

So does shadowplay seem to be the way to go for PC recording? I have a 980ti and I used to use dxtory in the past. I figured streaming wasn't for me so returning my webcam and selling my elgato, but definitely keeping my blue yeti mic and mic arm for recording with friends, etc.

In terms of ease of use, performance when recording and file size - it's fantastic. However, the quality won't be as good as Dxtory, but for me right now it's good enough most of the time. I might need the flexibility of Dxtory when I start doing commentary, though.

Mirillis Action is also a pretty good piece of software. It has seemingly the same quality as Dxtory albeit less vibrant colours, but comes with significantly smaller file sizes - though still greater than ShadowPlay if using AVI, of course. It doesn't have as much flexibility as Dxtory and so far in my experience, it does seem to be a little fickle when it comes to doing what its told, though that could be a problem / error my end.