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Continued MP4 record problems
Rank: Advanced Member
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Joined: 1/21/2013(UTC) Posts: 32 Location: Montana, US Thanks: 1 times
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We've BEEN using MPEG2 recording for a couple years now with no troubles. But we recently changed the way we host and stream videos and now only need to record for archival and local purposes.
In the past I tried the MP4 recording settings to keep the file size down, but had trouble with glitchy playback. Since I didn't NEED to worry about file size so much and I definitely didn't want the glitchy playback I just went back to MPEG2.
This weekend, we tried recording on MP4 setting again - to a very fast SSD.
The results were TERRIBLE. They playback was glitchy; jumping every couple seconds while audio was steady.
I really could use some help tracking that down - if we must not use MP4 record settings, then could you please take them out of the program?
If the settings DO work acceptably for someone, could you tell me what bit rate you use? What hardware and setup works successfully?
It's really disappointing to set up and see no errors in the recording process only to have the output be unusable, but with no indication of why.
How may I fix this?
Thank you for your consideration.
J
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Joined: 1/13/2010(UTC) Posts: 5,228 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Was thanked: 4332 time(s) in 1528 post(s)
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Hi,
Please post the log file that is included with the recording. It contains important information to help diagnose the issue.
Note that MP4 uses a lot more CPU than MPEG2 so it is possible you are running up against a cpu limit on your system, but the log file will say for sure if that is the case.
Regards,
Martin vMix
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Joined: 1/21/2013(UTC) Posts: 32 Location: Montana, US Thanks: 1 times
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It figures I've deleted that log file for the source recording that gave us the trouble. I've recorded another test file for 3min and it played fine, but the log file DOES show some dropped frames. The log file is attached to this post(I hope) I'm trying to keep the quality as high as I can, but I could drop the bit rate to 50Mbps if needed. The AVI recording seems to offer best possible quality, but the files are unwieldy in size. Thank you for your help File Attachment(s): sermon - 01 December 2014 - 10-40-34 AM.mp4.txt (2kb) downloaded 14 time(s).You cannot view/download attachments. Try to login or register.
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Joined: 1/25/2012(UTC) Posts: 78
Was thanked: 12 time(s) in 12 post(s)
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I really don't see why you would need to record at 75Mbps unless you wanted to be editing/grading this footage later so there's that. As Martin said, MP4 is very CPU intensive and you probably need a high end quad core at least to pull it off while streaming at the same time. I tried to do it with a core 2 quad 6600 overclocked and I couldn't (Barely managed to record to AVI while streaming). I am now running a Dell Precision T5500 with dual 2.4GHz Xeon quad cores (With Hyperthreading) and that system handles streaming and recording to MP4 just fine and these systems are available on ebay for fairly reasonable prices in the US anyway.
You may want to try making sure NOTHING else is running on the system, even a web browser (and check MSCONFIG and disable anything not necessary and turn off Automatic Updates in Windows), and see if that makes a difference. If that helps, even then thats really pushing it for a reliable recording.
Might ask, if for no other reason than for others looking in this forum for answers to these sorts of questions, what are the basic specs of your system? CPU, RAM, etc...
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Joined: 1/21/2013(UTC) Posts: 32 Location: Montana, US Thanks: 1 times
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Hi Fordry,
Thanks for the input - In fact, I do have need to do light editing on the MP4 after the services. Mostly I want to normalize the audio and cut the front and back end off at the appropriate times. I do editing in Sony Movie Studio Platinum and it's been my experience that all the editors I've used, Uncompress any file you put on the timeline, then when the project is rendered to a compressed file, the results are worse looking that when you started - I'm trying to keep the quality high and the editing minimal, but any editing seems to result in loss of quality.
The present machine is a AMD Hex Core with 16G RAM, SSD for OS, SSD to record to and spinning platter drive for archive and to save edit projects to. I CAN, and HAVE recorded to AVI and the SSD is fast enough for that purpose, but the files are HUGE. Plus, if we don't get the timing just so, then I can't fit both services on the record SSD and I end up not being able to record the entire second service.
I have tried to move the large AVI file from the SSD to the platter drive between services, but that took forever and I'm sure it didn't help the recording process.
We DO stream with this computer to YouTube. No other programs are running while we use vMix; we are streaming and recording at that time and no other processes. I haven't totally stripped the machine down, there might be some more optimization to help, but it's pretty bare and all the Windows 7 bloatware has been removed.
I COULD switch to a Intel i5 3.1Ghz machine - first or second generation i5 iirc. I did, in the past compare both machines using Sony Movie Studio Platinum to render the same file on each machine and there wasn't any apparent difference in performance, but that's not necessarily the same as recording and streaming.
Thanks for any insight.
J
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Joined: 2/18/2014(UTC) Posts: 1,838 Location: Stockholm
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J, We always record mp4 (1280x720, 8 Mbps, 50p) and are very happy with the result. Some broadcasting high enders might oppose, but for cost and speed effectiveness mp4 is fantastic for web publication. The other day we produced this, under pretty bad light conditions: https://vimeo.com/113494318In this case we used i7-4700HQ, GTX870M, 16GB, Windows 8.1 Home Premium 64. As pointed out above mp4 consumes processing power. Some CPU:s (eg some i7) and graphic cards support hardware encoding of mp4. There is a tick box for that in the Recorder cog wheel setup, but undocumented in the help file so I do not know which type of hardware it requires. I guess that various installed codec packages might mess things up in the way you describe. Good luck!
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Joined: 11/24/2012(UTC) Posts: 97
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Hello
In my opinion, I totally agreed with Richardgatarski
In your case, as you want to edit the file, remain in MPG or in TS at an high bitrate and then edit it. At the end compress it in your preferred format for archive
You must know that, even at 16 Mbps for 1920x1080 in Mp4, the quality of your archive coming from an MPG and TS at 1920x1080 at more than 56 Mbps and a Good MP4 encoder will remain very good, even for publishing and more at 1280*720 at 16Mbps. even at 8 Mbps will not notice so much difference.
If you will not edit the file and want directly to keep the recoded file as it is, try 1920*1080 at 16 or 25 or low it at 1280x720 at 16 or 8
C.
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