Steam Community :: Video :: x264 Test Recording - Battlefield Play4Free

Battlefield Play4Free > Videos > Tesityr's Videos

x264 Test Recording - Battlefield Play4Free - Brief Shotgun Gameplay Video (1080p)

Battlefield Play4Free

Award

Title

Description

This clip was a test of a few things at once; Bandicam's 'External Codec' setting using x264 (H.264/AVC) available in version 1.8.2/2012-09 [new version at the time writing the article began] and higher, Bandicam's automatic Logo overlay with transparency (our logo, lower right corner), BFP4F's one-day-only 'Starter Pack' 870 Combat Shotgun, and the uploading of a clip directly from the recorded file/output to YouTube....

Recorded game: Battlefield Play4Free, Free-To-Play Online FPS
Recorded with: Bandicam Registered Version @1080p 
Recording codec: x264 (H.264/AVC) using the 'External Codec'... implementation in Bandicam
Recording settings/variables: 'VeryFast' Preset, CRF23, 'Zero-Latency' Option selected, Logo with transparency (our logo, lower right)

This is the first of many recordings testing out Bandicam's usage of other codecs installed in a system (called 'External Codecs' in the program), this clip was recorded using the x264 Advanced Video Coding codec. Not an editing-friendly codec (it is slower to seek/move between sections within an editing application and can have artifacting issues), it still manages to work well with little effect on framerate, with the proper settings. The Constant Rate Factor quality setting of 23, recording at 1920x1080, gave an output bitrate of about 20000kbps, resulting in a file size that uses about 150MB per minute of recording (a half hour of recording at this resolution and bitrate would take up about 4.5GB).

The 'VeryFast' Preset in x264 auto-selects a few things, such as 1 reference frame per GOP, no Trellis encoding, no Deblocking, no CABAC and no B-type frames in the original recording/output. I suggest the faster Presets, as the slower ones compress far too much on-the-fly and create lag in the game and in the recording - more on this will come in a future article*. The CRF set at 23 allowed some 'breathing room' for recording and compressing on the fly (it is a medium quality setting, a CRF of 18 being more of a 'standard-quality' MPEG-4 setting), it also saved a little bit of disk space as this just-over-two-minute file was only about 300MB. While still watchable and acceptable in quality, the absence of deblocking (to hide macroblocks and other compression artifacts) and the high compression of flat/low-detail areas is visible, however. It is suggested to use a higher bitrate/rate control factor [if the system can handle it], even though more diskspace will be utilized. Youtube seems to have recompressed it as well, as even at the '1080p' Youtube setting, some quality has been lost from the original uploaded file. Still, it seems acceptable for a medium-to-low quality recording setting.

A separate article/post testing x264 in detail as well as other external codecs in programs like Bandicam, Dxtory, etc. "Coming Soon"!

Main article on Battlefield Play4Free (First Impressions, Screenshots, Tips And More) utilizing this video can be found here:
http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2013/03/battlefield-play4free-first-impressions.html
Also includes a comparison between Low, Medium and High video settings in the game!

See you in the games!

Watching this video again I never realized just how much I was called a 'hacker' or a 'noob' lol

Save Cancel

3	Unique Visitors
0	Current Favorites