this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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How much storage do I need and what codec should I use for large video files? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 weeks ago by UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I'm planning a huge playthru of a game, and I'd like to be able to look back at it years down the line. However I'm expecting it to be 100s of hours (maybe around/over 1k, but I hope not longer than 2k) and years to finish (I'm not planning on playing 8+h a day).

What are he most optimal settings for OBS to save as much video as possible, while it's still watchable?

I could record in 1440p 165fps. I know that's dumb, but idk how low I'm willing to go. 1440p sounds awesome, but lower than 1080p would lose too much information. Same with lower than 60fps. I don't have a clue as to what bitrate would do well, and what encoding is best. For bitrate I have a clue that it needs to be as high as possible. As it can be a bullethell and there are way to many particles/effects on screen, while everything that matters is small. (I'm not trying to be secretive here, game's modded Terraria)

I'd also state that I'd like to error on the storage side, I don't mind buying another HDD, they really aren't that expensive. And I'm also planning on editing the video down as soon as possible, so that I delete all the boring parts. Meaning I probably won't have all of that lenght on my disk at once.

Thank you for any aid in my crazy endeavour.

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[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's a good idea. I have a question tho, does AV1 lose some fidelity, or is it simply just a "better" encoding?

[–] Scholars_Mate@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

All video codecs are lossy, meaning you will lose some quality. AV1 and H.265 are modern video codecs with the best quality to bitrate ratios, meaning you can get better quality for the same bitrate, or the same quality with a lower bitrate. The downside the these codecs is that they are very complex and computational expensive to do in software. You'll want to make sure your GPU supports hardware encoding for the codecs you intend to record with. The reason most people will recommend AV1 over H.265 is that AV1 is royalty free. With H.265, companies have to pay a royalty to use H.265. Because of this, most companies (Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, etc.) want to use AV1 going forward, meaning in the near future, it will probably be the dominant codec.

[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

well I checked. My GPU does support AV1, but only decode, and OBS doesn't support h265. So is my only (good) option is to use a SVT-AV1? How slow it that really?

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

if you’re planning on editing it, you can record in a very high bitrate and re-encode after the fact… yes, re-encoding looses some quality, however you’re likely to end up with a far better video if you record and 2x the h264 bitrate and then re-encode to your final h265 (or av1) bitrate than if you just record straight to h264 at your final bitrate

another note on this: lots of streaming stuff will say to use CBR (constant bitrate), which is true for streaming, however i think probably for re-encode VBR (variable bitrate) with multi-pass encode will give a good trade-off - CBR for live because the encoding software can’t predict what’s coming up, but when you have a known video it can change bitrate up and down because it knows when it’ll need higher bitrate

[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

how does doing a 2pass work? I'm going to be honest, I just ignored that feature. Is it worth the extra hassle? And how much longer does it take? Also do I need to run ffmpeg twice for that? Or can I just put in an argument and it'll scan twice.

After typing all that out I realized that all this is probably easier to google/try than to ask you about it. Thanks for the info tho. I managed to get a video format where 15 minutes are 1GiB and watching it back I didn't notice any artifacts or burry parts in 1440p 60fps.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

2 pass will encode a file once, and store a log of information about what it did… then on the 2nd pass it’ll use that information to better know when it should use more or less bitrate/keyframes - honestly i’m not too sure of the specifics here

now, it’s most often used to keep a file to a particular file size rather than increasing quality per se, but id say keeping a file to a particular size means you’re using the space that you have effectively

looks like with ffmpeg you do need to run it twice - there’s a log option

i mostly export from davinci resolve so i’m not too well versed in ffmpeg flags etc

doing a little more reading it seems the consensus is that spending more time on encoding (ie a higher preset) will likely give a better outcome than 2 pass unless you REALLY care about file size (like the file MUST be less than, but as close to 100mb)

[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

I did a transcode with -pass 1 added, and it generated an empty txt file.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

and OBS doesn't support h265

are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure it should. maybe you'll find it as _x_265, as that's the name of the encoder it uses

[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I can't find it and a quick google told me that neither do others

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

OBS allows you to use everything FFmpeg supports with the "Custom Output (FFmpeg)" recording type.

[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I was and am searching there I just can't find it in the dropdown. I might be blind, but I checked multiple times.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Settings -> Output:

  • Output Mode: Advanced
  • Recording -> Type: Custom Output (FFmpeg)
[–] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I've gotten that far, but no farther

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

turns out OBS does not have a software encoder for it, only encoding with a hardware encoder is supported. it is mentioned in the 2nd table of the video formats heading herev https://obsproject.com/kb/audio-video-formats-guide