Okay, I'm sure this has been asked a hundred times here... but the truth is I did a search in the forum and came up with non relevant results.
I realize a few things. The videos are being encoded at a low bit rate. Somewhere below 500. I also know the videos are being encoded in x264 with many many reference frames. But what I don't know is how the videos manage to be so small, yet high quality. I have attempted multiple times with x264 and all I can come up with is a huge file with good quality.
What I'm really trying to get at is, what specific settings must I enable during the encoding process to achieve the quality of some of DeHacked's videos while keeping the video size small..
Also, is XviD able to produce videos with comparable quality / size? If so, then I would certainly like to know.
Thanks in advance.
-Neil
Can you watch the videos at Stage6 without having to log in? I assume you can't watch them online without installing a third-party player. Is this player available for linux? OTOH I think not many linux users want to install a player program just to watch videos from one specific site, but instead they would want to watch them with their own favorite player. (I believe that most linux users have grown naturally wary towards dubious "third-party" closed-source "you must install this if you want to access the contents of this site" type programs and are not likely to install anything like that.)
Stage6 videos do work in Linux in Firefox with mplayer, but to the best of my knowledge, it's not entirely stable. I just know it works. Also, all stage6 videos are divx, downloadable, and playable in VLC.. so that should solve any Linux issues. At the very least, Stage6 could be used simply as a mirror for videos, but it's not a problem for those of us fortunate enough to be able to stream them using mplayer or the divx web player.
No, you don't have to register or sign up to watch videos on Stage6, you just have to have their web player installed or download them and watch them in VLC. Why would anyone want to do that?
If some vids don't play, just refresh the page or wait a minute. Stage6 is still very new but they are constantly improving. Why not request the <embed>? I'm sure they will likely respond or implement in the near future.
Seems like Veoh would work just as well, if not better. You don't have to install anything using that.
Veoh is a flash based website and flash is inherently bad for high quality videos. Stage6 is better than Veoh because it lets the user choose the quality of video and sound which is still better than any flash based website and Stage6 allows you to fullscreen your video without taking a hit to CPU performance or flash STRETCHING. Stage6 also allows you to rate + or -, leave a comment, or add to favorites without refreshing the page.
Ultimately, Stage6's web player will upgrade to the current beta release which promotes features like automatic deblocking, sharpening, and the highly requested feature of automatically saving videos to a temp folder so users can watch videos offline or continue where they left off if they accidentally leave the webpage. This is something flash cannot do and I can't imagine they'll ever do in the foreseeable future.
For those of you who are unaware, Stage6 is the Youtube lookalike from Divx. They are using the Divx codec of course and they have an installable web player with basic playback features. The reason Stage6 is so good compared to those dumb flash based video sites is that they allow you to choose the quality and they have close to no limitations in terms of size, length or quality. I have seen some videos on Stage6 with multiple audio tracks too.
Sorry to sound like I'm advertising here, but I believe Stage6 is the perfect solution for people who just want to watch something high quality without the hassle of downloading and installing the proper codecs.
Sure, Divx isn't the best codec out there. I realize x264 far exceeds the potential of Divx, but until there is an x264 youtube lookalike, Divx is about the closest thing.
Here's a link to my profile at Stage6, I have several game related vids on there including Sonic 2 Tool Assisted. http://stage6.divx.com/user/Neillithan
Let me know what you guys think.
SuperFrog is an Amiga game and is easy enough to find on the net somewhere. Someone should do a speed run of Superfrog or other Amiga related games. :)
Thanks,
-Neil