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Video Sizes Help

Started by Bondy, December 03, 2016, 11:12:12 PM

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Bondy

Hi guys, after a little help.
I have started to do my music videos, I play them on a single screen at auto full but I'm noticing that there all showing at different sizes is there a set size they should be. I hope this makes sense many thanks
What Dont Kill Me Only Makes Me Stronger ..... !!

Mark Norville

It depends upon how you are playing them to be honest. Are you using a dual monitor set up or single?

Music videos are a pain as they need to be about 540 in skin size. It depends upon what skin you are using? I am skinning for a 32 inch portrait monitor, to have the videos at full screen so they look good takes up half of the screen.

You cannot have them 100% all the time, as some will go big, some will go small, it depends upon the age of the music video.

Regards

Mark
I am now retired from the jukebox scene. I still visit from time to time and will help if I can, but apart from that. I am no longer a slave to downloading and tagging.

Bondy

I thought that might have been the case, I'm currently trying to update some of my older music videos and see if there is hd versions of them now on youtube have found quite a few so far.

I just use a single screen which is 24"
What Dont Kill Me Only Makes Me Stronger ..... !!

wwwombat

#3
If it's of any help I usually rip my own after poring through 20+ hours of "rage" each week. "rage" is an Australian music video TV program that airs off an on during the week but always does Friday night and Saturday morning night. I find it great because there's usually no talkover pre or post song, it's usually explicit if the original video is, and it has a standard artist/song title overlay like I like and the watermark logo is only on screen briefly or not overly imposing.

"rage" usually does current top 20 chart entries a couple of times during this period but also includes upcoming predicted hits plus local artists. It also usually has a different guest programmer (band or artist - usually local but occasional famous touring artist) one night playing their favourite videos (so you get some oldies) and if anyone dies (as in Prince, David Bowie, George Michael etc. late last year) then you usually get their entire back catalog of music videos aired that week.

Now the program is most prevalent on SD channels. Because new videos roughly fill the modern screens (16:9) and old ones are usually 4:3 (but the ABC logo and artist/track overlay can extend beyond these boundaries) I decided not to crop (autocrop not usually functional because of the logo/title overlay outside the video bounds anyway) and keep everything in the 16:9 format which is better for the 2nd monitor I use for video display anyway (4:3 on 16:9 screen fills vertical and looks okay but 16:9 on 4:3 screen squashes too much IMHO)

I started off with AVIs way back when that was the most prevalent format but now use handbrake to convert into MP4s. I've settled on a video rate of 1500kbps (you might think this too low but it works for me from a diskspace size/quality tradeoff aspect) and an audio rate at the level that the PVR records in from the TV (256kbps). As I said, by not cropping even for the older 4:3 videos I rip everything to a 720x406 (16:9) aspect. I find this gives me videos roughly 30 to 50 MB in size (a 4 minute song roughly 40MB therefore). I usually find the TV sound recordings are fairly low so I also boost the audio level (+12DB for my setup/TV/PVR to roughly match what I mostly find on YouTube and my audio file levels) upon conversion since the videos don't seem to have an "audio normaliser" area to store variance like you can do with MP3GAIN for MP3s.

Whilst I prefer to rip myself (either from TV or music DVDs), occasionally I will resort to downloading a video from primarily YouTube (in the downloader I usually select the 720/1280 version that has the best audio rate (usually 187Kbps (they drop this on the 1920 version to usually 128kbps for some unknown reason)). Up to me if I decide to reencode it to adjust the volume if I feel it's wildly different to my current attempt at volume consistency.

I focus on the Greatest Hits of Artists and all Chart Hits from the USA/UK/AUS for 1953 to current. Current video set is ~6,020 videos as I progressively chase them down and with the video/audio rates described above this weighs in at roughly 292GB. I STRONGLY suggest you look to always use a 2 screen-setup if you can (extend your desktop to a current smart TV if nothing else) to not interrupt video playing whilst people peruse the albums. Selection screen can be anything you like by comparison. Whilst it'd be nice to have a bigger (wide)screen/resolution/space for more albums my main selection screen is an old 4:3 converted photo kiosk but people seem thilled with that.


Mark Norville

Sounds a lot of work when you can just take from youtube within seconds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Qn4U-zpCc

This might be out of date by now, but you can grab hundreds of videos a day with no effort at all *Well until you get bored

Regards

Mark
I am now retired from the jukebox scene. I still visit from time to time and will help if I can, but apart from that. I am no longer a slave to downloading and tagging.

wwwombat

#5
Mark,

Quote from: Mark Norville on January 09, 2017, 11:13:34 PM
Sounds a lot of work when you can just take from youtube within seconds

Simple answer is that not all of my current >6000 music videos I have can be found on the internet. People can easily forget that someone has to take the time (be it music/music video/movie/tv show) to load them up (there's no magic fairies that mean they just exist there) and then they can be of comparative shit quality or run into licensing problems etc.

Let's try a quick test by way of example... Uncle Kracker's "Follow Me". Quite a large hit here in Australia in 2010 so relatively recent. I can't find a better than 240p quality video through YouTube or other channels otherwise so far. And in case you haven't realised it from my postings elsewhere, I'm an anal-retentive stickler for completionism and reasonable quality and having things be accessible readily locally.

Let's try another one - Julian Lennon (John's son) for "Now You're In Heaven" (again, no better than 240p found so far) How about the original "Bob The Builder" two novelty hits (Can We Fix It/Mambo No.5) from 2001. And don't try to fob me off with some fan-made or "Lyric" video. I know what the real one looks like. Only exception I'm willing to make on this is where I don't believe an official music video was ever made... I think Bruno Mars' "Marry You" might be an example of this. So if you have any of these at better quality then please point them my way or upload to dropbox or similar if you would be so kind.

I hate the plethora of sites that "offer" MP3 downloads that are just conversions of YouTube videos as well... a lot of the time the actual single and the video soundtrack are two totally separate things. Some are obvious rips from radio streams as well. Again, to ensure quality I usually rip the songs myself from either my personal CD library (yes, I'm even older than that - I come from the days of debating whether Ferrous-Metal-Oxide tapes were superior to other types and whether there was an intangible "warmth" to vinyl recordings - not quite as old as some of my sibling's 8-track days though) or by making use of the myriad number of public libraries around me. Again, that way I know and can control the quality of the rip.

Other (mostly local) Artists won't even have a video on Youtube. Shannon Noll will be familiar to most Australians through one of those reality TV programs that garnered him a "few hits"... not on Youtube unless potentially some really crappy much-later-in-life "live" version and not the one that was the accredited hit. I assume that would similarly be the case for local UK and US artists. USA not-so-bad but the UK charts usually differ more frequently.

Yes, some artists like Christina Aguilera are generous with what they allow to exist on Youtube - some aren't and not all have Vevo (or good resolution Vevo) channels. And I'd prefer my audio quality to be as high as possible also given my desire for compression as well so 256 or 320kbps is nice (I'm not that overzealous to desire flac or other lossless containers) - YouTube seems to cap out at 187 for the most part which I'll bear if I can't do better myself.

You get out of your jukebox what you put into it and I'm particularly proud of the hand-picked selection of songs that I have based mainly on the 1953-current AUS/UK/USA monthly charts instead of the millions and billions or songs that providers offer and (IMHO) not many would ever wish to listen to nor wade through the navigation for. I take immense pride that everything is tagged correctly (given Windows naming-restrictions AC/DC, B*Witched for filenames externally although tagged internally correctly, or slight adjustments for Etouch searching (I use Pink instead of P!nk and Kesha instead of Ke$ha for example since Etouch doesn't allow you enter those through its onscreen keyboard), I am even particular about whether a band was known for having a leading "The"or not - fun with the English Band called "The The") for song title, track artist, album artist, year of (single) release if applicable, genre (such as it is - only allowing one and deciding whether a song is pop, rock, R&B, etc. and only wishing to restrict myself to a selective set of those as well (I don't travel into niches like Grunge or Breakstep and what the hell is progressive, indie or alternative rock these days anyway?) is a pain-in-the arse) Without being racist, not all black singers are automatically thrown into the R&B category - I have the Jacksons (Michael & Janet) in Pop (especially since Michael was known as the King Of Pop), Prince in Rock, James Brown in Soul yet I've left Destiny's Child in R&B. And songs within an artists repertoire can also vary. U2 were stunned when they got a "Best Alternative" grammy one year. Every artist probably has a charting Christmas song or two that I don't want to listen to at any other time of year. I dither over whether The Beatles are Rock Or Pop (and have flipped the tags a few times in the past) but I'm happy to put Paul McCartney's later work in Pop and John Lennon's in Rock.

I'm actually happy that Australian Law now prevents direct access to piratebay and KAT and other sites similar will go down. Having them too accessible (even though a simple proxy workaround exists) has drawn the attention of the internet police so I'm more than happy to regress into the underworld of irc and the dark interweb I learnt to dabble in in my younger days ((remember bulletin boards with the Commodore 64?) if need be and let the script-kiddies flounder when they can no longer get their quick fix of Game Of Thrones or The Walking Dead. You should learn how things work rather than believing you have a push-button entitlement to it.

Okay - that got a little off-topic as I just brain-dumped,,, Anyhoo, by me ripping them (audio & video) myself wherever possible, I can keep a consistent sound level, because to my knowledge so far there's nothing like MP3GAIN for videos and I don't want to try and introduce any on-the-fly volume adjustment on top of ETouch that might slow processing. If you have knowledge of something to address this other than a re-encode with a guess at audio decibel gain adjustment then I'm willing to listen. I''m not against the youtube download (and I frequently make use of such programs for other interests)... I just use it as a last resort.

So, if you understand all that and you're willing to trade with me properly-tagged-for-Etouch music videos that I WOULD BE interested in then let's talk.

Also, whilst I have you here, because I think you're a relatively recent proficient skin maker/adjuster, any chance of you creating a youtube video that's essentially a "Dummies Guide To Basic Etouch Skinning"? Love to contribute something in this vein in the future if I can find the time but reading the manual and attempting various plays in the past still leads me to frustration and cancelling out of the effort. I'd like to know what tags/functions I have access to and where I can use them as well.

Mark Norville

Wow that was a long read lol

Firstly not sure if this will help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbYy7Ehi5E

Secondly at the moment I am still up in pieces at the moment, I have a new mobo coming this week, infact tomorrow. So I will be taking my SSD from the jukebox and using it for the games computer, then I have another SSD which should be here tomorrow which I am going to do a fresh install on for the jukebox.

So this week I am stripping and building, however, next week I should be clear for doing more music related stuff, I lose focus after a while so everything starts backing up.

I still have to build another PC but that will be over the next month, when I can afford or find cheap parts for my home cinema PC.

I brought an NVIDIA Shield TV before Christmas so that has been my main form of entertainment, and with the NVIVIDA spot coming out this year, it will allow for easier music play.

Although I have voice activation at the moment, but I don't always have that on but it can be a cool feature if wanting music on.

Anyway I am waffling and just waking up so shall end here lol

Regards

Mark
I am now retired from the jukebox scene. I still visit from time to time and will help if I can, but apart from that. I am no longer a slave to downloading and tagging.

wwwombat

#7
Never use a short word where a diminutive one will suffice...   ;)

Yep. Guilty as charged and consistent throughout my life despite numerous (mainly from management) admonitions. My return argument is I will disclose and tell you everything - good, bad and otherwise. Not my fault if you don't choose to read it and don't dare tell me to explain it to you again in another year. What really frustrates me is mainframe programmers I debug errors for (for THEIR code) don't learn and ask me the same damn question repeatedly. Store the effin' email I send you if nothing else!

Other than that - Heh... yeh - too many "shiny" things to look at. I hear ya!

In addition to finishing off the cabinetry for my jukebox setup, I still need to get back to the final touchups for the arcade machine (and every other emulator for a system I grew up with) I built with my son a few years back, and the 3-screen virtual pinball table I started (but basically stopped cabinet completion once it became playable), and restoring the Japanese pachinko machine I brought back from there and maintaining my massive multiple NAS drive setups for music/TV Shows/Blue Ray Rips all delivered throughout the house with SONOS etc. plus the new PS4 VR unit and my obsessive-compulsiveness with trophy "pinging".... in the words of Seinfeld "yada yada yada"

Who the hell has time for house and garden maintenance or even fraternising with the family with all that going on?

That's why I only sporadically drop back into this forum to see what movement has been happening whilst I've had attention drawn elsewhere...

Dammit... really need to win X-Lotto so I can retire and attend to some of these things ;o)

I'll check that video link out soon and see if things form more coherently in my head... Ta.

So I take it you don't have quality videos of those tracks I used as examples? Damn!