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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • From a technical level you should use something lossless in this situation, but it really quickly becomes impractical. Actually lossless 1080p60 is going to be something like 500mbps, so if you’re playing for an hour I hope you have a spare 2tb drive laying around. The artifacts in really high bitrate compressed video are so minimal that they basically don’t matter. Often codecs do noise removal first thing so whatever minor artifacts still exist will get smeared over by that anyway.

    Also when you are testing make sure there’s some movement in the video. AV1 especially has modes for presentations and things that basically make a PowerPoint, so sizes might be unrealistic if you’re just recording your desktop. I don’t think that gets enabled in handbrake but it’s been a while since I looked.


  • If you’re seeing any artifacts in the original video, you probably need to re-record in a higher bitrate. It needs to look identical to uncompressed. Your later encodes will be trying to encode all the artifacts in the original video, which could be why the file sizes keep getting bigger - you’re giving it noisier video than the original.

    50mbps for recording as an intermediate like that is well within the realm of normal. You can try having obs record in 264 with a quality setting instead of a bitrate setting, which can save space when things are more static - something like cq 6 or lower can do pretty well.

    Unfortunately, yeah finding the sweet spot does take forever. One thing I would recommend is once you have an idea where you want to land, try a few much longer videos and see what the differences are. Slower paced sections might compress much better than the fast action stuff in one codec or another. Again it’s all kind of a balancing act on where you want to be.




  • Because it’s just for personal archival, I would recommend recording in super high bitrate 264 or 265 depending on what your card can do in real time, then compressing that file later using either av1 or 265, depending on which works better for the content.

    If you’re playing in 1440p165, then you should record that to start although if it’s an option I would play and record at 1080p120. 1440 is a bit of an odd duck resolution that some stuff doesn’t really like, but it’s getting better all the time so it’s not a huge deal. More important is 120fps because if you decide to go down to 60 or even 30fps they split evenly, which is important since it means the extra frames just get thrown out. There’s no 82.5 frame so it either has to blend two together or pick one that’s at the wrong time, and neither looks good.

    Record in OBS using like, 25-40mbps in whatever your graphics card can do realtime, with all the audio tracks in something lossless like FLAC. High enough it might as well be uncompressed.

    Once you have your gameplay recording from OBS, use either Handbrake or FFMPEG to convert it to your long term storage format. Since this is such a big project I would make some samples using cheats to get an idea what the bullet-hell-iest parts will look like, then try a few different handbrake or ffmpeg settings, and see what gives you the tradeoff of file size and quality that you like. It’ll also give you a ballpark idea about how much long term storage you’ll need.

    Non-realtime encoding like ffmpeg and Handbrake is much more efficient than realtime done by your graphics card, like on the order of like half the file size for the same quality - that’s why you want the two step process. It also allows you to play in 120fps for that responsiveness, but watch at 60 or even 30fps to save some file size.

    When you set up handbrake, you’ll have a few settings to play with and make samples from - encoder, quality level, speed, fps, and rescaling.

    Encoder is probably the most important. Use either x265 or SVT-AV1. In my experience, they’re close in terms of efficiency, but AV1 pulls ahead in certain situations. AV1 is more efficient about large static sections and when it breaks up it just looks blurry. 265 is better at retaining texture, but when it fails its gross digital blocks. 265 is faster than AV1, but when you push AV1 and it takes 1000 years it does a better job. Basically, run a lot of tests and then decide.

    Scaling is where you go from 1440 to 1080 and is probably the least important for file size. I honestly wouldn’t bother with it, but you can try. Like I said, technically some TVs don’t like 1440, and everything supports 1080, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

    FPS I have the least experience with. My guess is that going do something lower is going to save you some size, but its really going to depend on the codec and the content.

    Quality level is the most important setting - just set it to what you think is watchable. It doesn’t use a bitrate, it adjusts the bitrate to get a constant quality level, so it’s much more efficient. It’s important to note that they aren’t exactly the same at every speed setting, so be careful.

    Lastly is the speed. 265 goes from very fast to very slow, and AV1 goes from 9 (fast) to 0 (stupid slow). Personally I use slow or very slow for 265 and about 4 for AV1, but if you have a lot of video to crunch through you might want to crank that up a bit.

    For audio use OPUS. 96 is the default “bitrate” and I find it to be enough. Some players don’t like it but if you’re thinking about using AV1, anything that would support AV1 supports opus.

    The main thing will just be doing a bunch of video encode samples and finding the settings and workflow that’s right for you.



  • After having to fly United a bunch of times this summer, they changed the names of the tickets and invented a new “no one wants that” tier.

    There’s now standard economy which is what everyone’s used to and gives you a “personal item” (i.e. a backpack or a purse) and a “carry on item”, and basic economy which only includes the personal item. They mention it on their website, but on third party websites its not quite as obvious which ticket you’re getting.

    It has been a nightmare - on every single flight there’s a crowd of people pissed that they aren’t allowed a carry on with their ticket, with them having to run halfway across the airport to upgrade their tickets or pay 3x as much for a bag they thought was included.

    If you’re being charitable, it’s a roundabout discount on checked bags to fix the problem they invented by charging for checked bags and then sucking at handling them. Every single flight I took had them asking for people to check their carry on for free because the bins were going to be overloaded, and it seems like they want to incentivize actually checking a bag again.

    I started instantly asking them to gate check my carry on (for free) because honestly, the airport experience is way nicer when you don’t have to deal with your luggage all the time. If you check 1 bag as a couple you might even save money, and if you’re alone it might be worth the difference to not have to worry about only having two pairs of pants on your three week trip.

    More realistically they want to normalize having to pay for carry on the same way they did checked bags, and they are trying to sneak around that by starting with only their new BS economy tier. Wouldn’t surprise me if they got rid of “basic” and just made carry on a “business class” or whatever amenity.







  • Custom keyboards took off because of mechanical switches. Back in the day people wanted mechanical switches because they last longer than membrane ones, and so you wound up with a bunch of companies producing relatively easy to manufacture mechanical switches. Those switches all felt and sounded a little different so you got people who wanted a specific feel and sound and it grew from there.

    There hasn’t really been the same push with mice because even really cheap ones work really well. Optical sensors are way harder to produce than key switches, and while there are a few different ones on the market other than dpi and polling rate they kind of all act the same - it kind of either tracks right or it doesn’t. There’s no differentiation unlike switches that are “tactile” or “linear” or “scratchy”. And because of size restrictions you can’t really have the same kind of switches as keyboards use for the buttons. And unlike the really niche keyboard people who do their own PCB and machine their own case, making a good mouse on your own from scratch is way more difficult. They’re weird shaped and it’s much more difficult to change things like optical tracking algorithms compared to macros on a 40% keyboard. You can do a run of 100 super niche keyboards and make it work, but just the injection molds for one mouse mean you need to make 10000, which stops it being a project and makes it a business.

    There are premium mice manufacturers, but in general they either are going super light, super ergonomic, or super functional - and honestly they have a hard time competing with a company like Logitech that can produce really similar features for a fraction of the cost and have a decent reputation to boot.


  • I believe you can change the scaling algorithm obs uses? Right click the source and go to “scale filter” is what Google is telling me, not at a computer right now. I think it defaults to bicubic which should be ok though? The switch does its own internal scaling a lot of the time and that can look pretty bad though, but unless you get into some serious shenanigans that’s basically baked in.



  • It entirely depends on how much and what you’ll use them for. They’re going to be around $200 USD all in, so if they’re for occasional use probably not. If you’re going to use them a lot like for work or a regular hobby then it’s not a crazy amount to spend. They tend to be more comfortable than flange earplugs, and a little better than foamies, but for me at least I don’t want them in for more than 3 hours.

    Etymotic makes a few different ones for general noise, sleeping, music, and they also do ones for their earphones.


  • Look for a local print or embroidery shop that you can get like work shirts and business cards and whatnot made. Unless you’re really in the middle of nowhere, there’s probably a local print shop that will at least be able to point you in the right direction. If you want a one off instead of a small batch look for a place that offers embroidery - it sounds more expensive but because they can just throw whatever on the machine and do a one off, it’s usually actually less expensive than traditional screen printing. Specifically for hats in not sure if you can get them digitally printed in most smaller local shops.


  • If you are working with a specific company to produce a personalized / custom product, they will generally have at least one person on staff that can do design, or at least deal with any file conversion and technical stuff like that. They should be able to quote you a price.

    If you are working with an artist first, they may have a company they’re familiar with to have the item produced, and if they do, should be able to handle most of it themselves. If they don’t, or you would like it produced somewhere specific, just let the artist know - most places will have all the information the artist will need on their website, or the artist can just get in touch with them directly.

    In general, if you’re going to an artist or design shop they should be able to give you some kind of quote with a very rough idea of what you want - especially if they do this professionally, talking to people who don’t have an art background is basically half their job. If you want to be specific it’s much more useful to send something like a mood board or a collage of similar things than a bunch of text. It’s also generally a good idea to be open to their ideas, as they often have experience that may be helpful and will see some problems much quicker than you might.


  • Yeah newsprint would be a pain in an inkjet depending on exactly what it’s like. It might not even be much thinner, it’s often a little “fluffy” so it can be printed fast.

    If you take it in somewhere and get it spiral / coil bound that’s probably your best bet if you don’t want to do a binder. You can do it yourself but you basically need a little desktop machine to do the punching which is annoying unless you’re doing it regularly.

    Traditional hardcover probably won’t work for you. That involves printing a bunch of booklets called signatures then sewing them together and it’s a whole thing. Basically there’s a reason well made hardcover books are expensive.

    You could do perfect or tape binding pretty easy though. Essentially you glue all the edges to a backing and then wrap a cover around it. It works ok for low usage, but if you want it to lay flat or hold up to abuse you’ll have problems. You can kind of mitigate that by using a gpod spine backing but it’s not a perfect solution. If the copy you have isn’t already laid out for printing it may be worth it to edit it a bit so the contents are farther from the spine if you do that, but it makes printing a bit more complicated.


  • So, I’ve never pirated a book but I do have some printing and binding knowledge, so some of this might be off base.

    If the original book isn’t fully chungus it’s probably printed on a low weight newsprint, a low weight coated paper, or something weird like vellum or scritta. Problem is most of that is going to be specialty and only really available in rolls or large sheets through a distributor.

    Most of the thinner stuff you’ll be able to find in sheets has become a thing with fountain pen lovers. Look for Tomoe River or Bank paper. They are in the 50gsm range and should be a bit thinner than normal 75ish gsm copy paper. It’s going to be way more expensive than normal printer paper but it should be thinner. The other issue is actually getting your printer to reliably print on thinner paper. Home printers, especially inkjets, really don’t deal with thin paper particularly well. Lasers usually do better since they tend to use a different paper pickup and path, but they can still have issues.

    Your printer should have a thin paper setting to reduce the amount of ink that it uses so you don’t get as much bleed. The other thing you’ll have to look out for is that those papers will take longer to dry than normal paper, so if your printer has a drying time you’ll probably need to set it as high as it will go. You might even want to wait a day before flipping it over for the duplex print. Which you definitely should some that will literally halve the size of the book. It will probably be fine anyway since this is likely a multi day project just given how long it will take to spit 1000 pages out of an inkjet.

    Unless you absolutely need to have the whole thing with you all the time, I would consider printing it in volumes. Even if you duplicate sections like an index or glossary or reference section or whatever, you’re still probably going to have a lot less trouble and maybe spend less.