Hello guys. After a very long time, I realized I should share a tool which could help many people with file related side of their beatmaps. This is basically about conversion of videos to the format, which is acceptable in osu!, but also for personal usage, that depends on you. I've chosen one of the most reliable codecs, which is x264, because of its cool compression and compatibility. Remember this is only GUI, that means, tools used actually are not mine (so you shouldn't blame me for bug on the encoders), this is just interface to simplify the work with the encoder but avoid those programs which actually force you to use CABAC or deblocking filter, which is pretty much just making a huge load for your device while it is noticeable only on quite high resolutions, that means it is quite useless on osu!, obviously, you have the choice there.
Features
Download here
Features
- x264 Codec
- 4 possible choices of software set (There are both 10-bit depth and 8-bit depth versions of encoders, while each for 32bit and 64bit processors)
- Contains even audio converter, which is also suitable for osu! but offers more formats for export
- Input - File which you want to convert
- Preset - Choice of speed which you prefer. That will result in compression and quality, not that much, but there might be some artifacts on high speeds
- Tune:
- film - Use this if the video is taken by camera Not appropriate for osu!
- animation - Use this if the video is animation Not appropriate for osu!
- fastdecode - Disables CABAC and deblocking filter - Results in higher performance on playback, but lower compression. Ideal for osu! or games in general.
- Profile:
- Baseline - The most lossy choice, mostly for personal usage in slow devices/mobiles
- Main - Was frequently used for 4:3 resolutions, for TVs and so on
- High - Mostly used for HD (720p+) videos, very common nowadays
- High 10 - Not available for 8-bit x264! Mostly used for FullHD and above (1080p+) videos, takes longer time to encode, but results in the best compression
- Level - Important thing this afflicts is decoding speed, higher the level is, faster the decoding is, but on the other side, might take longer to encode. Lower than 4 cannot convert 1920x1080 videos, so I limited it to 4 minimum
- Bitrate - Determines how many bits of file size is video going to reserve for each second (Thus bitrate increases quality). For regular openings you can use around up to 1800, then it could get over rankable file size. For a reference, 8000-12000 (for lower frame rate) is used for original Blu-Rays (at least from what I have experienced)
- FPS - Determines how many frames per second should the video provide. Unless you want to change video's speed, keep original value from the video. Usually 24000/1001 for anime (use this value if you see 23.976 fps), 30000/1001 for films (use this value if you see 29.970) - Don't use decimal numbers but one of these fractions, 23.976 or 29.970 are rounded values and might result in delay - Little, but still. There might be other values, always check original video in a video player or something like that
- Resolution - Change this only if original resolution is too high for a rankable size, otherwise it is usually not needed. You should keep the same ratio of width:height
- open-gop - You usually keep this as it is, but this is used when many similar frames are used in a row. That actually makes smoother feel when the video plays, on the other hand when it changes to completely different picture, few frames might get messed if other settings are low, like profile or level. This does have more cons and pros, but actually this is like the most important, whole explanation would take a long time.
- Slices - Use this only if you are producing Blu-Ray video, otherwise it is not that important, this actually doesn't have that simple explanation as other things, so I'll have to explain just by usage. It is a little bit similar to GOP, also something like pre-rendering frames, but still is a little different from GOP. Nevertheless, both are usually seen at once on Blu-Ray discs.
- bluray-compact - Changes many settings, afflicts the performance of open-gop (should be enabled in this case) and other functions and filters. I recommend this if you really do make a blu-ray video, but if you are not, keep this as it is.
- Output - Determines where is the file going to be saved
- Update button - Use this if you just downloaded the tool! This is a choice of version, choose one of these, if you are not sure, take 8-bit x264 (x32), this will download the newest version of encoder, if you know you are going to use High 10, choose 10-bit x264 (x32) because it works for only for High 10, otherwise it is useless, however, results are shiny. It is not included in current download, so application will not work if you ignore this.
- Preset - veryslow
- Tune - fastdecode
- Profile - high
- Level - 5.0 - 5.2
- Bitrate - 1600 - 1800
- Resolution - Preferably 1280x720
Download here
Changelog
If you are having trouble on Linux, you may try uninstalling Java and all its packages with Synaptic and then reinstall Java with this script. This should run most Java applications on Linux, so it's fine for newbies. The easiest way will be "Manual Installation" (first method). I think I don't have to mention this most users already know, but don't use gaps or special characters for Linux systems.- 30.6.2015 - Application is now not closing after encode
- 1.11.2015 - Remake in Java for Linux support
- 3.11.2015 - Fixed a minor bug, renewed download link.
good work anyway