AVI recording 4GB limit

Hi,

I am trying to record the "Desert Dream" demo to an AVI file.

I tryed using Huffyuv 2.1.1 or Uncompressed RGB, but each time the file reach 4GB, the begining of the file get erased by the subsequent data, resulting in a corrupted stream.

I would like to use a lossless Codec as my goal is to compress the video in MPEG2 using TMPEGEnc, to make a DVD-Video of it.

It seems to be the well know 4Gb limit of AVI 1.0 files :-(

For information this limit only arise when using the old Video For Windows APIs.
When using the new AVI 2.0 format of the Windows Direct Show routines there are no size limitation.

A workaround would be the create multiple AVIs, 4GB each, but this feature is not implemented.

Does any body have any idea to solve this problem ?

I think this is something that should be corrected in future version of WinUAE, as using loseless Codec is the only way to get a perfect quality result.

I'd like to have the point of view of Toni about this.

[jmmijo]

Interesting, I've been toying with this same idea myself and didn't realize that there was a file size limitation at all

I too would like to hear what Toni has to say about this

[Echo]

Are you recording to a FAT32 filesystem by chance? Because this filesystem, irrespective of file format, has a limit of 4GB per file.

NTFS will go way above this, largest file I've had on the hd so far is an 8GB single VOB from a DVD. No problems accessing it under NTFS. Maximum limit is probably at least 32GB.


Edit: I have to admit, I wasn't particularly impressed by the Huffyuv codec. Considering it's based around a non-lossy compression algorithm, I was disappointed to discover it didn't support bitrate reduction. As far as capturing Amiga games, 8 bit colour is surely essential to get an optimal filesize.

[turk182]

This isnt a problem of Winuae and as such doesnt need to be 'corrected' ,I think its more of a mixture of the OS (as you say) and file limitations.
Have you tried to record upto a certain point ,save the state , stop the emulation, rename the avi and restart at the save state with another avi file name and continue from wher you left off?

[7-Zark-7]

Have you tried to split the capture up & then try to join the AVI files together using an editor like VirtualDub?

The limitation does not come from the OS, I am running Windows XP and the AVI is saved on a NTFS drive.

I had a look at the source code, and the APIs used to save the AVI are the old ones, from Video for Windows -> AVI 1.0.
So, the limitation actually come from WinUAE.

The solution of recording to a certain point and restart from there with an other AVI could be interesting (thanks! ), but I am not sure whether some frame will be missing.


By recording in lower resolution, I was able to save the entire demo to an AVI smaller than 4Gb, but now I discovered the Audio get un-synchronized of the Video

At the begining, sound and video are synchronized, but the more you advance into the video, the more the delay between audio and video is noticiable.
After 10 minutes there is about 2 seconds of delay.

This is anoying as this demo was well known to have a perfect synchronisation between music and visual effects.


Furthermore, the guys at http://www.demodvd.org are preparing a DVD-Video full of Amiga demo.
The first DVD they made was based on PC demo, and they only used analogue capture to realize it.

For the Amiga DVD, I think WinUAE could be a wonderfull help for them to achieve the best video quality, but the result must be as accurate as a real Amiga.

I hope those issues will be fixed in a future update...
May Toni read my comments...

[Toni Wilen]

§ane did the avioutput code, not me..

AFAIK, there is no MS supported AVI format that can store more than 4G.

Maybe easiest solution is to split the output in multiple max 2G AVI files when recording? Shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Looks like this format is actually supported by Windows Direct Show...
Take a look here : http://www.puremotion.com/resources/.../2gbfilelimit/

Now, maybe §ane can have a review to his code and use the new API ?

Fixing the delay on Audio/Video would by nice too.

[jmmijo]

So it looks like you'll only want to use Windows NT/2K/XP on an NTFS drive to create an AVI 2.0 file

[turk182]

larf , Ive always had this problem in development , do you code for the one request or for the many same requests and where is $ane?

[RCK]

if ($ane != §ane) {echo "auto reply to thread";}

[turk182]

Just shoot me! , §ane it is .. Im too lazy sometimes for me own good

[Echo]

Originally posted by trance007
By recording in lower resolution, I was able to save the entire demo to an AVI smaller than 4Gb, but now I discovered the Audio get un-synchronized of the Video

At the begining, sound and video are synchronized, but the more you advance into the video, the more the delay between audio and video is noticiable.
After 10 minutes there is about 2 seconds of delay.

This is anoying as this demo was well known to have a perfect synchronisation between music and visual effects.

This shouldn't be difficult to correct in Virtualdub. Load the AVI in, go to video > frame rate. VD will sometimes offer a value to sync AV but it's not always correct. If the suggested framerate doesn't help, then just experiment.

You can navigate to the end of the capture and preview the new framerate in realtime. When you're happy, click video > direct stream copy and hit F7, saving it in a new file.

Sorry for the delay, I was over-busy these time.

Concerning the synchronization problem, I opened a new tread here http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10376 as this problem is not related at all to the 4Gb limit.

Concerning the 4Gb limit, I hope that a future release will include an option to save the AVI on multiple 2Gb files, or use the new Direct Show routine (under NTFS drive only).