HAM Video tutorial

[majsta]

Ok after lot of testing here is tutorial enjoy...

http://majsta.com/modules.php?name=N...=article&sid=9

[lolafg]

Great tutorial , thanks a lot

[magnetic]

majsta

Very well put together write up. Thank you so much

[Rebel-CD32]

Does the audio in these videos eventually go out of sync? I never understood the advantage of this format over CDXL.

[magnetic]

rebel: cdxl is limited by resolution like 320x240 iirc..

[Rebel-CD32]

CDXL isn't resolution restricted, you can make them in any resolution you want. One limitation was the drive speed, which is why many CDXLs were lower resolution, they were made to spool from 1x and 2x CDROM drives. They can be 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256 or 4,096 colours, using either a fixed palette or a different palette per frame, and the audio stays in sync with the frames.

[magnetic]

Interesting info! Didnt know that thanks a lot. Are there any downloadable examples of a CDXL movie running 640x480?

[jimbob]

Nice guide majsta, worked first time. I had no idea this was possible. My Xbox loving brother is gonna shit his pants when I show him COD "running" on my amiga, .

Shame about the watermark from shareware total video commander, anyone suggest an alternative program for cheapskates like me?

Magnetic, isn't this format limited to 320x216 as stated in majstas guide?
Is this the max resolution of HAM?

Rebel, guessing by the way audio and video are split, converted separately and recombined that they will be out of sync. Is CDXL better in this regard?

Right, I'm off to read through the movies on amiga thread to see what else is up with this.

[majsta]

Regarding to watermark you can contact me on my website and we will solve that

[mazxim]

Nice tuturial Majsta! Thanks.. but I have a problem - just doesn't work for me. I carefully followed the steps but when I'm on the Shell and launch HAMP.RUN, all I got is a screen flash and the pointer disapper. Perhaps with my actual configuration (Windows7, K-lite codec pack) I have a problem loading .avi from .flv converted on Virtualdub (it get me some kind of error like "video data is too short") but it works fine with avi converted from .mp4 But still, with a working avi, it doesn't work and produced the effect described above. On the amiga side, I tried with an A1200 + ClassicWB 2.6. Same effect with WinUAE and it's configuration replica.

[majsta]

Use Total Video Converter as described for flv to avi conversation and then import it to virtualdub. Also maybe stipud question did you type hamp.run filename.hv. To see that your avi file is fine you can check info about the file with AVI4HV, because if avi does not meet requirements it can't be converted to *.hv.

[mazxim]

The .avi it's fine indeed I suppose, because I can proceed with the conversion without any issues. The problem is there when I try to launch a final .hv file within my evironment (ClassicWB 2.6) both on real A1200 and the emulator. I tried also with a perfectly clean ClassicWB 2.7 on the emulator - same problem (1 screen flash and the pointer disappear)

[jimbob]

Hi mazxim, I've seen what you describe and maybe I can help you solve it.

I saw this if I tried to use hamp.run as a default for a .HV file or double clicked on hamp.run and entered the filename as the option. When the pointer disappeared I thought the amiga had crashed but in fact something has just failed to open another screen properly and the pointer is somehow stuck on this non open screen. Just press left Amiga-m to bring the pointer back.(left Amiga-m to swap between screens IIRC)


The following should work -

Copy hamp.run to your c: directory, (just so it is in the command path).
OR, make sure hamp.run is in the same folder as the .hv files.

Open a shell, navigate to the folder containing your .HV file.

Enter hamp.run filename.hv

Should work if the file is good. For some reason Hamp.run doesn't like it when executed in some other ways, like as a default tool.

EDIT: oh also is your .HV file on IDE drive or pcmcia card? For some reason I also saw this when using a pcmcia card reader. Only works for me when the .HV is on the IDE. Maybe a red herring but in the emulator are you using a hardfile or a windows directory?

[jimbob]

I found an alternative to total video commander which also allows you to skip some other steps. I use the ffmpeg command line tool. Windows binaries are here -

http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Took me a while to figure this out as ffmpeg is very powerful and I really have no clue about video formats and stuff. I only tried this on .flv files from youtube but ffmpeg should auto detect the format of the input file. Anyhow, here is what you do.

Inserting your own filenames, not forgetting the extensions -

To just extract the raw avi like the step total video commander is used for this is the command.

ffmpeg -i inputfile -vcodec rawvideo outputfile.avi

To extract and convert the audio to the correct format at the same time use this command

ffmpeg -i inputfile -map 0:a -ar 16000 -sample_fmt u8 -acodec pcm_u8 audiooutputfile.wav -map 0:v -vcodec rawvideo videooutputfile.avi

Change 16000 to 22050 or 11025 or whatever for different audio output file sample rates. After this the audio file is ready but you stilll need to use virtual dub to change the video frame rate/frame size/colour format.

It should be possible to do the whole thing in one command but for some reason the avi4hv tool doesn't like the pixel colour format output by the following monstrosity

ffmpeg -i inputfile -map 0:a -ar 16000 -sample_fmt u8 -acodec pcm_u8 audiooutputfile.wav -map 0:v -r 15 -s 320x216 -vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt rgb555le videooutputfile.avi

As far as I can tell this should work but both virtual dub and avi4hv choke on the colour format of the output video file. VLCplayer has no problem with it. It would be great if anyone is an expert in ffmpeg or video in general could explain why avi4hv doesn't like it.

If this worked you could batch convert any amount of files you wanted with one command and would avoid the creation of such enormous intermediate files.

(BTW ffmpeg also has decode support for such things as CDXL, deluxepaint animation and delphine CIN formats. )

The tutorial is great but I've been having a few issues with it. Firstly not all videos convert when I start the AVI4HV console(I tried starting over from the beginning but still didn't work and I use the same procedure for all videos). Secondly the audio is often badly out of sync(and Cool Edit Pro cuts the audio after 1 minute anyway). Lastly, if I enable dithering it results in a huge increase of HAM artifacts-is there a way to enable palette slicing?

[amiman99]

Originally Posted by Dickie

Lastly, if I enable dithering it results in a huge increase of HAM artifacts-is there a way to enable palette slicing?

You need to start with a clean video source, the more compression artifacts you have the worst the video will look like in HAM mode.
Also, try to avoid high contrast videos.

[keitha1200]

I've extensively tried to get hamp running on 2 different 1200's with no luck (3.1/3.0-acc and non-acc). The video's just breaks-up/blank screen and with the occasional 'flickering' a clear picture.

I emailed the ham video to another EAB user and it worked fine on his ACA-600. I tried his 'working' COD version and the results were still the same. Anyone else having problems on a AGA machine?

http://www..com/?x2qzcxgktk4x9dn
http://www..com/?pus74bo0z5qr2iu

[amiman99]

I tried the first video and it works fine on my A1200 050 50MHz.
Try to use this ham player

[keitha1200]

Well I finally got my 1200 tower up and running again So thought I would try the hamp video clips via the 1200 tower/Microvitec (tower has an Apollo 030/34mb rather than ec030/16mb as in my desktop), and the clips ran 'lovely' .

The thing is: I also tried the clips on 1mb 600 (then adding a 1mb expansion)! The clips did run a lot better than they did on a standard 1200 and a 1200 030/16mb but there was still the odd bit of crashing etc. (The addition 1mb on the 600 made no noticeable difference)

So in conclusion: The hamp programme is more ECS friendly, than AGA friendly, (without lots of memory).

PS: Only my observations running the same clips via (3) A1200's (at different spec) and (1) A600.

Originally Posted by amiman99

I tried the first video and it works fine on my A1200 050 50MHz.
Try to use this ham player

What type of monitor are you using, and memory spec?

The only difference I can see from my tower and desktop set-ups is: different memory configuration and using a multi-scan monitor. I suspect it's a memory issue on the 1200.

[Amiten]

@majsta Congratulations good job

like you I did a while
and similarly a tutorial in which the result was equally successful.

in case anyone wants to look also leave the link here.

It is written in Spanish and since I link to the tutorial here translated by google translator.

Cheers!