Capturing NES footage (Version 1.0a)
Written by Fluxmeister
Download NNNesterJ (version .22c)
which includes avi output support. This avi output does not include
the audio but you can capture both audio and video at the same time and sync
them later. Oh yeah, if
you are new to 'emulation' you will need to find the NES rom of the game you want to capture footage from.
Fortunately the power of the Internet is unleashed: www.google.com
NNNesterJ (version .22c): http://www.zophar.net/nes.html
Things to do:
You can start avi recording with
"Ext" -> "Avi Record" -> "Avi Rec Start."
This will bring up the save
location for the avi. Next a window will pop up and give you the codec option.
I highly recommend
lossless, but the file size will get large fast. For example I took some Bionic
Commando footage as
a test.
For ~30 seconds of footage the size was 51mb!
You can start wav recording with
"File" -> "Wave Recording" and stop wav recording by hitting
wav recording again. If you are fancy you can just hit F11 to start and stop.
If you want to capture both audio
and video just do both. You will have to sync up the sound
in Premiere later. You're a video editor, you know how easy that is!
Important Note: NNNesterJ
likes to give errors just after exporting an avi. The emulator will outright
CRASH. (at least in WinXP) Fortunately if you are like me, you don't care because
the avi saved. If you
are doing audio capture AND video capture BE SURE TO STOP WAV RECORDING FIRST!
Unlike the avi export crash, your audio wav file will not be valid. Something
to keep in mind is the save
state function: F5 - Save, F7 - Load. This way you can save right before it
crashes as you stop
recording the avi (in case you are trying to get to some point in the game... )
More Important Notes: The
program includes some smoothing methods along with scaling functions.
I highly recommend changing the display to 2x under "option" ->
"display." If your game looks too smooth
to be a true NES game, then the 2xsai engine is probably on. Under "options"
-> "graphics" be sure
to turn off the 2xsai stuff by unchecking it. When it records it will remain
in the true NES resolution:
256x224. This should not be a problem as you can resize later.
Before you edit with these
avis in premiere:
It seems as though there is something odd about the
way these are exported from the program. You need to run them through Virtualdub
and save them as the
same avi type as you did from NNNesterJ. If you don't, premiere will export
a solid black avi. The same
goes for exporting even a bmp... you'll just get solid black. Ok, so Adiamante
pointed out the obvious.
The avi export is likely failing before closing off the file. Premiere being
the picky program it is at times...
doesn't really like to handle these correctly (even though premiere's monitor
might show game footage).
When you export from Virtualdub you
can resize the 256x224 up to 720x480 without worrying
about the destruction of your wonderful pixelation. Premiere does not resize
well, but virtualdub does!
So find "Video" -> "Filters" and add the resize filter.
The above is how I configured the resize filter for the export of the avi.
The above image is an example screen
from this resize process (I changed the black to bright green for
my next point) As you can see the footage sits in a box within the larger frame.
Wouldn't it be nice to
have the height of the game to at least be 480? (height of the full frame) Well
if you so feel you can use
the aspect ratio of 256/224. Because this is not a whole number ratio there
are two horizontal resolution
choices. 548 or 549. (256/224 = ~1.142) (480 x 256/224 = ~548.571) I tried both
548 and 549 for the
width and both looked just fine. Though I recommend you try different aspects
of your game sceens,
such as menus or actual gameplay, before settling on a given '(548/549)x480'
resolution.
Don't touch the filter modes... that will kill the awesome NES pixelation we love. :)
After all this, save the avi from virtualdub and it will be finally be usable in premiere!
Happy editing people!