EVE General Discussion

Ok here comes some hints related to CQ and video conversion...
If you want to discuss about the devblog content, head here.

- You want to have constant 30+ fps in cq to get continous video and sound (drop shader quality to "low" if needed).
- Recommended input/output video resolution is 16:9 1280x720, but lower resolution works fine too.
- Radtools-utility

Step 1
While you convert the video with radtools, choose the input file, hit "bink it!"-button and use following options:
- Choose output file name and location
- Compress to a data rate (bytes): 650 000
- Keep peak data rate under the overall data rate: 3.0
- No Scaling
- Frames to preview during bandwith allocation: 8
- Input video settings: adjust (adds/removes frames) to: 25
- All other fields empty.
--> Hit "bink" and wait for the conversion process...

Step 2 (optional but recommended)
- Open your source video file with Sony Vegas or similiar suitable program and extract the audio track to wav-file.
- Open the source wav file in CoolEdit or similiar suitable program, apply some appropriate effects** and normalize sound to 25percent*.
--> Save the edited wav and proceed to step 3.

*) Sound will dampen additional ~50percent when playing in CQ. If you normalize track to 5percent, it is almost impossible to hear in CQ. 15percent very quiet and 25percent is slightly quieter than CQ jukebox on 100percent while playing internal tracks. I don't recommend using much higher volume than 25percent if you want your video to blend in with other CQ elements. Only way to tune the volume in CQ is the "master level" slider!

**)In cooledit you get very nice CQ echo effect by applying "echo chamber"-effect to your clip with "Ambient metal room" preset:
- room width:50, lenght:50, height: 10
- intensity: 30percent, echoes: 15000
- Damping factors left:1, right:1, back:1, front: 1, floor:0.2, ceiling:0.5
- Dx from left wall: ss left: 22, ss right: 25, mp left: 5, mp right: 45
- Dx from back wall: ss left: 5, ss right: 5, mp left: 30, mp right: 40
- Dx above floor: ss left: 6, ss right: 5.5, mp left: 2, mp right: 3
- Damping frequency 11000Hz
- Mix left/right into single source [unchecked]

Step 3
After video conversion is finished...
Open radtools and select the converted.bik file. Hit "Mix in sound"-button and use following options:
- Select soundfile to mix (source sound). This can be either the original video file* or separate audio file.
- Select output for your final CQ-movie.bik
- Sound compression: 4
- Output sound format, rate: 44100hz convert to: 16-bit/stereo
- All other fields empty.
--> Hit "mix" and wait for your finished movie.

*)Known issue: sometimes sound can 2x too slow if you try to import it directly from mp4 file. Extract audio to wav file with Sony Vegas or any other suitable program and import after that.

Anyways I'm sure there will be better documents than this and people will disagree with some stuff I just said. Meanwhile this is all I can offer :) Have fun and watch this sandbox... you never know what appears ;)

Pre-converted example videos for CQ use:
Frameranger
Starstruck
Crucible Trailer

Here is some example content for your CQ flatscreen :)

Name: Frameranger (click for youtube preview)
Description: assembly2009 democombo winner
Composer: CNCD & Fairlight & Orange
Source of original mp4 file: media.assembly.org
Source of original demo: scene.org

The bik file audio is enviromentally modified for CQ use and volume is normalized to 25percent. File is provided "as is" and to be used in CQ only.
Link to .bik file (download this for your CQ)

When you have downloaded the .bik file, copy it to "CQScreenVideos" subfolder in your cache folder.
After that you are ready to enter your CQ and enjoy the show... :)

Any tips on doing a 3-step conversion attempt?
I have tried FLV>AVI>BIK or MKV>AVI>BIK (found Freemake Video Converter to use) and sometimes just doesn't work right. Inside the game it runs a little slow but outside the game it runs fine.

I know nothing about all this. I just looked up online for other converters. I installed converters/downloader add-ons in Mozilla but one that has a converter in it puts a blurry watermark in the upper left corner (why bother if you can't even identify it...) for the free version.

Edit: I just tried to convert an mkv>avi (using Freemake Video Converter) >bik and all I got was the audio. When I clicked "View" a tiny window popped up all scrunched down to just the title bar and a thin black line. When pulling it apart there is just a black window.

Edit2: Just tried to convert the mkv>mpg then to bik. After clicking Bink the compressor window sits for about 10 seconds then the "Rad Video Tools has stopped working" window comes up so I have to close that window (but it doesn't actually close the program).

Once again a fail.

I just used a downloader to take the CCP PI tutorial video (720p mp4) straight from their YouTube posting, convert>bik...no deal; I just get a pop up box telling me "Error opening: (file name)"...convert to avi then to bik...no deal...I STILL get the tiny box with sound only!

They are not there. I never put anything on my C drive if I can help it.
I convert the output to a different drive/partition and if it works I move it over.
The name of the file is simply, "720p 152 kbit EVE Online Planetary Interaction Tutorial.mp4".
There is nothing wrong with that name, otherwise Windows would tell me I couldn't name it.

Here is another example video for your CQ flatscreen :)

Name: Starstruck (click for youtube preview)
Description: assembly2006 democombo winner
Composer: TBL
Source of original avi file: ftp.untergrund.net
Source of original demo: scene.org

Interesting facts:
In Demo competition only realistic limitation for the demo was the speed of a high-end 2006 PC computer. However this demo was made with Amiga and it won. That is quite an achievement.

The bik file audio is enviromentally modified for CQ use and volume is normalized to 25percent. File is provided "as is" and to be used in CQ only.
Link to .bik file (download this for your CQ)

When you have downloaded the .bik file, copy it to "CQScreenVideos" subfolder in your cache folder.
After that you are ready to enter your CQ and enjoy the show... :)

Easy... Bink this

your method can lead to some rather huge files. have you tried using the % convert at 100. in theory this will neither compress nor decompress the video and generate a near identical file size

Still no help on my issues though...


edit: possible good news. I noticed that when clicking Play on the Bink viewer on a .mov file, my VLC would open and tell me it couldn't (properly) play it. It would show the video but no audio. Odd that it would be the other way around when converted. I installed Quicktime and now I am trying to convert again from a mp4 taken from YouTube. I clicked Preview and the first few seconds were fine.
I looked at the FAQs at the RAD website and saw this:



It is going to take a little over an hour to convert this 4:38 music video at 100% 720p.

Holy krap!!

Thanks Stormshadow, this makes CQ much more attractive.
I converted a bunch of Star Trek - The Next Generation episodes and it fits in very well, frikken awesome addition!
CCP should apply the suggestion you made regarding moving the volume control to its own seperate control on the client setup menu.

Wow, too cool, huge thumbs-up