Not clean picture in preview (and saving)

[kas1e]

Hi all!

Prehistory:

I own Aversmedia's LGP2 device to capture from some non-popular computer platform called "Amiga". The resolution it output is modern enough (like 1920x1080x60fps) and also some old school ones like 640x480, etc. At first, I use Aversmedia's ReCentral4 app. And while it records good enough 1920x1080, once I switch in the same video to 640x480 it records a few seconds and crashes. And basically, it has big issues when video resolutions change on the fly. I tried all the latest versions and firmware but this ReCetral app seems not good enough. So I give a go-to alternative and OBS is the first of the good ones I found. It records all resolutions fine and didn't crash in the process. But now, I have another problem.

The problem is: while in ReCetral the picture is crystal clean almost without artifacts on OBS it loos like something like .jpg losing a bit of quality in favor of size.

I grab 2 images from the same place and save them as PNG so you can see the differences.

See how it looks like in ReCentral4:



And now OBS:



Difference very visibly where device names are placed on desktop (those ones "ramdisk" "work" etc at the left). See for example at top of the word "Work" we have that kind of lower quality like we have when the same something to .jpg of middles quality. And basically, if you check all the text-names (like filenames, etc) which of black or blue color, around all of them on the gray background you can see it. It is like some "algo" applied on top in OBS, while in ReCentral it records like it.

Is there anything anywhere that I can change to make it looks the same clean as in ReCentral ?

Thanks!

 

[kas1e]

Can also anybody explain what uses OBS when grabbing the data from the capture device? What i mean is what is used for rendering preview images? It's just like .jpg format with lowered quality indeed. But I can't find anything in the settings about.

 

[kas1e]

Some interesting info on the topic: I also had Hauppauge's HD PRV 2 capture device. It also works with OBS same as LGP 2 from AverMedia, but (!) the preview (and so recoding too) with HD PRV 2 looks crystal clear! The same crystal clear as it looks like with LGP2 in their ReCentral capture app!

So as LGP2 with ReCentral give a clear picture, but OBS gives a "blurred" one, and OBS gives a clear picture with HD PRV 2, then it looks like something with LGP2/OBS combo happens.

Have anyone any idea to where look next?

Thanks!

 

[koala]

You probably need to change the encoder settings in OBS to record with a better quality. This is in Settings->Output. You didn't post a log from one of your recording sessions, so we don't know what settings you currently use.

Best thing to get a configuration suited to your machine would probably be to use the autoconfiguration wizard: Tools->Auto configuration wizard.

ps. after reading your last post, it's also possible you need to change some setting in the properties of your capture device in OBS. You may need to try a different video format. It might also be necessary to exactly match the actual resolution of the Amiga output, i. e. if it outputs 640x480, you should enter 640x480 as resolution in the device properties and not something like 1920x1080. However, since you didn't post a log, we don't know what settings you were actually using.

 

[kas1e]

So made logs. Where just run OBS and choose "fullscreen preview" and then exit for both LGP2 and HD PRO 2.

LGP2: 2021-12-13 10-58-13.txt
HD PRO 2: 2021-12-13 11-01-18.txt

In HD PRO 2 picture is crystal clear, while in LGP2 is "jpg" like. I check logs myself, and can see that for LGP2 "MJPG" is used for format and "H264" for HD PRO. It also shows that for HD PRO resolution: 720x480 (while it surely 1920x1080 in input, i.e. that what I have on amiga), and "resolution: 1920x1080" for LPG2 which is correct but still picture looks worse.

Is there any way that I can change "MJPEG" in format to "H264" ? I mean manually, inside of OBS somewhere.

 

[kas1e]

Oh, i seem to find how to make use of H264 instead of MJPEG (and that did the trick): by default OBS for some reason set all fine for HD PRO 2 but for LPG2 while it output 1920x1080 i need manually choice "Custom" resolution. At this point, I still have only "Any" in video formats. i then need to choose manually 1920x1080 to be able to have in formats field not just "any" but both MJPEG and H264 where i can choose H264 and save. Then all is fine.

A probable issue is that by default OBS takes resolution fine but sets the first found format in the list: mjpeg instead of h264. And to be able to have a chooose i need to set "custom" and "1920x1080" manually, only then does "format" has those options to choose from.

But now i had another issue. How can i tell OBS to resize with keeping aspect ratio 640x4 to 1920x1080 . For now, it resizes a bit bigger so not the whole picture fits in. is it possible somehow to tell OBS "if in the recorded video there will be switch to 640x480 then we scaling it to 1920x1080? but eep whole input is visible and centered".