Question / Help OBS huge recording file size difference

T

TheeDrewGamer

Member
Hi guys,

This is a bit of a curious question, and it requires a little bit of back story.

I had my PC all set up, and I was recording Final Fantasy VIII and a Pokemon Ghost only challenge. The files were averaging around 5gb, which I always thought seemed huge for what I was recording. My pc had some issues, and I had to replace the Motherboard and reinstall everything.

Thankfully, I had taken photos of my OBS settings and I set it back up, with the exact same settings as before. Nothing has been altered. However, after doing some batch recordings for Final Fantasy VIII, the file sizes are suddenly averaging around 500mbs, depending on the recording size. Nowhere near the size of what I was getting before.

I was wondering if anyone knows what caused this, it doesn't appear that there is a huge loss in quality or anything. Maybe a tiny bit, but nothing major. I'm just curious as to why, it would suddenly change so much.

I've attached 2 images as well, the first is from ep4 of my lets play. Which was from a 5gb file, and the second is from ep6 a 500mb file. Both rerendered in premiere pro with edits, and then put through handbrake. It doesn't appear to be much difference.

FFVIII ep 4 screenshot.jpgFFVIII ep 6 screenshot.jpg
 
T

TheeDrewGamer

Member
Hi R1CH

I've added my log for you to look at, my settings were the same as what they used to be.

High quality, medium file size
MP4
Hardware (NVENC)
Base Resolution/Output Resolution - 1920x1080
Bicublic downscale
30 fps

I took a picture of the settings before I had to sort my PC out, that way I didn't lose them if anything went wrong. So I'm not sure why they're suddenly so small. But maybe the log will tell you.

https://obsproject.com/logs/e6QgGTdznUNt2dt8
 
T

TheeDrewGamer

Member
I thought the 3500 was just for the streams? As it was in the stream settings, but that could be why as I did do some streams the other day. And lowered down to 3500.

I just wanted to make sure the quality was fine, as the file size had a huge difference out of nowhere.
 
Last edited:
koala

koala

Active Member
The log tells the current settings, but to see what is different, we need to compare to the previous settings. Do you have a log file from before your change that contains a recording session? If not, a post of your screenshots from which you entered the new settings may tell the story.
 
T

TheeDrewGamer

Member
Hi Koala, thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I don't, but I can share the photo's I do have.

It's weird because I even set the bitrate back up to what it was in the screenshot, and it's still low. I know it's not a huge factor, because the quality is fine. But for it to go from 5gb down to 500mb seems weird. It could be that my old motherboard was just encoding it all wrong, it did weird stuff. It would turn off my usb 3.0 randomly, but only on windows 10.

Anyway, here are the photos I got of it. Apologies for the quality, I took pictures of them with my phone, so I had a constant record. Then I had to degrade them.

I put it up to indistinguishable quality, and it raised it over a gb. Which is fine. I'm just curious as to why they went from 5gb down to 500mb with my settings. I look through the videos, and there is no difference in quality. It's weird.


advanced1.jpgadvanced2.jpgoutput.jpgVideo.jpg
 
R

R1CH

Forum Admin
Developer
Your old settings was 30000kbps, and your new one is 3500kbps. If the content is simple enough to encode at 3500kbps, then it will fill the rest of the data with junk so it reaches 30000kbps. This is why using CBR is not a good idea for recording.
 
T

TheeDrewGamer

Member
I changed it back up to 30000 after my previous post about it, and it was still really low. But I'll try messing around with the advanced settings, you mentioned above. To see if that sorts anything out.

Also another question, I apologise if this seems obvious, but in my settings I see NVENC h.264, and NVENC h.264 (new). Is there a difference or should I use new over the other?
 
T

TheeDrewGamer

Member
Thank you for the clarification R1ch!

I changed my settings to match the recording settings, from the link that you posted above. So here is the advanced stream and recording settings I have now. I went over the directions posted, but I just wanted to check if I missed anything out.

I didn't do multiple audio sauces, as I use VoiceMeeter Banana for that.

OBS Advance record.jpgOBS Advance stream.jpg

edit - I had to change it back to CBR as I was getting a lot of pixalation on my test recordings. This was resolved by switching back.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top