Question / Help OBS Local Recording Quality Won't Improve No Matter What I Do

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sodaguy

New Member
Before I start off, I'd just like to say I've already tried everything mention in this thread and nothing is working. So please don't refer me back to that thread unless it can actually help me in some way.

Alright, so for most of yesterday I was trying to get decent local recording quality from my Wii U, which I eventually intend on uploading to youtube. However, if the original video quality looks as this, then after youtube re-encodes it will look even worse.

Honestly there's not much more to say i guess, other than that I've used the suggested settings in the first linked thread and it just doesn't seem to help me. My recording device is the Livegamer HD.

So, in conclusion, can anyone help me get really good local recording quality?
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
crf of 5 isn't doing any favors.
crf 15 is probably closer to ideal.

It could simply be that you've got your expectations set too high.
 
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sodaguy

New Member
I've tried 15, 20, 5, 3, 1, 0 with perhaps a very tiny 2% difference. I have an Intel i7 4770k processor so it should be able to run the higher quality settings considering it's not doing anything else.

Perhaps you're right, and OBS is just not very good for recording...
 
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FaHu

FaHu

Member
You set the wrong bitrate :D . Set a higher bitrate. Probably 4000 or 5000 and the stream will look amazing in 720p 60fps. 1750 is much to less for record 720p ^^
 
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sodaguy

New Member
Huh, but my bitrate was set to 99,999. How is it less than that? I originally had it at like 20,000 but it didn't do anything for me so I put it at 99,999.
 
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Osiris

Active Member
FaHu said:
You set the wrong bitrate :D . Set a higher bitrate. Probably 4000 or 5000 and the stream will look amazing in 720p 60fps. 1750 is much to less for record 720p ^^
Click to expand...

Later on he's using the settings from the recording guide, where the bitrate you set doesn't matter.

sodaguy said:
I've tried 15, 20, 5, 3, 1, 0 with perhaps a very tiny 2% difference. I have an Intel i7 4770k processor so it should be able to run the higher quality settings considering it's not doing anything else.

Perhaps you're right, and OBS is just not very good for recording...
Click to expand...

What's wrong with the quality of the image you posted?
Also your capture card is set to 1280x800, while your base resolution is set to 1920x1080, this definitely does not help. Since OBS will have to upscale.
 
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Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
Your capture card can only do either 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p30. If you choose the 720p version, as you have, then its never going to look like it originally did. You should probably do the 1080p at 30fps instead.

Second, your recording settings aren't ideal for your CPU...

Turn CFR back on.
Use High profile (sometimes you had it set to Main)
Settings different bitrates does nothing while you're using a CRF. To change quality, change your CRF. Just set it to 15 and leave it.
Change your preset to SuperFast, VeryFast, Faster, or Fast. Your 4770k CPU should be able to do Fast, but you might do Faster to be safe. But the important thing is to use no worse than SuperFast because UltraFast turns off some x264 features that can't be compensated for by increasing the bitrate (or decreasing the CRF).

If you really want a high quality capture and 60fps recordings, you need a better capture card, because your capture card can't do 1080p60.
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
crf-based bitrate selection means the preset is irrelevant. The encoder will simply increase bitrate instead of drop quality.
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
Harold said:
crf-based bitrate selection means the preset is irrelevant. The encoder will simply increase bitrate instead of drop quality.
Click to expand...

That's not true at all. While it may try to hit the same quality level, the preset absolutely makes a difference in which features are enabled and how much CPU it uses to encode the video. It may try to make up for a poorer quality preset with more bitrate to achieve the same quality, but the preset is in no way irrelevant. Also, as I said, if you use UltraFast some things are turned off which can't be made up for with bitrate no matter how much is used. So for best quality, use at least SuperFast, if not something slower.
 
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sodaguy

New Member
Osiris said:
Later on he's using the settings from the recording guide, where the bitrate you set doesn't matter.



What's wrong with the quality of the image you posted?
Also your capture card is set to 1280x800, while your base resolution is set to 1920x1080, this definitely does not help. Since OBS will have to upscale.
Click to expand...

Well, quite frankly the screenshot is significantly blurrier than what I see when I'm actually playing a video game. I mean, I realize capturing video in the first place there will be a drop in quality from the get-go but if I had a way of comparing the two you'd be able to tell a significant difference. It just looks bad to me.

What do you mean exactly by my capture card's resolution being set to 1280x800? Do you mean its native resolution or within OBS? From my point of view within OBS, its actual resolution is 1920x1080 but its being downscaled to 1280x720 because I don't see a point in having a 1080p video for youtube unless you're big-time.

Boildown said:
Your capture card can only do either 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p30. If you choose the 720p version, as you have, then its never going to look like it originally did. You should probably do the 1080p at 30fps instead.

Second, your recording settings aren't ideal for your CPU...

Turn CFR back on.
Use High profile (sometimes you had it set to Main)
Settings different bitrates does nothing while you're using a CRF. To change quality, change your CRF. Just set it to 15 and leave it.
Change your preset to SuperFast, VeryFast, Faster, or Fast. Your 4770k CPU should be able to do Fast, but you might do Faster to be safe. But the important thing is to use no worse than SuperFast because UltraFast turns off some x264 features that can't be compensated for by increasing the bitrate (or decreasing the CRF).

If you really want a high quality capture and 60fps recordings, you need a better capture card, because your capture card can't do 1080p60.
Click to expand...

I've tried it with CFR on and it doesn't look much better. I'll try it again to be thorough. though. I'll post a screenshot again in a second once I've tried it.
Honestly , all I've wanted was 720p 60fps so if I can achieve that I'll be very happy.

EDIT: Alright so I tried it with CFR turned on and it looks a little better. Image

Okay so I found out I had the capture card (as a source) set to 1080p, so I turned it down to 720 and I think it looks even better. But I still feel it could be just a little more crisp? Maybe I'm just asking for too much but here is what it looks like after the fix.

I think after that little tweak it looks alright, but just to make 100% sure do you guys think it looks about right in that last image?
 
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sodaguy

New Member
Osiris said:
In your log the avermedia's resolution was set to 1280x800
Click to expand...

I see it does say that as its true res, but as far as I'm concerned this is not the case. At least, it shouldn't be. How would I go about fixing this?
 
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Osiris

Active Member
You set the resolution in the video capture device source, if the custom resolution is set to 1280x800 in there it is actually capturing at that resolution.
 
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sodaguy

New Member
Osiris said:
You set the resolution in the video capture device source, if the custom resolution is set to 1280x800 in there it is actually capturing at that resolution.
Click to expand...

Oh. Yeah it was never set to that. I mean, it has literally been set to either 1920x1080 or 1280x720 the entire time but i guess there was some sort of messup?
 
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