Difficulties: 1/4/6/8/9
Includes creditless video and lyrics. NOTE: The Challenge [9] chart of this simfile contains Rolls, which is not supported in StepMania 3.9. Please use StepMania 3.95 CVS or StepMania 4 CVS if you plan to play the Challenge chart.
Technical Note:
This is my first simfile to see my new way of encoding videos from MKV/H.264 sources. In the past, I simply dumped the MKV file into RAD Video Tools, outputted a ~2gb uncompressed AVI of the song’s video, then cropped it in VirtualDub. However, RAD Video Tools would always dump out a 29.98fps AVI, but 99.9% of all MKV’s H.264 video tracks are encoded in 23.976fps by release groups. If I used VirtualDub to turn it back into 23.976fps, the video would stutter badly, especially noticeable if the image is simply panning horizontally or vertically. This method, as I now know, was extremely inefficient filesize-wise and performance-wise, since it took up more space and took more CPU cycles for lost video smoothness.
I have found a solution: Starting from now on, I am using MKVExtract to get a raw H.264 file, using MeGUI’s AVC2AVI to obtain a glitchy AVI, then using Adobe Premiere CS3 to dump out a proper AVI that VirtualDub can process. This will allow me to use 23.976fps for all my future videos obtained from MKV sources, which will be most useful to those with lower-end computers. I may apply this new method retroactively to my past simfiles with 29.98fps videos as well (off the top of my head, O2 and Special Life! are prime candidates).
