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CPK Video Codec

Hoagie - Aug 15, 2002

		Hoagie		Aug 15, 2002
			Is the codec Saturn games used at all available? My hopes are low that I would be able to reencode the video, but I thought I would ask. I would like to add some subtitles to a few of the videos on some of the games I am working on.

		CyberWarriorX		Aug 15, 2002
			Aside from using the Cinepak codec included with windows and using avi2cpk on the output, no. In fact, i'd personally recommend you not use this method as in most cases you get a pretty mangled cinepak file. If you had some asm knowledge(or know someone with some), you could try rigging up a subtitle overlay. Of course this wouldn't be easy. In reality, we'll probably have to wait until a former developer decides to release the programs and code we're still missing -or- someone writes a program which properly encodes them. Neither sounds very likely. Cyber Warrior X

		Weston		Aug 16, 2002
			I actually got the source code to a program that does just what you want, it's for windows but i'm porting it to the mac. It's called "AviToSaturn" i'm sure that if you search for it on google you come up with the homepage for it, it's unsupported but I emailed the author and he sent me the code to try and port (it's a lot of mfc code, and mfc just plain sucks ass).

		Hoagie		Aug 19, 2002
			Hm... Google doesn't seem to have any entries for it. I stand shocked and stupified! Thanks for the pointer though, I'll keep looking for it every so often -- I want to worry more about the whole game translation, rather then just stamping the opening song. Hoag

		vbt		Aug 20, 2002
			Weston, can you put "avitosaturn" on an ftp or somewhere else, I'm sure people would be interested by this software.

wonder_k

Aug 20, 2002

	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by vbt@Aug. 20 2002, 2:21 pm



Weston, can you put "avitosaturn" on an ftp or somewhere else, I'm sure people would be interested by this software.

you got a point there....

		Weston		Aug 20, 2002
			I might put it on either my website or locke's ftp. but i'm busy at the moment.

		vbt		Aug 20, 2002
			please, it will take you five minutes. Use my FTP or send it by mail (vberthelot@free.fr...)

		vbt		Aug 31, 2002
			thanks a lot Weston , I've added the file on an HTTP site because FTP section is closed. Here is the link : AviToSaturn... I hope people will enjoy it.

		CyberWarriorX		Aug 31, 2002
			Wow, I must say, this time i'm really impressed! Spent a good chunk of the day doing tests, etc. I did my own half-assed translation of the opening movie in Langrisser III, subtitled it, re-encoded it, rebuilt a new disk image(using vcdbuild+stripvcd), burned it, and tested it on my saturn. To my surprise, no skipping or other weird anomalies were present. So basically, a perfect encode! Though I did notice the quality suffers a great deal. To give you an idea, I used the Langrisser III movie from the Langrisser IV(for psx) disc as my source. Here are some screenshots: http://www.emuxhaven.net/~translationnext/...shots... http://www.emuxhaven.net/~translationnext/...shots... http://www.emuxhaven.net/~translationnext/...shots... Hmm... That reminds me, Weston, did the author say anything about whether or not he cares about redistributing his program or source? Just curious since it appears he had intentions of selling it or something at one point(the program refers to itself as a crippled demo). If he doesn't mind, maybe ice, skank, rev, or someone should consider posting something about it. hint hint Cyber Warrior X

Weston

Sep 4, 2002

Well, here is the email i got from him:

	
	
		
		
			I've attached the source code for AviToSaturn.exe. I no longer use or support this application, since I left the game industry (I really need to update my website!)



Also, you'll see that I was still learning about Windows programming, and I was under a deadline to generate Cinepak files. If I were to write this application today, there are many things I would do differently...



Good luck with your project.

		CyberWarriorX		Sep 4, 2002
			Ah, that would make sense. Maybe i'll try to mess around with the code as well. Perhaps i'll learn something. Cyber Warrior X

		Bluetones		Sep 7, 2002
			I got a question for Cyber. If you can encode a file to cnpk and then play it on your saturn, can you do a whole movie and insert it into a gamne with no problem?

		CyberWarriorX		Sep 8, 2002
			In theory you could, but you would need a program for playing it. The standard SBL/SGL libraries that are floating around don't include any kind of CPK playback so you would probably end up having to write your own decoder as well. It also brings about the question i'm sure other people are wondering - Why would you want to do that anyways? There are other, better movie formats for saturn to choose from. Cyber Warrior X

		TakaIsSilly		Sep 8, 2002
			This goes a wee bit off topic, but I just had the silly idea of implementing a MJPEG-like cinepack decoder. MJPEG is, in it's simplest fashion, successive JPEG images streamed together. It makes _huge_ files, but with very good quality. I wonder if a Saturn could handle 15-fps decoding of these, at 320x240 or so... In a C written decoder, that is.