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SPF sound format
SamIAm - Feb 21, 2005
  SamIAm Feb 21, 2005
I've been enjoying some of the music from Astra Superstars a lot, and I would like to be able to play some tracks from my PC. I could just rip it all analog-style, but I'd rather not go that route because of difficulty and quality loss. I know there's nothing out there for the Saturn like .spc for SNES and .psf for PSX, but this is different anyway. All the music is contained in track-corresponding files on the CD with .spf tagged on the end. The size of the files - usually 30mb or so, and they stream off the CD to play - would suggest that this format is remotely similar to WAV. This makes me optimistic about there being some way to play it from a PC with a simple codec, but I don't really know much about this stuff. I've tried looking up information on spf, but I haven't found a single thing. Can anyone offer any suggestions? As always, any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 mrkotfw Feb 22, 2005
i'm not sure but why not try looking at the files with a hex editor?

 SamIAm Feb 22, 2005
All right, so I took another good look at the readme that comes with The Rockin'-B's Sega Saturn Wavetools program, and it seems that there are a lot of music/sound formats in Saturn games that essentially fall under "PCM" but are named differently, and SPF seems to be one of them. Sure enough, by renaming the files I want to hear to .pcm, I can get SSwavetools.exe to spit out a .wav file. But there are problems:

1. Depending on which sample rate I use, the song is either stretched to twice it's normal length, or it is raised an octive in pitch.

2. The music doesn't flow properly; there are weird stretches and skips all over the place, no matter how I encode it.

Unfortunately, considering problem #2, using Nero Wav-editor to transpose the track down an octive doesn't work. Should I just assume that oddities in spf format will keep this from converting properly?

Here are the settings I am using:

Mono

16-bit resolution

32000 sample rate (double length)/64000 (octive higher)

 RockinB Feb 22, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by SamIAm@Tue, 2005-02-22 @ 02:01 AM



1. Depending on which sample rate I use, the song is either stretched to twice it's normal length, or it is raised an octive in pitch.



2. The music doesn't flow properly; there are weird stretches and skips all over the place, no matter how I encode it. 



Unfortunately, considering problem #2, using Nero Wav-editor to transpose the track down an octive doesn't work. Should I just assume that oddities in spf format will keep this from converting properly? 



Here are the settings I am using:



Mono



16-bit resolution



32000 sample rate (double length)/64000 (octive higher)




[post=130209]Quoted post[/post]


Hey!

Please don't use the old SSwavetools, instead use the new RB_SaturnPCM.EXE....

As for 1:

Maybe the song is in stereo? That would explain it's double length.

As for 2:

From such a big filesize, I haven't expected that you hear anything after conversion.

That's because such big sound files are AIFF or AIFF-C format(ACX on some games) on Saturn(and not raw PCM), which is currently not supported by the tool.

Take a hex editor and look at the start of the file for words like "FORM", "AIFF" or post the header here.

If it turns out to be usual AIFF, you can use any sound program for conversion.

But if it's raw PCM, that would be very interesting, since I don't know a way how to play them on Saturn(without some hacking).

Damn that I don't own this game...

The "weird stretches and skips" could possibly mean that the file contains multiple sound files with different sound attributes.

BTW: a new version of RB_SaturnPCM.EXE will be released soon, which fixes a little noise glitch at start of some converted files.

 SamIAm Feb 23, 2005
Hello Rockin'-B, and thank you not only for your reply, but for all your work on your conversion tool. Now, let's get down to business.

I checked the actual game running in my Saturn again, and the audio is definitely in stereo. Unfortunately, changing that option in your program doesn't really fix anything. With stereo enabled, it seems that the two channels are thrown off synch, each speeding up and slowing down erratically and independently of the other. It's very strange.

I've looked at one of the files with a hex editor, and I didn't see anything like what you described. Nero wave tools will not recognise the file no matter what. Do you have any recommendations for other sound programs to check these out?

In case you are curious, I have attached to this post a complete copy of one of the smaller files (3.9 megs compressed). By encoding it with [mono - 16bit - 64000], then dropping it 12 halftones (1 octive), you can get an idea of what it should sound like.

Thanks again for your help, and here's hoping for the best

 SamIAm Feb 23, 2005
OK, stupid glitch, that last file is (obviously) too small. Try this one.

EDIT: Third time's a charm. Either the site doesn't like me, or my ISP doesn't like the site.

EDIT #2: That's three times I've uploaded the file without anything happening. What's going on?

 mal Feb 23, 2005
Err, try which one? :huh

 RockinB Feb 23, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by SamIAm@Wed, 2005-02-23 @ 12:53 AM



I checked the actual game running in my Saturn again, and the audio is definitely in stereo. Unfortunately, changing that option in your program doesn't really fix anything. With stereo enabled, it seems that the two channels are thrown off synch, each speeding up and slowing down erratically and independently of the other. It's very strange. 



I've looked at one of the files with a hex editor, and I didn't see anything like what you described. Nero wave tools will not recognise the file no matter what.
[post=130283]Quoted post[/post]


That missing header complies to raw PCM format.

The raw PCM stereo format got the right channel in the first half of the file. This means when you convert these stereo SPR files with mono option, you should hear right channel first, followed by left channel. Because both channels are very correlated, it might appear like hearing the same sentence twice.

If the file converted contains multiple (stereo) files and you convert it as if it where a single stereo PCM, it's clear that you hear totally different music on each channel.

So all you've experienced points to multiple stereo files inside one file. What you need to know is the offset table.

I would:

1. convert the stereo SPR file with mono option

2. take a wave editor with waveform viewing like CoolEdit2000

3. Try to find out the exact time offsets where the converted music changes to another track/samplerate/bit resolution

4. convert the time offsets to byte offsets starting from the first and having stereo and bit resolution in mind

5. extract the shit from the original raw PCM(maybe hex-editor) and convert each seperately with RB_SaturnPCM.EXE and appropriate attributes.

I would like to hear to a mono conversion for myself.

You could compress the first 60 seconds or so as mp3.