Qhimm.com Forums
Miscellaneous Forums => Archive => Topic started by: xeriouxi on 2003-09-16 20:22:53
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Hi!
After being annoyed constantly by the poor codec used for compression of the Final Fantasy VII PC movies, I have decided to rip the originals off the PSX discs.
I mean, come on! Why couldn't they copy over the original .str files and use them!?
Well, anyway, I know that one problem is the music over the intro and ending movie. I remember someone saying that a program called 'Virtual Dub' would do it. Well, I tried it and it was difficult to use the interface, and I just couldn't get it working right. I did record the original, and overwrite it along with the OST track, but I don't preferably want to do this, as it loses it's 'originality'. :D
Does anyone know of any software that can just add a .wav or .mp3 file over an .avi at a certain point?
Also, I have tried a program called 'PSX Multi Converter' to rip the movies from the original. However, some have 'grey frames' when I rip them? Does anyone know of any other good movie rippers for the PSX Final Fantasy VII?
Phew! :lol:
Oh, yeah! I haven't showed my gratitude for previous post assistance! Thanks for all of your help! This is a great community, and i'm proud to be a member of it!
Oh, and finally, has everyone checked any of the Final Fantasy IX for PC petition posts in the 'General' section? Enough nagging and Squaresoft may decide to release it. I have seen screenshots of the PC development, and they look great!
Oops... I drifted off there! :lol:
xeriouxi.
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I have seen screenshots of the PC development, and they look great!
Any links to that? :wink:
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Wasn't it an April Fools joke or something?
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Wasn't it an April Fools joke or something?
Heh heh.....the old joke..
http://www.ffonline.com/news/news.php?article=2002-04-01
I pretty much doubt that Squaresoft will even bother work on a PC version for an old title like FF9......
And speaking about PC versions.... I've read the FF12 interview.... and the developer did mention about making it for the PS2 platform.... but he didn't mention anything about the PC version.........
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By the way... The .str files from the PSX version and the movies from the PC version are different in more than just file type... the PSX movies aren't... erm.. well-organised? Most of them start with the second half of one movie, and end with the begining of the next.. it would take some SERIOUS video editing to have anything usable by FF7. Not to mention that some video files in FF7 PC didn't use video files like the rest.. (Background stuff... the cloudscape int he hugwind, for example) Of course, if you already have the movies, you can just use the old ones for those... I strongly advise against it... there would be an insane amount of work for not much gain in quality... Trust me... I've tried. Not to mention, if the Video files aren't exactly the right length.. 3D models renderend on top of them lag and don't fit the camera motions.
Contra
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Try a program called SnagIt 6. But using it your gunna have to run the game to get each individual movie. It basically just records your screen, it's really nice if you want to download streaming .RM files / protected content.
Post 1000: I am a "No-Life"! Looking at the member list it seems I am the 11th member to reach =1000 posts!
8)
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After being annoyed constantly by the poor codec used for compression of the Final Fantasy VII PC movies, I have decided to rip the originals off the PSX discs.
Oh no you didn't! First of all, the PSX Multi-Converter works just fine when ripping the movies from FF7. However, that's not entirely the point. I ripped a few of the movies several months ago in hopes of doing the same thing you are. However, I was greatly disappointed. It ends up that the PSX cinematics are pretty much no different than the pc version's. I converted one of the PSX movies using the same codec the pc version cinematics use and there was pretty much no difference between the result and the pc version ones. Believe it or not, despite the dithering, but the movies included with ff7 are the highest-quality they are going to get. Unless you raid Square-Enix's computer and get the originals. Good luck with that.
I mean, come on! Why couldn't they copy over the original .str files and use them!?
Compatability issues.
Well, anyway, I know that one problem is the music over the intro and ending movie. I remember someone saying that a program called 'Virtual Dub' would do it. Well, I tried it and it was difficult to use the interface, and I just couldn't get it working right. I did record the original, and overwrite it along with the OST track, but I don't preferably want to do this, as it loses it's 'originality'.
Both versions (PSX and PC) of the intro and ending cinematics have the same exact music. I don't see the use of doing that whatsoever.
Does anyone know of any software that can just add a .wav or .mp3 file over an .avi at a certain point?
There are many. One I use is adobe premiere. You can buy it, or *cough* *download* *wheeze* *it*!!
Also, I have tried a program called 'PSX Multi Converter' to rip the movies from the original. However, some have 'grey frames' when I rip them? Does anyone know of any other good movie rippers for the PSX Final Fantasy VII?
Sorry, I know of none others than PSX Multi converter. IMO, It is very impressive. I think the grey frames may have something to do with the codec you are rendering with.
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Well, anyway, I know that one problem is the music over the intro and ending movie. I remember someone saying that a program called 'Virtual Dub' would do it. Well, I tried it and it was difficult to use the interface, and I just couldn't get it working right. I did record the original, and overwrite it along with the OST track, but I don't preferably want to do this, as it loses it's 'originality'.
Both versions (PSX and PC) of the intro and ending cinematics have the same exact music. I don't see the use of doing that whatsoever.
That's not what he's talking about.. in the PC version, the music in the intro and ending (And any other FMV with music, IE: Steal the Tiny Bronco!, for that matter) is a part of the video file. In the PSX version.. the songs are all played as MIDI.
Contra! The Cont Man, The Contster, Contmeister... Makin' copies!!
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Yeah, I realize that....hence the way that they were able to rip it into a PSF.
But I still don't see the usefulness of it. Does he want to take out the music from the fmv and replace it with the midi (oa.mid) version of the song with the original soundfont? That's all I could think of.
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No... If he were to use the movies from the PSX version, he wouldn't have any music at all. The movie files from the PSX have no music, the game plays it... the PC version has music right in the movies, and the game plays none.
It's all moot anyways, because he won't get any higher video quality that way.
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ahh...sorry about seeming so thick...yeah
to be completely honest, I'd only ripped movies from the 2nd and 3rd discs of the psx version. the person I borrowed the discs from somehow lost the 1st disc...oh well, not really my problem. I'm guessing that the sound effects are still in the psx movies, such as the train noises. it'd be very interesting to replace the music in that movie with the sound from the soundfont...hmmm....
even though the song using the original soundfont sounds like crap!!
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Yes, they do still have all sound effects and stuff.... and I agree entrely about the PC-MIDI. I won't argue peoples oppinions on the supposed crappy sound of the PSX music.... But I don't see how anyone can think the PC midi sounds better....
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I think lots of the PC MIDIs sound better if you use the Yamaha XG program, set it to "XG-Soft" if you're using the one that comes with FF7 (which only works in Windows 95/98/ME), and select "Yamaha XG MIDI" in FF7Config.
...Wow...
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No, no. The pc version sounds absolutely wonderful with the default soundfont. I was just talking about OA.mid. The intruments must've been unproperly aligned because they are just terrible. No doubt about it. It sounds better than the OST on most songs, even. Some of the songs on the OST just sound too high-pitched and just fruity. For example, the bells on the mako reactor song on the OST. Ridiculous.
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Hi!
Who said i was going to use a compression codec? I use uncompressed frames in FMV files. My hard drive can handle the size, and the quality of the uncompressed FMV files are way better than the PC. :D
When I said the 'original' movie files, I was figuring that the PC ones where rips from the PSX version, so that it would be less hassle for the developers to make. There are MIDI files for the opening etc., but they won't work because the FMV files already have the audio. Is there any way of getting the MIDI files for the intro and ending FMV files to work?
xeriouxi
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Just go ahead and try to use uncompressed avi's for the fmv's that you ripped which look like shite anyways. You'll just love the playing lag and the inability for them to even play right.
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Besides that, I think the STR files in the PSX version are already compressed... I never could see any difference between playing them with a PSX movie viewer and watching the PC version ones.... Even if you ripped them directly into uncompressed files, any quality loss from the str file would still be there.... and as I said, it would be a LOT of editing just to get everything to work right.... and if your moves are one second short or long here or there, and something is rendered on top of them, it will be completely screwed up.... The camera movements and stuff for the 3d layer are timed with the percent the movie is through, it seems, because if it's length is off at all, it's completely screwed up....
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Just go ahead and try to use uncompressed avi's for the fmv's that you ripped which look like shite anyways. You'll just love the playing lag and the inability for them to even play right.
Well, to any newbies reading: This is Rubicant. He likes being a bit of an ass, and he's good at what he likes.
Rubicant: Chill down a bit, will you? You're starting to give these forums a hostile feel to them. If it's an attempt at sarcasm, I suggest putting a :P or something next to it, since your posts have a tendency not to convey the sarcasm bit.
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Sorry. I'll clean up my act a bit.
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For Fun :P
http://www.pvponline.com/archive/2003/pvp20030918.gif
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Since I own both the PSX and PC versions of FF7, I tried doing the same thing about two years ago. I got the same results as Rubicant, though, I could convert the movies to .avi just fine, but the quality (without any compression) really wasn't any better.
For the sake of honesty I'll concede I might have accidentally used compression without realizing it, but I don't really remember now.
Anyway, the reason I was doing it was just to replace 2 unplayable movies from disc 1 (it got scratched.)
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Hi!
Who said i was going to use a compression codec? I use uncompressed frames in FMV files. My hard drive can handle the size, and the quality of the uncompressed FMV files are way better than the PC. :D
Actually, they arent. You're probebly playing those movies you've ripped in a form of Media Player from Windows. What this means if the movies'll get filtered 1000x better than FFVII PC will filter them. Actually, I dont think FFVII PC does ANY filtering on the movies. Just a straght friken stretch. If you play the original movies from FFVIIPC though a windows based media player they'll look pimp to. Trust me, I'm qualified. And unfortunately I've bought this up before and I'm aware of NO way to get FFVII PC to use post processing on thoses movies like a media player will. Oh well.......
Movies look fine on a TV-Out anyway....
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canelot cant u rerender the fmv, like use duck codec and rencode it in something else? or use some post processing on the re encode?
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Umm... I remember people talking about that, but no one ever went though and did it I dont think...
I'm not sure how much of a diffrence it'd make anyway... you could filter the rencode yeah, but whether you'd get FFVII to play them is another story. Perhaps if you use rencoded USEING the Duck Motion Codec...
However I have little wish to do this as I play on TV-Out anyway heh.
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canelot cant u rerender the fmv, like use duck codec and rencode it in something else? or use some post processing on the re encode?
I just testing doing that with indeo 5.0...and it worked out pretty nicely...I'll experiment more on this. But still, it's in vain, because the ripped psx movies look like shite anyways.
[edit]
I tried replacing earithdd.avi with a movie I made awhile ago (phonebusters original cut) using indeo 5.0 and the sound ended up getting off cue towards the end of the movie.
in vain
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Hi!
I've tried uncompressed .avi files from the PSX .str files before in FFVII PC, and there is no lag at all! :D
The PC .avi files use the horrible compression that makes the movies look very poor. The uncompressed .avi files from the PSX version don't have the 'distortion' of the PC ones.
xeriouxi.
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If you have a fast hard disk I suppose it works fine.
The artifacts you are refering too are a result of not every frame being redrawn. Most codecs save space by only updating sections of the frame that changed. This can lead to some interesting artifacts. The way to manage this is through adjusting your KEY frames. For most AVI's they use this rediculously huge key frame setting of 3600 seconds (an hour) reduce this to 1 second and you are less likely to see artifacts. Your file size does increase though.
If you have a fast machine compression will make the AVI in general faster.
Cyb
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The PC .avi files use the horrible compression that makes the movies look very poor. The uncompressed .avi files from the PSX version don't have the 'distortion' of the PC ones.
Duck truemotion gives the avi's no "distortion" at all. They look a little dithered, because that's the nature of the codec. Keep in mind that the PC ones are (most likely) derived from the ones from the psx version, so no matter what you do you will not be able to exceed the quality by simply using no compression with the ones ripped from the psx version. Certain movies look like crap in both the versions, and there is nothing you can really do to make them look better. You can't run them at a higher resolution because ff7pc just doesn't allow that. I also doubt that the sound runs in sync with the video because you must render the videos with the correct sound codec (none, uncompressed). Just to help you out, I'll clue you in. 8-bit stereo, 22050hz, uncompressed, and your sound won't jump out of sync. Good luck, though.
But once you get done with this hard work, what's it all for? You're just playing the game with these so-called "new fangled 'high-res' videos for final fantasy VII"
....all by yourself.
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when u convert them from the psx videos, couldnt u encode them into duck codec then?
or try putting them in indeo5 or raw avi and get them on ur HDD
I do remember ripping the avis off PSX version, because they were 32bit, and slightly better finish in most respects, but getting them to play with FF7pc made me quit that
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Of course you can convert back to duck, or whatever the hell you want. It works all right with indeo 5, I can guarantee it. The fact remains that in the long run the ones ripped from the psx don't even look better, even when uncompressed. Remember the compression-tainted blocks that tend to show up at the beginning of c_scene1.avi? The same thing happens with the version ripped from the psx.
Comparing duck compression (the originals that came with the game) to indeo 5.0, I find that both are acceptable. Duck looks a little dithered, but it is really, really sharp. On the other hand, Indeo looks really smoothed out, but things look just a tad blurry.
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Hi!
When I refer to the 'original' FMV files, I mean from the PSX FF7. There's a huge leap in quality. What do you mean that the Duck codec is better? The codec compressed the already compressed FMV from the PSX FF7. Video is way smoother on the ripped movies, and none of the 'dithering' is visible. Sorry to sound like I am constantly arguing, but the quality is way better than the stupid compressed ones. And yes, of course I will be playing it own my own. I can enjoy the experience better with higher quality movies... :D
xeriouxi.
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When I refer to the 'original' FMV files, I mean from the PSX FF7. There's a huge leap in quality.
R-Really? W-Well I thought you were talking about this other thing completely d-different. I thought you were just transferring the avi's that came with ff7pc and turning them into uncompressed files. Oh, silly me!!! Sarcasm. I know exactly what I am talking about when I see something like...
After being annoyed constantly by the poor codec used for compression of the Final Fantasy VII PC movies, I have decided to rip the originals off the PSX discs.
So as soon as I saw this, I had a reason to tell you that you are wasting your time. So sorry.
What do you mean that the Duck codec is better?
I never said that. I said that you would probably be better off using a compression codec to save space on the hard drive.
The codec compressed the already compressed FMV from the PSX FF7.
I don't even know what that means.
Video is way smoother on the ripped movies, and none of the 'dithering' is visible.
Now when you say "smoother", do you mean "smooth" like a baby's ass, or "smooth" like a dude who just shaved his beard off and managed to leave stubble? Look, I've ripped them, too, and there just may be a slight difference in the fps. So maybe the PSX versions were in 30fps. But I really doubt it. IIRC, the fps of the ff7pc videos are 24fps. Which is acceptable. So maybe you are in fact dealing with more (useless) frames to make it look "smoother" from the psx version. Or else you're just ripping them that way.
Sorry to sound like I am constantly arguing, but the quality is way better than the stupid compressed ones.
It's just a trash statement saying the quality is "way better". You have absolutely nothing to back you up. Do you have pictures to show me how the psx version videos are better? I don't think so. I would have gotten pictures to prove you wrong a long time ago, but I am currently without the psx version of ff7. I gave it back to the person who I borrowed it from. But the horror of all this is that you just never back down from a futile argument. You say they're "higher quality", you say they're "smoother", but you really have not convinced me (or anyone else). You just pull these ideas of the ones ripped off the psx version being "better" out of nowhere and that's your argument. Well I don't think so. I don't...think so.
So you say that the codec used with the movies that come with ff7pc is absolutely crappy-looking. But you're the fool here who is using the ripped videos, and having them saved as uncompressed avi's (taking up massive hd space). I don't have anything against using uncompressed avi's, but it's the fact that you're taking random arbitrary statements to make it seem like the movies from the psx version are in some way better.
I'm going to come out and say it now so we don't have any further confusion. The movies that are on the psx discs are in no way higher quality! IIRC, the standard resolution for them is 320x224. The ones that are included with ff7pc are the very same resolution. I cannot possibly see the strategy behind making the versions on the psx version "better" and having the ff7pc versions be crappy on purpose. In fact, they are not better in any way. As I have said before, there are screw-ups that appear in both the ff7pc and psx versions. In fact, all of the video errors (such as mpeg-esque block fuzziness that appears in quickly moving scenes) from the psx versions also appear in the ff7pc versions. No surprise there. The psx versions are not better, they have never been better, they never will be better!
The ones included with ff7pc are just fine. They are derived from the psx version, which means they are on par as far as crappiness goes. You are completely wasting your time ripping them and renaming them in my book, but I am not going to stop you. I am trying to prove my point that you will get nothing from ripping them. There is nothing appealing about doing it, and there is nothing redeeming about it.
And yes, of course I will be playing it own my own. I can enjoy the experience better with higher quality movies... :D
Whatever. Fine. Have fun.
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Rubicant... you might want to calm down a little. I dunno if its just me, but that post looks like its a little "meaner" than it needed to be.
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You're right. I was a bit too far in the criticism side. But I did type this at 7:45 in the morning while an annoying substitute teacher that sounded like a robot was annoying the hell out of me. When he turned his head to ask me my name his neck made this awful screeching sound. Then he asked me for oil.
Xeriouxi, If you take offense to anything, don't take it personally. I just disagree with you. But I still stand behind my argument.
But if ripping the fmv's and making them work makes you feel great, then by all means do it. It is sometimes fun to undertake projects that involve your work, and then get a chance to play with the results.
[edit]
random grammatical and wording errors.
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The codec compressed the already compressed FMV from the PSX FF7.
I don't even know what that means.
Xeriouxi is actually correct, if only partially. If you remember, the PS1's .STR files are JPEG-compressed (yes, that's right, JPEG. Not MPEG.). So, when you when you rip them to avi, you _should_ pick up all the artifacts that may have been caused by the original PSX JPEG compression, kinda like when you use a microphone to record a low-bitrate mp3 to wav, even though the recorded/ripped sound is uncompressed, it picks up all the artifacts heard as a byproduct of the previous compression. I'm guessing that PSX movie ripping works the same way (What-you-see-is-what-you-get recording).
Dumping another codec on it might compound the image quality (or it might not), but essentially you're still seeing the effects of using two different compression codecs used on top of each other, video-artifact wise.
No, I'm not saying that the PSX movies are of higher quality -- they're not. As rubicant said, their native resolution is in the neighborhood of 320x240....the FF7pc movies are the same way, and do seem to be doing a straight stretch when the game is running in 640x480.
However.....it may yet be possible to do some sort of post-filtering in-game. What if (perhaps thru the use of one of ficedula's patch programs) tried to make FF7 use the video card's Bilinear Filtering (normally used on the polygons) on the whole scene? That should allow for some cleanup of byproducts produced by a straight stretch.
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:: looks at FF7 PSX FMVs ::
:: looks at FF7 PC FMVs ::
:: pukes ::
I deem the PSX FMVs to have substantially higher quality. The reason? As xeriouxi mentioned, for the PC port Square used the PSX movies and compressed them using an entirely different compression method, and also rendered them horribly bad in-game. In effect, we have
PC FMV = Original FMV + PSX compression artifacts + PC compression artifacts + rendering artifacts = Y-U-C-K.
The PSX FMVs, while not having any higher resolution, retain much more sharpness and color quality. The idea of using them in FF7 PC is sound, although it will prove a tad tricky to get past the rendering issues. Worst-case, it could be just as easy to make your own FF7 client. ^_^
While on the topic of using post-filtering however, I'm fairly certain that such functionality would be immensely difficult to include in a patch. Not impossible, just involving huge amounts of work.
Oh, and btw, Rubicant? You were this close to getting an official warning for that post of yours. I don't care if your teacher shot your grandmother, you will not post offensive crap here. If you're having a bad day, I suggest you take it out on someone else, somewhere else.
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If memory serves FF7 fmvs are 320x224 15fps 32000khz 16 bit stereo.
converting from 15->24 fps will give you lovely issues alone. I do have the information on SONY's Codec used in the whole mess, but I don't think that's terribly important.
320x224 to 640x480 stretch will create a few more issues.
As for rencoding to add modern settings (and adding options for it to the AVI viewer used). I think Qhimm summarized it nicely.. likely not worth the effort.
That being said.. at least there is some sort of conclusion to this, the best method would be to rerender the entire sequence for the PC, which I don't believe was done. They might have had the original movie data which would still be 320x224 at 15FPS for the encoding.. but somehow I find that unlikely because of the amount of memory to have that data in RGB or YUV format (PSX is YUV and converted to RGB in part of the MDEC decoder subsystem).
2100Kbps this comes out to be about. Just over 2megs per second. So.. for the initial movie it's about 180megs of data in YUV format or 270megs in RGB format for Raw data. There are several movies to this. It makes sense to convert the existing movies instead of paying to have them remade, it cost a lot of money to have the originals done likely and Square likely didn't want to spend more money (seems to be a trend for square :) ).
No matter what happens it's dubious one can improve the movies without making some compromise that will bring you back to .. what you had before hand. It might be worth a try to see if there is any improvement (I have the PSX version so .. doesn't mattter either way for me).
Cyb
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Well, what if the avi's were reencoded to playback at 15fps? If it ran good enough on the PSX (without looking like a slideshow) why not have the pc movies do the same?
It might solve some artifact effects (that whole "Key Frames" thing, etc.)...unless I've got my logic backward. :P
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Well, I don't know about doing that being the solution for the artifacts. I remember extracting the fmv for the scene where the north crater starts blowing up (lots of vibration, lots of artifacts). I used no video compression, and it ended up having the artifacts as bad as the ones that came with ff7pc.
But there is a possibility for the smoothing. With d3d, you can turn on Quincunx AA and the movies will get softened. It looks fairly decent this way. But not everyone can do it. I think maybe it's possible to do it with generic 2x...not sure. Doesn't work for me :-?
As for the psx movies, when you have them on your HD completely uncompressed, they may look decent. However, the duck truemotion codec looks pretty dang good, still. In the long run, both forms will look crappy because they will have those stupid artifacts, no matter what you do. There will be petty differences between uncompressed versions and compressed versions, but it's the artifacts that cause every version to suck. So I'll change my opinion about this to the following: All versions of the fmv's (full motion videos) will always suck, whether they are recompressed or not. So any attempt to port them from one format to the other is in vain.
Qhimm: Sorry. Fine, I'll just never attempt to express my opinion because in some way I end up offending someone every time I do. Thank you very much, I can throw myself out.
*dusts self off*
So why exactly do I out of the blue get pissed off and write offensive crap? I don't know, maybe my mom didn't hug me enough when I was little? No, that can't be it. It's probably because I'm naturally a loudmouthed punk with a lot of anger to pass around. Yeah, that's got to be it. So why do you admins care to deal with it? Some admins/moderators would just say "get this jerk out of here" and it'd all be over. This is how I see it: you want things to be fair. Now, was it fair of me to lash out at xeriouxi for his different opinion? Well, when I first started that post I was trying to make it as humorous as possible, such as me accusing squaresoft being discriminatory against pc users, and maybe a picture of sephiroth stabbing the duck truemotion icon. But things didn't go that way. Instead, I lashed out accordingly, drunk with anger. My argument, flawless. But the words behind it were moronically concieved. So why do you bother to cope with my outbursts against other people of the boards? I think that alone is far more than I deserve.
So do I have a bad attitude? No way. I'm really not an angry person at all. People see me and they ask me if I'm sad, but I always have this mellow look on my face because I'm usually really relaxed. The problem I have is that I am too honest to the point where it's mean....and I don't think that's a good thing in the case of these forums. So it all boils down to treating people how you think you should be treated as well. Which is exactly what I seek from other people: honesty. I almost puke at the sight of people kissing ass to get something they want. It's so pointless, because it just sucks away your self-worth. You completely lose your Integrity stooping to that level.
So thanks Qhimm for being honest and telling me when I am out of line. Even though I highly doubt the robot substitute is even capable of aiming a gun at my grandmother with those rusted joints. :P
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Hi!
When I refer to the 'original' FMV files, I mean from the PSX FF7. There's a huge leap in quality. What do you mean that the Duck codec is better? The codec compressed the already compressed FMV from the PSX FF7. Video is way smoother on the ripped movies, and none of the 'dithering' is visible. Sorry to sound like I am constantly arguing, but the quality is way better than the stupid compressed ones. And yes, of course I will be playing it own my own. I can enjoy the experience better with higher quality movies... :D
xeriouxi.
How are you viewing the Psx FMVs? How are you comparing them to the PC FMVs? As I've said before, FFVII PC uses NO post processing, meaning the movies look very bad. They look fine when played though Windows Mediaplayer. I'm not saying the noise and artifacts in the video aren't worse than the Psx version, but there definately wont be a huge drop or gain in quality either way.
I'm also assuming the Duck True Motion Codec IS in fact better, Psx uses some form of mpeg1 compression (or as stated, some form of jpeg compression, which is mpeg1ish anyway as far as I know), Mpeg1 being about 10 years old now. Duck True Motion is still VERY old, but it's not quite as old as Mpeg1...
But it's all down to the encoding... and FFVII PCs lack of use of post processing.
Perhaps I'll rip one of the Psx FMVs later, but I'm doubting I can be bothered. I've been looking at compression semi seriously for a while now, so I shoulden't be to bad a judge.
Edit: If I bother doing this, I'll post pics.
And I'm also doubting Pc movies = Psx compression artifacts + pc compression artifacts. It makes no sense why they would create the Pc movies from the Psx movies. Why not go back to the masters of original FMVs (whatever format they are in) and create them from that. I Think the PC movies would look ever worse if they did come from the Psx fmvs.
If Square did do this, well it's just another reason to hate on Square!
And on Fps etc, I'm not really sure about it all, but the FMVs could have originally bean 15fps, interlaced to 24 fps or whatever. Where as the PCs are encoded into a progressive 24fps. Who knows, fps are complicated when it goes anywhere near TV or Console.
Rubicant... you might want to calm down a little.
STFU!!!1
Ahem.
Thankyou.
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FPS? I just loaded up one of the PC movies and checked its FPS. It's definately 15, as I thought. I am pretty sure that the PSX ones are 15 as well.
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Hi!
I'm sorry to cause a lot of anger for the other members. I feel like the blame has to fall with me for being biased, maybe? :-?
The reason I rip then uncompressed is because I can afford the hard drive space. I never mentioned that the PSX movies had a higher frame rate, either. In fact, 15fps is the standard for many PSX games. :D
Anyway, sorry for upsetting you, Rubicant... :(
If you need proof of my observations, then I will try to post the 2 diferent versions as .jpg files. And yes, they will both be running from the actual FF7 game. :D
Oh, and my name 'xeriouxi' is actually meant tostart with a lower case letter. I just thought that I would say that incase anybody thought I was too lazy to do it when I registered! :lol:
xeriouxi.
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Does anyone know how the hell I can get VirtualDub to open FFVII PCs FMVs? It keeps giving me the error it cant open them, I have installed the damn codec. the movies play in normal media players fine.
The FMVs do look diffrent, but I cant really tell in which way till I get the PCs FMVs open in VirtualDub :/
The Psx FMVs SOUND better though. Audio is MUCH cleaner on the FMV from the Psx disks.
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Hi!
I think that VirtualDub can only handle standard .avi files if I remember correctly. I had no problem with the movies from the PSX version when I had them uncompressed. Try to decode one into a pure uncompressed .avi file and try that to see if it works. This is a suggestion, however. I don't really use VirtualDub. I have only used it once or twice! :D
xeriouxi.
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The Psx FMVs SOUND better though. Audio is MUCH cleaner on the FMV from the Psx disks.
That's because the PC ones are in 8-bit stereo, 22050hz, but uncompressed. I would be damn well surprised if they sounded better for a moment. Now, why are they in this format? Well, from my observation, it is the only way the sound will not go out of sync while playing in-game.
So for one aspect the psx files may be worth ripping: the audio. However, IIRC, when you rip the file with PSX-MC(multi-converter) the sound kind of gets cut off at the end. It's been awhile since I've done any ripping, so I'm not 100% it still does this in newer versions PSX-MC. So maybe the audio from the psx fmv's are a few Hz larger in quality....okey dokey. We still won't find a cure to those wretched motion artifacts, unless we break into squaresoft's HQ and steal the originals.
I would have to disagree with you canealot; they had to have gotten the PC fmv's from the PSX version. Why else do all of the artifacts from the psx fmv's appear the exact same way in the PC fmv's? I have tested this out with c_scene1 (comparing both versions), and various other fmv's that have noticable artifacts. Sadly, the reason became clear to me why it matches up -_- . Well, of course Duck Truemotion is a better compression form than the one used on the ff7 psx fmv's. Since it appears the people who worked on ff7pc decided it would be a good idea to just take some badly-compressed movies and compress them with a badass codec, we get a resulting gigabyte of fmv's that could have been decent-looking. Oh, only if someone working on the project realized how bad it looked.
But you see, they fit the entire game (fmv's and all) on 3 entire discs in the psx version. Since the pc version had compressed video anyways and would need to have 4 discs, they may as well have re-rendered the fmv's directly to duck truemotion. So instead, they would have almost zero artifacts, and the movies would look pretty nice (because truemotion is cool). They knew the compressed versions would be larger no matter what. So the entire concept of taking the PSX fmv's and re-encoding them was just one entire bottleneck. Talk about bad planning.
Or else another reason to hate square. As for virtualdub not being able to open ff7 fmv's, I think that's pretty fruity. I just tried it and it says it needs a VFW-compatible codec, not any of the directshow codecs (which I believe TM20 is). However, I can open them up just fine in adobe premiere...
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There *are* TM20 (Duck) VFW codecs - just they aren't easy to find. The FF7 installer only puts a DirectShow decoder on.
I think if you get the Duck developer kit, then that has a VFW codec, but that's probably going to be very hard to find nowadays.
xeriouxi: If you do post screenshots, JPG isn't the best format to compare artifacts so, since it is lossy... ;)
PNG would be better: it'll be bigger, but at least it's lossless so there's no argument over quality.
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Yes, I finally got it. You can look at the videos in virtualdub using this package (http://kucoru.dyndns.org/truemotioncodec.exe). I actually asked duck for a developer's kit a long time ago, but since it was a trial version I never bothered to mess around with it much. So yes, this file is completely legitimate.
*you didn't hear this from me, but you can still compress videos just fine, as long as you compress using the archiver*. And, you can view them in Virtualdub because it adds in the ability for VFW support.
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Hmm. Perhaps they ARE recompressed Psx videos. I wanted to check the movies working in virtual dub to conform this :/
Who was responsible for FFVII PC? Was it Square Soft (japan) or Square (USA). I'm guessing it was was Square and they didn't have access to the original masters/data/whatever they hell they are, so they HAD to recompress from the Psx version.
For FFVIII I'm pretty sure they rendered in 320/240 (for Psx/Pc) and 640/480 (pc) as they were making the game. God knows why Square Soft did this, but good on em for one of their few good deads :D
I'd say the best bet we'd have for decent movies in FFVII PC, is rip them from the Psx disk (for the better audio) and re-encode them to Duck TrueMotion (unless another codec would be better and will work with FFVII PC), but with heavy filters on (not that I know how much you can filter a Duck True Motion encode, I know little about advanced encoding heh). I'm in a fansub group, I could ask our encoder if he knows anything much. Filters from what I know of Mpeg4 could get rid of all of artifacts easily and probebly sharpen the movies up. Colours could be ajusted too. Ajusting the colour and sharpening can work VERY well for anime. Of course, as said, this would be a lot of work...
Of course the movies running in 16bit colour in game also hurts them... has there been any progress on the 32bit patch recently?
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Maybe we're going about this the wrong way.
Has anyone thought about hacking DirectShow itself, similar to how DirectMusic was hacked to allow access to non-DLS synths for FF8?
If possible, we should see if we could write a modified vesion of DirectShow that automatically tries to do post-filtering on the image (Bilinear filitering, for the sake of example), whenever it's accessed, regardless of the codec?
That way, when FF7 tries to access the movies, it'll think its just doing what its supposed to do (and it is, since its not ff7 that's being modified, its the API interface), and not complain when the post-filtering is done.
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(TM20 = Duck Truemotion 2.0)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some sort of filtering that goes on with TM20-encoded avi's that are being played in ff7? If you play a TM20-encoded avi in windows media player, it looks all right, but not all that great. However, when you play it in ff7, the colors suddenly seem a bit more clear. It becomes a bit dithered, but it looks a lot nicer when it is motion. Here, I have made a comparison. I made one screenshot from a TM20 movie being played in ff7, and the other is a frame export from adobe premiere (of the same video, of course).
Played in FF7 (http://kucoru.dyndns.org/jeep-ff7.png)
Played in WMP (http://kucoru.dyndns.org/jeep-wmp.png)
I don't know...maybe ff7 has a built-in filtering thing for duck truemotion already :-?
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(TM20 = Duck Truemotion 2.0)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some sort of filtering that goes on with TM20-encoded avi's that are being played in ff7? ......
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those shots taken from diffrent frames of the movie? Not that it makes *that* much diffrent.
And about the colours, that's the lack of filtering :P
Filtering blurs stuff over (which is why when encoding anime you'd apply both sharpening and artifact reducing filters for example).
You can see that not only is there less noise in the WMP version, it's also being anti-alised better, something that FFVII PC doesn't of course do much (if at all). If you look closely at the roof of the house in the middle, you can see the idividual pixels... in the WMP pic these details are blured over slightly. The trees are also a good place to look. Most people don't mind a slightly blur though, as you've basically complately removed all the noise from the picture now though.
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This may be a little off-topic, but does anyone know where to find decent PSX Movie rippers? I have lots but they don't work. Any help would be appreciated ;-)
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Are you sure you have a functioning updated ASPI layer installed? It's necessary to do individual sector reads/rips on PSX discs, from what I've heard.
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I keep my ASPI layer updated. Then again, i could try ripping individually...
EDIT
No, it doesn't work. Any other suggestions?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those shots taken from diffrent frames of the movie?
Ay! Don't mock me! :P
Yes, they are different frames. It was hard to get it all to line up while taking screenshots from two separate viewings of the same movie, and I was rushed.
Whether the movies are being filtered or not being played in ff7, it still looks unquestionably better. It's a little dithered, but it still picks up TONS of detail, even with such a low resolution. The stills for both look a bit crappy because stills in encoded movies don't always look super-great. But I will have to say that movies are more pleasing to the eye when they look like the way they do in ff7. So I suppose by "filtering" in my previous post I may have meant either "de-filtering" or "filtering" in your terms, but I'm afraid we don't have enough information to assume the correct answer as to whether ff7 filters or de-filters the movies. But what I meant by "filtering" in my post was similar to the option in divx 5.1 to add the "film effect". That can be categorized as a "filter" in my book.
[edit]
Actually Canealot, you are in some respect right. The way the ff7 movies are played with directshow involve the RGB and YUV Offscreen options to be disabled. So I guess if someone wanted to allow the smoothing of the fmv's that can be done with directshow by making a program that can utilize this, it'd be great. I, personally, like the smoothing to be disabled, but it's definately worth a try (just to see if it can be done).
Here's another set of shots comparing the two ways directshow can display the videos. This time they are the same frame :P
Offscreen disabled (http://kucoru.dyndns.org/GP-1.png)
Offscreen enabled (http://kucoru.dyndns.org/GP-2.png)
I must say for the purposes of the ff7 videos (with their artifacts), the RGB/YUV Offscreen actually does help improve the appearance somewhat. The artifacts are not pinpointed by the high sharpness with Offscreen paramaters disabled. However, There is a tendancy for the YUV portion to mess with the colors. This may or may not be desirable. However, the previous example I used (the jeep and the guy being chased) clearly shows that more detail can be shown with the Offscreen paramaters disabled. So it's really in the eye of the beholder.
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Hi!
I'm sorry I haven't posted the images up yet. You'll all just have to believe me until I post them up. :lol:
Oh, and if you all didn't know, the FF8 movies for the PC versions are the true original ones from Square, encoded into .bik files! Cool, eh! :D
xeriouxi.
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*sigh* Here are a couple of pictures, no I got VirtualDub opening FFVII PCs movies. I basically opening theses in VirtualDub (not Mod), set the size to 300% and hit printscreen. That's the reason for the diffrent resolutions and croping. Also, I had VirtualDub set to the default colour output of 16bit, since that is what FFVII runs at. I'm not sure what, if any post processing is running on this. I had hardware display aceleration disabled when making the shots, which I think means DirectDraw shoulden't have filtered at all, but I'm not at all sure. I think there is somefiltering going on, but hopefully the same filtering for both movies. The Psx shot was taken from the movie, ripped from the Psx disk in un-compressed .avi, so there shoulden't be any quality loss between the image on the Psx disk and my riped version.
http://sircanealotshome.homestead.com/files/FFVIIMovPC.png
http://sircanealotshome.homestead.com/files/FFVIIMovPSX.png
I've studied both pictures and I'll share with you my findings:
First of all lets look at the obveous(argh spelling even worse when this tired, sorry). The PC's shot is much darker, better contrast and colours.
Past that, if we look at both images, FFVIIPCs image is a lot sharper. It looks like some form of edge ehancement has been run over the movie. You can see this clearly if you look at the licence plate on the car. Also, Aeris flower basket is another thing to look at. This edge echancement of course, also has it's negative. Look at the pixels near the left hand of Aeiris. There's a bunch of flesh coloured pixels hanging in the air off her hand, which is a artifact of edge enhancement, I think. Also due to the edge enhancement, the jagged edges of on the lines of the grey wall in the top left are more visable. the PC versions picture also has much more blocking to it, which can be seen mostly in the smoke coming from the bottom of the car and the green sky at the top of the image (come to think of it, why is the sky green?). Imo, the Pc version actually looks better, due to the better colours and contrast (the Psx shot is very high on the greens), but it is let down by the edge enhancement artifacts and the blocking. I'm pretty sure the blocking does look worse normally, doesn't it, and you can't see the dithering in my shot, since it's taken from VirtualDub running on a 32bit colour windows desktop. But this at least looks at some of the visual diffrences between the two movies. Not that I can really count on those images for being post processing free.
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I think there was some sort of image enhancements going on with the pc version shot you made because there isn't nearly as much dithering as there normally would be with that codec. The PC picture you took looks better, no doubt about it. It definately looks better the way it would normally look with that codec, as you can see here:
Same frame, but unchanged from what the codec really looks like (http://kucoru.dyndns.org/opening-dithered.png)
It looks a tiny bit sharper, and the colors may be more accurate, but to some people the dithering can be an eyesore, especially on such a dark scene.
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Hi!
I'm sorry I haven't posted the images up yet. You'll all just have to believe me until I post them up. :lol:
Oh, and if you all didn't know, the FF8 movies for the PC versions are the true original ones from Square, encoded into .bik files! Cool, eh! :D
xeriouxi.
Can't wait! I've just ripped an entire folder of movies off of the PSX version. God it is that simple...when you have the right stuff, of course :wink: It works really well, i'll give you that! Still, it refuses to link to Mirex's Public Trashbin, or my site, for that matter...argh...So i'm afraid you'll just have to wait, guys.
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I think there was some sort of image enhancements going on with the pc version shot you made because there isn't nearly as much dithering as there normally would be with that codec. The PC picture you took looks better, no doubt about it. It definately looks better the way it would normally look with that codec, as you can see here:
As I said, the lack of dithering is probebly from Virtual Dub running in a 32bit colour enviroment. How are you taking shots like that? From the game itsself?
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No, actually. I load the files up with adobe premiere, and have the preview window operational. When the movies are being played in the window, directshow filters automatically come into function. However, if you have the movie stopped and just skip ahead to the desired frame, you can see the movie in the form it would look like without any enhancements. Also, the thing about the YUV/RGB offscreen directshow options is that they seem to be able to be messed around with in only older versions of windows. Such as windows 98.
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I apologize for slightly taking this off-topic, but this is related to how well the codec works in DX9.....
First, a quick question to those of you who are able to view FF7PC's movies IN-GAME, and are using DirectX9.0/9.0a/9.0b:
...what version of the Duck Truemotion codec are you using?! And for that matter, what are the names of the files that make up the codec, and where are they installed on the hard drive? Also, date/timestamps on the individual files would be very helpful as well.
Why am I asking? I'm getting REALLY unusual behavior from the Truemotion codec.
I believe I've either got a corrupted codec that the normal DirectShow installer won't overwrite (because of the fact that DirectX Installers will refuse to do the actual file copying if they detect a newer version of DX installed, which is what I think is happening here), or one that can't interface with DX9 or FF7 correctly.... hence the need to get information on the individual filenames that are installed that work on "modern" systems, and the timestamps of them.
Here's the symptoms:
I can't get the movies to play IN-GAME in either hardware or software mode....but it plays the audio portion of the movies back just fine. AND, outside of the game, windows plays the movies just fine. However, this means that when I start up the game, I hear the Eidos FMV play, but the screen freezes after the audio is finished, and the entire game locks up. Hardware-wise, the only major thing that was changed was that I replaced my old V3 PCI with a V5 AGP that I bought off ebay; however, this problem also occurs with my V3 PCI.
The problem persists even after a complete uninstall-reinstall of FF7pc, and a reinstall of the Directshow stuff off the FF7 Install disc....
Of course, this is on Win98SE, so I don't have to deal with compatibility mode stuff.....
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"tm20dec.ax" - This is the truemotion 2.0 decoder file. If you don't have this, then the audio will play, but the video will just be black. Goku7: It seems like you're missing this file...maybe..or at least the symptoms seem similar.
"tm2a.dll" and "tm2x.dll" - These are the two dll's used for developing truemotion videos. Not required for playback.
You can find all of these in "X:\windowsdirectory\System" for win98, and it should be in "X:\windowsdirectory\system32" for winxp/2k.
I am using dx9 right now, and ff7 can play the truemotion fmv's just fine...and I'm using winxp! Have you tried installing any of the truemotion patches I have posted in this thread? Maybe that would help you out. Also, try to get the duck truemotion package from eidos and install it, if you haven't already.
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"tm20dec.ax" - This is the truemotion 2.0 decoder file. If you don't have this, then the audio will play, but the video will just be black. Goku7: It seems like you're missing this file...maybe..or at least the symptoms seem similar
I appearantly have a copy of tm20dec.ax in my C:\Windows\System directory, so it should work....yet it doesn't. -_-
File version is 2.0.6.3. And oddly enough, I don't have a timestamp listed for the File Creation heading. File size is 132kb.
It is, however, listed as being modified on "Friday, April 23, 1999 10:22:00 PM"
I'll check out the Eidos pack and the other patches later, I barely have enough time right now to just post what I've posted.
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lol having a 24 to 8bit colour convertion does actually clear up the picture somehow reducing the anti alaising artifacts at such a low resolution.
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Well the task of converting PSX version videos and play them uncompressed looks pointless to me, i tried that and i didn't like the result too much work involved to see little difference and beside that having to insert the audio of the pc version, well too much time lost. Now the true question i pose is: Are the pc version movies when played on windows media player look so bad as in game? This can be argued but to me if the in game movies had the aspect of the windows media player movies i would be happy, so with this in mind i tried to look for the problem and it's quite simple the Truemotion codec doens't do space color conversion to 16 bit's and plays in a color mode that i don't remember now but if you put the Truemotion codec in dedug mode you could see that. Now i looked for other codecs to solve this "little" problem i reencoded the movies in several other codecs but the results weren't that good, the only one i did like was to reencode the movies with the "huffyuv" codec that has specific options to do space color conversion to the color mode FFVII PC uses, results where bether than the original so i still use this reencoded movies to play the game.
Other solution was to make the game run at 32 bits this not only improves movie quality but in game image quality problem is that this doens't work for everybody.
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they play better in WMPlayer
the Truemotion codec combined with old Directshow calls and old programing skills in FF7 make the picture look worse in game,
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Considering everything that has been said here, wouldn't it be easier to simply remake the FMVs from scratch? :wink: