Final Fantasy VII Original FMV question...

[Sir Canealot]

(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
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.

[Sephiroth2000]

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

[Goku7]

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.

[Sephiroth2000]

I keep my ASPI layer updated. Then again, i could try ripping individually...

EDIT
No, it doesn't work. Any other suggestions?

[Rubicant_II]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those shots taken from diffrent frames of the movie?

Ay! Don't mock me!  

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  

Offscreen disabled
Offscreen enabled

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.

[xeriouxi]

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.  

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!  

xeriouxi.

[Sir Canealot]

*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.

[Rubicant]

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

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.

[Sephiroth2000]

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.  
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!  

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 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.

[Sir Canealot]

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?

[Rubicant]

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.

[Goku7]

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.....

[Rubicant]

"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.

[Goku7]

"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.

[Skillster/RedSarg99]

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.

[mindjoker]

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.

[Skillster/RedSarg99]

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,

[Sephiroth 3D]

Considering everything that has been said here, wouldn't it be easier to simply remake the FMVs from scratch?