Problems converting cut scenes from UMD's...

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 12:41 pm

Did you get the Win32 package? It's here:
ftp://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/win32/

You just unpack it to some folder, and manage to navigate to the folder it's in using the command prompt (yes, it is the black window that appears when you type in cmd in Run...). It should start up in the Documents and Settings folder, which means you'll have to use these commands:

cd.. (this will take you down one folder; you might need to repeat it to get to the C:\ - if you unpacked mplayer directly onto C:\ and not in any folder, then you can just type in the commands I gave above)

To navigate to the folder where mplayer is located from C:\, you'll need to use the command

cd [foldername]

to navigate up one folder. You'll probably need to repeat the command again to get to the correct place.

(for example: cd program files, followed by cd mplayer)

Then once you've gotten there you can use those commands from my last post.

Also, mplayer is the only one that really requires the command line, since none of it's frontends allow the use of the -dump commands (to the best of my knowledge, anyway). MP4Box has frontends that can be used, but aside from YAMB I haven't used any (this is really only important if you wanted to resync the audio, since the framerate should stay at 29.97fps instead of the default 25fps that YAMB spits out - if it was important to keep audio sync, MP4Box could be run from the command line to force 29.97 in the exported file).

Like I said, though, I wouldn't recommend this method, as it produces even more crap frames than converting it through Lande does (it comes in before the fortress starts being destroyed and doesn't let up, if I remember correctly, as opposed to the two or three little spots it went grey when using Lande). That alone makes me think that either 1) somehow the data got corrupted somewhere along the way, 2) there's some type of weird encryption left on segments of the file that Lande can break through for the most part, or 3) I have no clue, as this is really the only exposure to dealing with PSP video I've had.

The nice thing, I guess, is that at least this methodology could be applied to future rippers, if only the real problem could be found. Doing it this way ensures that the original stream is preserved, at least. Hopefully once the programs available get more sophisticated this won't be an issue.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:15 pm

Well, regardless of whether Lande's converter is the better method to use, I'm going to try this anyways. I just won't be expecting too much from the outcome thanks to you, that's all. =)
Thanks for answering my question.

Hopefully Lande has plans on improving his converter for the rest of us. I appreciate your informative post. I'll give you an update on my progress with the OVA later.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:42 pm

Actually, I was just testing out another method, and even though it's not compliant (and for any other AVC file I would strongly advise against this, but it won't work any other way), there is a way of not getting garbage frames - well, other than the ones that Lande's spits out too - without reencoding.

Pick up the x264 Full Package from doom9 (use mirror 1, as the other link is down right now):
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=89979

Make sure you have Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1, as I don't think the GUI for this program will work without it. There's a utility that comes with this package called AVC2AVI, and it can take the raw .264 file that mplayer dumped out, and place it in an AVI file. For some reason, the garbage frames that you get when using MP4Box/YAMB aren't created this way (they are, however, created when taking the raw out of the AVI and muxing that back to MP4). This results in the original video stream as it appears when mplayer plays the raw .264 or Lande decodes it. It is still the original AVC stream, however, and not a decoded uncompressed file like Lande gives you. Like YAMB, however, AVC2AVI's GUI doesn't allow you to adjust the framerate to the proper speed, so you'll either have to do that in VirtualDub afterwards or use AVC2AVI's command line to force it to use 29.97, which would be done this way:

avc2avi -f 29.97 -i input.264 -o output.avi

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:38 am

I won't pretend like I know what I'm doing. I've been trying to work with mplayer all night but I've made no progress. (I told you I suck at using command prompt. lol) I'm going to keep with it though tommorrow. I realize this must be real frustrating for you so I can undertstand if you don't want to be bothered anymore.

http://s50.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=25BV ... ET9YWRWSEA

here's a direct link to the ova that I'm working on. If you have the time, the willpower, and the space on your harddrive, it'd mean a lot if you could just see what you can do with it. Odds are, you'll be able to tell me if the method you just previously posted works before I can.

The thing about command prompt is that unless I have extremely detailed directions and commands that I could literally copy and paste from word for word, chances are I'm always gonna make a syntax error and have trouble finding what I did wrong.

Once again, I apologize for my incompetency. Hopefully I'll make some progress tommorrow. Thanks for all you've told me so far Qyot27.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:11 am

Minor update. I finally figured out how to get mplayer to make a dump file of the ova. It created 2 files named stream.dump and wavtemp.tmp. I thought it was only supposed to create one file. Anyways, now I'll try out those directions you gave me with the dump file.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 4:09 am

I hate to post 3 times in a row, but unfortunately, I'm not allowed to edit my posts.

Here's what I've got so far. I tried running the dump files that both Lande's converter created and mplayer created through AVC2AVI's GUI application. And I got an avi file the exact same size as the original dump file. Only problem was the avi files could'nt be played in anything. Media player classic for example told me that the file was missing some pins and that maybe some missing codecs or filters needed to be installed. And Virtual Dub Mod told me that it could'nt locate for format h264.

When I tried to run this avi through mplayer, it would freeze during the movie
only a few seconds into it. So this is where I'm stopping for the night. (it's 4:07 here in New York). So I'll try again tommorrow.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:45 pm

I typed out the exact command to give mplayer in the first post I made (mplayer "filepath" -dumpvideo). The only thing that would change would be the location of your file - change "filepath" to "c:\documents\rockx.pmf", for example.

Do you have ffdshow installed? And if you do, is it 1) the newest build (or at least the newest Celtic_druid build) and 2) did you install the VFW interface for it?

To get ffdshow, go here (the newest build is at the bottom of the page):
http://www.aziendeassociate.it/cd.asp?dir=/ffdshow

During the set-up, make sure that you tell it to be the default decoder for H264 (if you're not sure about any of the others, uncheck them). Make sure that you also tell it to install the VFW interface. I'm not sure if it enables H264 decoding by default like the DirectShow filter does, but that's easily remedied by using 'VFW codec configuration' in ffdshow's menu (Start->Programs->ffdshow) and telling libavcodec to decode H264. That should be the only thing you'll need, since using AVC2AVI on the file I got from mplayer worked just fine on my computer.

I did extract the OVA, and it works fine, but also has the occasional grey glitches throughout the span of it. For the most part it's perfect, though. And of course the sound doesn't work. I'm not sure if this would work, but I found an ATRAC3 ACM Codec here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Son ... _Codec.htm

See if that works on your computer with the dumped audio stream (rename the dumped audio stream as .oma or .omg or .at3 or even .wav, for that matter). If it plays in Windows Media Player, then I can tell you how to convert it to a usable form. I suspect the reason I wasn't able to do it on mine is that I'm not authorized for that audio (but I was able to open ATRAC3 files that I made using it). I don't know if taking it from a PSP image nullifies that authorization (or if dumping the audio stream from the .pmf file does, either), but it's worth a shot.

Of course, I think that the PSP uses ATRAC3+ with the weird headers I've been hearing about, which would mean that someone would need to figure out how to get to the raw audio stream by hex editing the file to nullify the encryption/replace the header, and then find something capable of decoding ATRAC3+, and I'm pretty much clueless in regards to that.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:51 pm

That's funny. I just recently uninstalled ffdshow from my computer. Oh well. I'll reinstall the latest version right now. I'll post my results shortly. Hopefully this should be it. =)

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:58 pm

btw, in regards to the audio stream of the ova, is it possible that the audio may not even be on the file and instead, hidden somewhere else of the games ISO image?

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:19 am

It's just as you said. I followed your directions and everything works great. The OVA can get a tiny bit choppy at moments, but it's no big deal at all. Once again, thanks for all your help.