N64 FMV tech demo

[kool kitty89]

Chilly Willy, it is still not "full motion". Most cartoons animate around 10-15 frames per second and anime even less than that (anime is notorious for extremely low frame rates and rarely does the entire frame even move).

The low framerate would thus facilitate greater intraframe compression, ie a similar number of key frame as a 30 fps video would mean 2x or 3x the portion of key frames at those framerates. Then there's the lack of movement per screen, which is great for interframe compression. (relativley little changed frame to frame) Especially useful with variable bitrate. (for times with many frames ont he same screen use few key frames with lower bitrate and higher bitrate with more key frames for action scenes)

Flygon is right, a fast videogame would be extremely hard to compress. I had a hard time compressing Super Monkey Ball footage to get it online to impress the world. So much moves and so fast.

Another big problem is that a lot of capture devices want to deinterlace the video, no proper 60 fps 240p support, so you end up with combing artifacts and/or missed frames. (screwed up flicker effects looking like drop-out and such)

Oh, and N64 Resident Evil already has FMV? So why is what this Youtube guy is doing even news? What's next, a thread that says "looooK!!!!! FMV on the Sega CD!!!!!!!!!"

I'd be more interested in the compression quality and bitrates used compared to the few cases of streaming video on the N64. It's all academic now, but still interesting to see what could have been done in reasonable cart sizes of the time... I don't think this is the case here though. (probably a much higher data rate than RE2 used)

Willy was talking about the clarity of animation, not the framerate.

Lower framerate facilitates less intraframe compression (and a greater proportion of key frames), while the cases of minimal on-screen movement greatly facilitate good interframe compression.

With suitably low framerate (and color depth, resolution, etc -albeit framerate is temporal resolution) you could have no compression at all. That's what several of Sega CD games do, no compression, just low resolution and framerate. (Sonic CD used 256x112 at 8 fps with 16-color frames for the intro cutscene -not sure about the endings)

Intraframe only codecs like MJPG eliminate the advantages of limited movement on screen, but framerate is then all the more important. (every frame is a key frame, each frame is compressed independently)

Yeah the video quality in RE2 might not be quite as good as the PS1 version but there is at least 10 minutes of it on the N64. It's a 64MB (512Mb) cartridge, the largest N64 cart made. But all the voice is there and don't forget every single pre-rendered background image.

Konker's Bad Fur Day was also that large, not sure if there were others. (several 32 MB carts though)

I wonder how much of that 64MB is FMV? Half I'm guessing!

A lot of space to store the prerendered backgrounds too.

Ever compressed cartoons to MPEG2 for DVD? They look MUCH worse than live action with the same bitrate.

I haven't noticed that... THough I'm more keen to framerate variations than some artifacts (microblocking is the most obvious).
They look better than analog broadcast TV and VHS for sure. ANd that's from both watching on an SDTV via Y'PbPr and on PC monitors. (most recently The Tick)
Higher compression/low bitrate stuff from online downloads tend to be far more noticeable though. (full downloads, torrents, etc, not talking streaming stuf specifically)

[Chilly Willy]

What animation lacks in frame rate, it more than makes up for in range of color and luminance, as well as sharpness of edges. All those challenge a codec more than frame rate. Again, it's clear that some people here have no experience in encoding different types of video source material.

[Joe Redifer]

Hi Chilly Willy. Wanna guess what I do for a living? Video Editor. I compress more stuff than you ever have. Thanks, bye!

PS - I agree with compressing cartoons that it can be tough using shitty, low quality amateur codecs that n00bs use in Windows Movie Maker. And the compression of the Cowboy Bebop cartoon intro was full of artifacts.

[j_factor]

Hi Chilly Willy. Wanna guess what I do for a living? Video Editor. I compress more stuff than you ever have. Thanks, bye!

Nobody here has any experience in anything or could possibly know what they're talking about on any subject.

And the compression of the Cowboy Bebop cartoon intro was full of artifacts.

Indeed. I wouldn't say that this video exhibits perfect "range of color and luminance, as well as sharpness of edges." Then again, it's hard to tell how much of that is from Youtube.

[tomaitheous]

What's all the hoopla about!?

It just a tech demo. Marshall figured out the proprietary FMV from the RSP code, wrote a compressor himself, and made a little video about it. Anyway, I thought it was cool. I'd like to mess with the RSP someday.. when I get a flash cart for the n64 (would love to make a sound engine or sound emulator).

On the topic of animation. Sure, some animation might be low, but there's "sliding" and movement of images higher than 12 fps. And that video has a lot of hard/contrast edges that kills encoders. Joe, you of anybody should know that. And if anything, you shouldn't be using any lossy codecs for video editing. So I don't see the relevant point in all of this. I did technical editing support for 3 movie projects. We never used any lossy codecs, other than what was imported originally straight from the deck (4:2:2).

[Knuckle Duster]

Hi Chilly Willy. Wanna guess what I do for a living? Video Editor. I compress more stuff than you ever have. Thanks, bye!

I was waiting for 'that' to show up since his page 1 comment.

I have no clue about any of this shit, carry on gentlemen.

[Joe Redifer]

Tom, 4:2:2 is not a codec, it's a color space. I do not edit in lossy interframe codecs, but I compress to them because not everyone wants to play a 13 GB, 2 minute file. People want DVD versions, web versions, Flash versions, HD versions, you name it, they want it. High contrast areas are what encoders usually do best. They are super-easy to handle. Fine detail on the other hand, gets lost. Gradients can be murder as well, like a shot of the daytime sky. The "sliding" you are talking about (which is actually scrolling) never exceeds 24fps on a cartoon. I've never seen any cartoon run at 30fps, though they do probably exist. Still, that is less than videogame scrolling and I guarantee you a videogame would kill compression more than any cartoon ever could.

You also didn't mention that this was just some guy who hacked a codec, etc. You just posted a link to the Youtube in a thread about an FMV Tech Demo. I thought my opinion was supposed to be "Holy fuckballs, FMV on a NINTENDO 64!!!! That's impossible!!!!!!!" That's why I became less impressed when I heard that other N64 games already had this like 15 years ago.

[Dizzy]

Why don't they try it with actual video instead of just some cartoon shit? Cartoons are most certainly not "full motion". They can be compressed easily and do not show off what can really be done.

Agree.

[Pulstar]

20 minutes of anime can be compressed into 50 meg AVC and it would still look just fine.

Anyone has more details regarding this RSP codec?

[kool kitty89]

What's all the hoopla about!?

It just a tech demo. Marshall figured out the proprietary FMV from the RSP code, wrote a compressor himself, and made a little video about it. Anyway, I thought it was cool. I'd like to mess with the RSP someday.. when I get a flash cart for the n64 (would love to make a sound engine or sound emulator).

Huh, so the RSP has standard streaming video support? I know the RSP microcode is programmable, and the discription mentions it's HunsonSoft's decoder, so I'd imagine HS wrote a custom microcode for the RSP handling streaming, compressed video.

I wonder if that was used for anything on the N64 commercially. I'd though that Factor 5 did their own work converting RE2, including the video encoding.

[M4R14NO94]

I wonder if that was used for anything on the N64 commercially. I'd though that Factor 5 did their own work converting RE2, including the video encoding.

Factor 5 (and LucasArts as well) only provided their MusyX audio tool and the video and voice compression tools. The N64 version was done by Angel Studios, aka Rockstar San Diego. Here's proof (taken from the Japanese version's back cover):

[Chilly Willy]

Hi Chilly Willy. Wanna guess what I do for a living? Video Editor. I compress more stuff than you ever have. Thanks, bye!

PS - I agree with compressing cartoons that it can be tough using shitty, low quality amateur codecs that n00bs use in Windows Movie Maker. And the compression of the Cowboy Bebop cartoon intro was full of artifacts.

Wow! And yet you seem to know so little about the subject.

Maybe you should spend a bit more time at Doom9 and less here. It's clearly interfering with your work.

[Joe Redifer]

Whatever you say, man, whatever you say.

But I will leave you with this:
I can compress a 12-frame per second, 1 and a half minute cartoon that I did myself in HD 1080p at 23.98fps and the final file is 24.5 MB with no artifacts whatsoever and includes full stereo sound. A real video running at 23.98fps for the same length and resolution with stereo sound ends up being about 170 MB... if I don't want any noticeable artifacts. Go back to Doom9 (whatever that is) and pirate your anime.

[Chilly Willy]

You rag me all through the thread, but the first time I rag back, you can't take it.

I figured you'd bring up high def... that's your problem - you're too used to modern encoders using h.264 and the like. Look at the thread again - this is a codec for a NINTENDO 64! You do realize that a modern codec ain't gonna work on an N64, right? We're looking at maybe MPEG2 or low-bitrate xvid with none of the bells and whistles. A 90 MHz MIPS ain't gonna play anything more.

[Joe Redifer]

Agreed in full on the modern thing. It's what I use. No need to use anything else. I hardly consider that a problem, however.