I've Created a WC4 HD Video Pack

[ODVS]

wao ! that's great, can you convert all the high res vob's like that ? is it then a simple matter of replacing the files to the new vob's in the movie folder in prophecy ?

Good news, Panther1.0 - I've done some experiments with the couple of videos I've done so far and, yes, as long as you have all the mods installed that allow you to run the DVD video version of the FMVs, all you have to do is drop the remastered videos in the "Movie" folder and the game just run's 'em 😄

 

[Panther1.0]

Great work bro !

 

[Panther1.0]

Good news, Panther1.0 - I've done some experiments with the couple of videos I've done so far and, yes, as long as you have all the mods installed that allow you to run the DVD video version of the FMVs, all you have to do is drop the remastered videos in the "Movie" folder and the game just run's 'em 😄

Awesomeness ODVS !

So this could be a relatively quick update for WCP!

what other work is being done on the models, I was under the impression they were basically done or was there some Capships left ?

Cheers
J

 

[FekLeyrTarg]

This really looks fantastic. A huge improvement to the original 480p videos. I love where this is going. Much more detail and more natural colors.

By the way: There are a few scenes which are available in CD-resolution only, like the logo scene, one scramble scene and the two final T'Lan Meth-sequences (helped Kilrathi and killed Kilrathi). The video archive has all the CD-only scenes.

WCP Movie Index - Holovids - Wing Commander CIC

Wing Commander CIC

www.wcnews.com

Do you think you can do anything for them?

Also, perhabs it would be a good idea to upload the remastered videos on any file hoster, so that we can enjoy them in their... unYouTubecompressed glory.

 

[Panther1.0]

Yes I remember those few low res scenes, I was also puzzled when I first replayed the game with the high res vids, what happened originally when the game was first updated to high res, was the source video files missing or were they skipped by accident ?

 

[ODVS]

This really looks fantastic. A huge improvement to the original 480p videos. I love where this is going. Much more detail and more natural colors.

By the way: There are a few scenes which are available in CD-resolution only, like the logo scene, one scramble scene and the two final T'Lan Meth-sequences (helped Kilrathi and killed Kilrathi). The video archive has all the CD-only scenes.

WCP Movie Index - Holovids - Wing Commander CIC

Wing Commander CIC

www.wcnews.com

Do you think you can do anything for them?

Also, perhabs it would be a good idea to upload the remastered videos on any file hoster, so that we can enjoy them in their... unYouTubecompressed glory.

I'll have a look through those missing scenes once I've got a V1.0 WCP pack rendered out 🙂

I'm sure I can manage some kind of improvement - but there's definitely a law of diminishing returns on this whole remaster process. If you have really low quality source material, there's only so much you can do with it.

I'll find a way to host a full, un-YouTubed video pack once I have a full set rendered. As with the WC4 HD pack, though, I'm currently prioritising speed of process over total quality. (By which I mean quality of compression on the footage after it's been remastered). Even non-YouTubed, some fine detail gets lost to compression, just so we don't end up with a 500GB video pack! Once I have a 1.0 pack put together, I'll revisit the compression optimisation for WC4, then apply whatever standards I come up with there to WCP

 

[ODVS]

This really looks fantastic. A huge improvement to the original 480p videos. I love where this is going. Much more detail and more natural colors.

By the way: There are a few scenes which are available in CD-resolution only, like the logo scene, one scramble scene and the two final T'Lan Meth-sequences (helped Kilrathi and killed Kilrathi). The video archive has all the CD-only scenes.

WCP Movie Index - Holovids - Wing Commander CIC

Wing Commander CIC

www.wcnews.com

Do you think you can do anything for them?

Also, perhabs it would be a good idea to upload the remastered videos on any file hoster, so that we can enjoy them in their... unYouTubecompressed glory.

Hi FekLeyrTarg - this was a very quick experiment job, but this is roughly what we could expect in terms of remastering the CD versions of videos.

I've included the same clip three times with three different forms of comparison (split view, side-by-side, pan reveal) to try to give a good showing of both what's been improved and what the source material looks like.

There's some motion glitching in the remastered footage because I very quickly rushed through interpolating frames to get us up from 15 Frames Per Second to 29.97. I could clean this up to a degree, but it's always going to be an issue - especially on things like the system name typing out in the CGI section. You might notice the motion on that section isn't as smooth because I just couldn't use frame interpolation there - too many errors. I had to rely on frame blending, which doesn't give anywhere near as natural-looking motion.

As I said, we'd almost certainly end up with an improvement - it's just still going to stick out like a sore thumb compared to the footage remastered from the DVD source.

 

[AD]

First, as far as hosting goes, I'm sure we can handle that right here at WCNews. As far as file size goes, I don't think larger file sizes are a huge issue, though it does get to a point of diminishing returns on file size vs quality improvements...

On another note, I put together sets of videos that are either missing or broken on the DVD versions ages ago so here they are:

WCP: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1H0eJ1X9qta9DuuP4T0vBh-Nb29efCoeK]

The WCP Videos are just the raw extracted videos from the CDs. I believe there's at least one in there that seems to have a version on the DVD but for some reason is actually just a repeated copy of one of the other videos instead of being a higher quality version of the CD video.

WC4: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F57pZfiVbyHQFMZrmQ3wBLKXJo0BsPaR

These are both the missing videos and fixed videos. The videos missing sound were remuxed with the CD audio. For videos like 2570, there's the original cd version turned into a VOB (you might want to rextract this one if and start from scratch for the upscale) and then I also have a version that takes the front half of video and adds it to the DVD version of the jump with the fleet (which is completely different from the jump portion of the cd version.). The DVD version of 3630 is missing the bar ending altogether so this has been appended to the DVD version. Again, though it will take some editing, you might get better results working with the original file.

 

[AD]

Since I had the files still sitting around here's a zip with just the extracted audio for all the scenes plus the raw video of the two missing scenes extracted from both the PC and PSX versions. The PSX versions are more a curiosity than anything since the audio quality seems about the same but the resolution is actually lower. The compression on the video seems more smudgy though so there seems to be less noise even if the overall picture isn't any better at all. There certainly isn't as much fine detail.

WC4DVDforfixing.zip

drive.google.com

 

[Pedro]

Since I had the files still sitting around here's a zip with just the extracted audio for all the scenes plus the raw video of the two missing scenes extracted from both the PC and PSX versions. The PSX versions are more a curiosity than anything since the audio quality seems about the same but the resolution is actually lower. The compression on the video seems more smudgy though so there seems to be less noise even if the overall picture isn't any better at all. There certainly isn't as much fine detail.

WC4DVDforfixing.zip

drive.google.com

That's neat, I'd never noticed the video from WC3 playing in the background at the bar before.
For 2570 I can't help but wonder if Defiance Industries couldn't recreate it, the compression was not kind to it.

 

[ODVS]

Since I had the files still sitting around here's a zip with just the extracted audio for all the scenes plus the raw video of the two missing scenes extracted from both the PC and PSX versions. The PSX versions are more a curiosity than anything since the audio quality seems about the same but the resolution is actually lower. The compression on the video seems more smudgy though so there seems to be less noise even if the overall picture isn't any better at all. There certainly isn't as much fine detail.

WC4DVDforfixing.zip

drive.google.com

Wonderful, thanks AD - I'll look forward to seeing what I can do with all these sources 🙂

 

[Panther1.0]

oh ! I miss understood, so Owen, the WC4 idea is spilling over to WCP ? so we will be able to play the game (WCP) with even better updated video quality ?

rgds
J

 

[ODVS]

oh ! I miss understood, so Owen, the WC4 idea is spilling over to WCP ? so we will be able to play the game (WCP) with even better updated video quality ?

rgds
J

That's the plan 🙂

I'm a good chunk of the way through the WCP videos now

 

[-danr-]

Nice. Thank you for these.

It's a pity there's nothing that can be done for WC3 - as that is the game that would benefit from something like this the most.

I suppose unless the original raw footage is somehow obtained, such ventures would be impossible.

 

[ODVS]

Nice. Thank you for these.

It's a pity there's nothing that can be done for WC3 - as that is the game that would benefit from something like this the most.

I suppose unless the original raw footage is somehow obtained, such ventures would be impossible.

Thanks, -danr- 🙂

As others have informed me, there are higher quality versions of the WC3 footage available than on the PC CD-ROM version. I suspect the PSX version would simply be too low-resolution to be of any use (see the experiments in remastering the missing Shipyard scene from WC4 - 320x240 resolution just doesn't cut it), but I'd be interested in giving the 3DO version a trial, if anyone can manage to get hold of a copy and rip it.

However, I don't think we'd be able to get any potential WC3 remastered videos to play in-game - since even the GOG version has to run via DosBox.

 

[FekLeyrTarg]

However, I don't think we'd be able to get any potential WC3 remastered videos to play in-game - since even the GOG version has to run via DosBox.

The only chance would be the exe of the Windows Port found in the Kilrathi Saga compilation.
You can easily patch the DOS-version with that one.

 

[AD]

That's neat, I'd never noticed the video from WC3 playing in the background at the bar before.
For 2570 I can't help but wonder if Defiance Industries couldn't recreate it, the compression was not kind to it.

It's actually from the console versions. It's one of cutscenes that plays instead of the planetary missions in the PSX/3DO versions.

Thanks, -danr- 🙂

As others have informed me, there are higher quality versions of the WC3 footage available than on the PC CD-ROM version. I suspect the PSX version would simply be too low-resolution to be of any use (see the experiments in remastering the missing Shipyard scene from WC4 - 320x240 resolution just doesn't cut it), but I'd be interested in giving the 3DO version a trial, if anyone can manage to get hold of a copy and rip it.

However, I don't think we'd be able to get any potential WC3 remastered videos to play in-game - since even the GOG version has to run via DosBox.

WC3 PSX is actually the exact same resolution as the PC version. They dumbed down the resolution for WC4 PSX in favor of higher quality audio and squeezing it onto 4 cds (down from six). The PSX version has higher color depth than the PC version of WC3 but has a more JPEGesque type of blocky compression . When Origin/EA made the 3DO version they redid all the compression to make better use of new tech. The PSX version was made with the 3DO sourse. The PC version has a wierd noisy sticky-pixel issue that is nowhere to be seen in the console versions. Overall they look prety good in comparison. Theoretically the 3DO has better image quality than the PSX version but HCl never released a conversion too (though he apparently cracked the format).

Overall the PSX version looks a lot cleaner but things like text are definitely more smudgy. The PC has some edge up for certain details. Idealy it would be nice to take info from both and merge them somehow if that's possible. Get the AI to compare the two.

I do have the PSX videos here and the tools to extract them and convert them are available if you want to play around with them later.

pc vs psx.zip

drive.google.com

 

[Shades2585]

Nice. Thank you for these.

It's a pity there's nothing that can be done for WC3 - as that is the game that would benefit from something like this the most.

I suppose unless the original raw footage is somehow obtained, such ventures would be impossible.

I believe @Bandit LOAF got his hands on the original WC3 Tapes. If so that would require a lot of money to convert them to digital and they may only the the shots with the Green Screen which would also require the back ground to be inserted as well. Personally I would donate to the tape to digital transfer if that were possible.

 

[-danr-]

I believe @Bandit LOAF got his hands on the original WC3 Tapes. If so that would require a lot of money to convert them to digital and they may only the the shots with the Green Screen which would also require the back ground to be inserted as well. Personally I would donate to the tape to digital transfer if that were possible.

I think a lot of Wingnuts would be willing to donate to that.

I wonder how difficult it would be to insert new high resolution backgrounds to the green screen footage. I'd assume this would require some studio-level hardware and expertise.

Sorry to have derailed your thread @ODVS

 

[Pedro]

I think a lot of Wingnuts would be willing to donate to that.

I wonder how difficult it would be to insert new high resolution backgrounds to the green screen footage. I'd assume this would require some studio-level hardware and expertise.

Sorry to have derailed your thread @ODVS

Inserting new backgrounds wouldn’t be hard at all; heck zoom will do it for you The hard part would be making the backgrounds