FMVs from 3 & 4?

Zebonka

Spaceman
Can anyone help me find the cutscenes for Wing Commander 3 & 4? It's a heck of an odd request I suppose, but I was never really very good at the game itself - I just love the cutscenes, and would quite like to edit them into something myself.

Ehm, if this is a taboo request at this forum, could anyone e-mail me at zebonka@gmail.com and we can, I dunno, talk about why it's taboo or whatever. :D

I've had no luck so far because I imagine these files are huge and therefore no one has 'em. Gah.

Anyway, thanks for reading.
 
You can extract them from the game yourself.
If you don't own a copy of the games, then it's not taboo to send them, it's just illegal.
 
DyNaMiX said:
You can extract them from the game yourself.
If you don't own a copy of the games, then it's not taboo to send them, it's just illegal.

Taboo, illegal, it's all the same to me :p
 
You'll want HCl's Movie Player to extract the video segments from Wing Commander 3 and 4 (the viewer also extracts video from Privateer 2 and Prophecy). The player extracts the video from the game's .tre files into uncompressed 320x160 .avi files, which can then be edited and filtered/resized/etc together into a desired sequence via packages such Adobe Premiere or Windows Movie Maker (included with Windows XP).

There are two versions of Wing Commander 4 on DVD. One version just includes all the data from the CD version packed onto a single-layer (DVD5) disc, while the second, more desirable version, is a dual-sided, single-layer disc of the game with higher quality MPEG2 video and AC3 audio, which would obviously constitute a better source for a video project involving WC4 than the CD version.

Check out AD's WC4 Movie Project thread, which includes discussion on various programmes suitable for extracting and compiling the footage, as well as samples of the project.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
"while the second, more desirable version, is a dual-sided, single-layer disc of the game with higher quality MPEG2 video and AC3 audio, which would obviously constitute a better source for a video project involving WC4 than the CD version."

Aye I'll have to hunt it down. Thankye!
 
Zebonka said:
Taboo, illegal, it's all the same to me :p

That's not a really wise attitude to have if you want continued help here. That being said, some people are often too quick to jump on people for things which are not inappropriate. We host a wide variety of video compilations that people have created from the source material. EA could probably technically get everyone on account of screenshots, mods and so on, but they have always specifically made a point of not prohibiting certain limited things like that in order to promote the series. The only large scale video thing we offer is Academy. Nobody has ever put up all the gigabytes of video that would be included in the FMV games.
 
ChrisReid said:
EA could probably technically get everyone on account of screenshots, mods and so on

Indeed. Theoretically, your avatar could be seen as a copyright violation. Thankfully, EA has deemed such trivial matters as not worthy of its legal department's attention. While I'm not a fan of the company, I do have to give it a great deal of credit in that matter.
 
" if you want continued help here."

I don't. Lovely place, but I'm knee-deep in editing Klingon Academy cutscenes instead! :D

Yeah look, I know you have to play it safe and not upload too much copywritten material, but how seriously can I take such advice when there's people doing movie-edits of said FMVs? To avoid copyright issues he probably shouldn't upload the finished product, so what will he do? Describe it to people??

Only jokes, I wish him well with his project and I'm sure to find a copy of the game soon. But I've wasted a fair amount of time with eBay and Amazon in the past (call it bad luck) and was just looking to see if I could circumvent it.

Thanks again.
 
Zebonka said:
Yeah look, I know you have to play it safe and not upload too much copywritten material, but how seriously can I take such advice when there's people doing movie-edits of said FMVs? To avoid copyright issues he probably shouldn't upload the finished product, so what will he do? Describe it to people??

Only jokes, I wish him well with his project and I'm sure to find a copy of the game soon. But I've wasted a fair amount of time with eBay and Amazon in the past (call it bad luck) and was just looking to see if I could circumvent it.

Thanks again.

Yeah, there isn't really a problem with the movie clips in regards to that stuff. The bigger issue is that they're a lot of gigabytes of data for something that people generally already have on discs. Aside from the WC4 DVD vobs, we don't currently have stuff extracted and converted into a ready to view format either. eBay is pretty much the best place to go about getting that stuff, and you get the games themselves too.
 
"you get the games themselves too"

Gotta admit, has been a while since I played it. Maybe I'll do better this time.

Cheers.
 
I don't understand something, Zebonka. How can you have bad luck with Ebay; I don't know if Amazon lists either WC game anymore but Ebay and Half.com always have copies ready for sale. Are you outside the US?
 
Indeed, Australia is where I'm at. It doesn't make things impossible, per se, just finnicky, and when things play up it's harder to get anything done about it... heh.
 
well, I managed to secure one of the 2-sided DVDs while living in Brazil, so you should really try again. The WC4 DVD is really cool.
 
It was the best of times, it was the *worst* of times.

Today I took a trip into TAFE and paid this years tuition fees. No WC4 for a while :D
 
"Yeah, times must be pretty bad if you can't swing $20 US"

Yes. They are. :eek:

Anyway, I'll let this thread die now. :D

(closes door on way out)
 
Where can u actually get the desired WCIV DVD...i mean when on earth did Creative actually release it...and why did they not make a heck load of copies!? No wonder its sought after...apart from ebay, y the hell would any lucky person who acquires the actual DVD sell it? I certainly don't remember seeing WCIV DVD special on any Argos catalogue!?

(yes...i am chatting bull)
 
Don said:
Where can u actually get the desired WCIV DVD...i mean when on earth did Creative actually release it...and why did they not make a heck load of copies!?

The WCIV DVD was packaged with the Creative Labs DXR video card. It originally was the only thing with the proper hardware to decode the WC4 DVD but was later fixed. https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/5426

The best place to get a WCIV DVD is on Ebay unless you want to wait for the CIC Birthday this year. They sometimes have them as prizes - it's how I got mine.
 
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