VC/DC: VideoCD and MPEG player for Dreamcast

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June 29th, 2006, 11:51
OneThirty8

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VC/DC: VideoCD and MPEG player for Dreamcast

I was going to wait until I had a webpage for this, but since my ftp access at Storm!Studios doesn't seem to exist at the moment, I'll just release it here.

This is an MPEG player I've been working on for a while, based on libmpeg2 and mpglib. Check the Readme file in the download for more extensive credits. It also uses Dan Potter's GhettoPlay menu, a few pieces borrowed from DCDivX for disc swap support, and a fair amount of code based on information found in the vcdimager documentation and souce code, and La Cible's video and audio drivers for lvfdc.

It should play most MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 program streams as long as they're not some insane size (anything more than 1024 pixels wide or 512 pixels high is guarunteed not to work, and I haven't tested with anything nearly that large) and elementary streams--m1v, m2v, mp1, mp2, mp3. If your video stream has audio content that the player doesn't recognize, such as ac3 audio or Playstation2 *.pss files, it should still play the video.

Most of the cool features of VCD 2.0 and SVCD aren't implemented--no menus or MPEG stills. When the player realizes it is dealing with a (S)VCD, it will look for the first 'Entry,' or first chapter. As it plays the movie, it will keep track of which chapter it is currently playing, so you can skip forward/backward by chapter using the X and B buttons on your controller. This only works with VideoCD, not with regular MPEG files.

Fast-forward is implemented, but honestly isn't too much faster than playing. Press right on your D-pad. This works with VCD and MPEG video files. Pressing A will pause or resume. Pressing Y will stop and bring you back to the menu.

When watching a movie, if you forget what the controls are, just take a look at your VMU screen.

The menu is fairly straight-forward. Pressing Y will add stuff to a 'playlist.' Pressing A will play the currently selected file, or your playlist if you created one. Navigate using UP/DOWN on the D-Pad.

Download vcdc-0.1-bin.zip, extract, and burn 1st_read.bin and vcdc.png using whatever tool you use to create selfbooting discs. I haven't provided an ip.bin, but one from just about any homebrew should work.

Source code is in vcdc-0.1-src.zip for anyone interested.
June 29th, 2006, 12:04
Darksaviour69

moved to the news forum (so its posted as news)

the release forum was a way he hosted stuff, but it will soon be replaced.

nice release btw
June 29th, 2006, 12:24
mauro2029

Cool, I was waiting for something like this for so long a while back ago... but then I got an xbox.

I'd like to test it, but I just don't feel like creating my own self boot... I guess I could later, could someone just post the self-booting image or .sbi?
June 29th, 2006, 13:51
OneThirty8

1 Attachment(s)

Thanks, DarkSaviour.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mauro2029

Cool, I was waiting for something like this for so long a while back ago... but then I got an xbox.

I'd like to test it, but I just don't feel like creating my own self boot... I guess I could later, could someone just post the self-booting image or .sbi?

Sorry there was no *sbi before. I uploaded the zip files from my Linux system. Here's a Selfboot Inducer file, but I haven't tested it.

I also thought I'd mention that this should work with the VCD/Data selfboot method. The basic rundown is this:
Create a VCD with Nero. When you burn it, uncheck the box that says "finalize this disc." Then, use the CDRecord method in Selfboot or Selfboot Inducer, but don't burn the audio track. Get the MSInfo, create your ISO, and burn.
June 29th, 2006, 14:09
Darksaviour69

btw OneThirty8, sent you a pm
June 29th, 2006, 14:12
Vangar

Quote:

Originally Posted by mauro2029

Cool, I was waiting for something like this for so long a while back ago... but then I got an xbox.

I'd like to test it, but I just don't feel like creating my own self boot... I guess I could later, could someone just post the self-booting image or .sbi?

Same here. i was after a program like this - until i got an xbox.

Still, this is excellent work and i'll test it out in a week or so.
June 29th, 2006, 18:47
YZB

Tested
has been a pity,SFD and PSS not sound….
Moreover broadcasts the speed on my computer to be a little slow,On the main engine is full speed?
PS:Please forgive my too bad English

MPG
http://bbs.chinaemu.org/attachment/M...e128c7ef04.jpg

PSS
http://bbs.chinaemu.org/attachment/M...d4f8c28059.jpg

^-^
June 30th, 2006, 04:34
OneThirty8

Cool! Thanks for the screenshots! On the Dreamcast it should keep up pretty well with VCD-ish quality movies. It will skip B-frames if it has to.

I don't know how likely it is that it will ever play sound in SFD movies, but I might get the sound in PSS files working at some point. La Cible released some code that will play them a few years ago, so it shouldn't be too hard to add his sound code in.
June 30th, 2006, 05:35
fackue

http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown/2004/dcdev/

Reame of sfd2mpg:
o audio streams is ADX adpcm format.
o video stream is I,P picture only. not used B picture.
o usualy mpeg has one system header for audio and video,
but sfd has two system header: one for audio, another for video.
o sometime additional data at top of file.

Unfortunately it doesn't have the source to it, but the adx2wav program does, which is what the audio stream is.
June 30th, 2006, 08:29
fil

how does this player compare to other vcd players for dc speedwise? as other ones ive personally tried get some lound lag
July 4th, 2006, 06:38
OneThirty8

Sorry it took so long to reply. Sound is a bit buggy at the moment. That's the next thing I really need to work on. It doesn't really lag, but it doesn't sound too great either. To me, it seems to sound better on low-bitrate streams that I've downloaded from the internet (archive.org has a ton of cool old movies that have fallen into the public domain) but on VCD, it's not so great. I have a few ideas, so I should be able to improve it at some point. I've found most stuff watchable, and the audio and video don't drift out of sync, so you may want to give it a try with a few short movies and see what you think about the sound quality.
July 16th, 2006, 18:25
RetroGoth

does this play avi video too?
July 18th, 2006, 03:38
curt_grymala

I've gone ahead and uploaded an SBI (I didn't realize OneThirty8 had already made one until I had already uploaded mine) to the DCHelp SBI repository.

I also uploaded the source to that same site.
July 19th, 2006, 03:44
OneThirty8

Thanks for the SBI, curt. The only reason I didn't upload one myself was that I hadn't actually tested the one I made, although I'm pretty sure it should work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetroGoth

does this play avi video too?

Currently, no, and it's not as a high priority as getting better sound playback but I think DivX could be done. I recently got DCDivX beta 4 to compile with the same version of KOS I used for this (except the menu is all screwy), so it's in the realm of possibility and should actually not be hard for me to implement... so, we'll see in the future. I have DCDivX compiled as a library at the moment, and although I haven't tested it, it should work.
July 19th, 2006, 08:44
Darksaviour69

would it not be better to used uDCDivX by mekanaizer (which is an improvement od DCDivX..... having said that I'm having trouble finding the source to it
July 19th, 2006, 21:38
OneThirty8

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksaviour69

would it not be better to used uDCDivX by mekanaizer (which is an improvement od DCDivX..... having said that I'm having trouble finding the source to it

I can't find the source for it either. I don't think it was ever released.
July 20th, 2006, 12:45
Darksaviour69

hm looking at his profile the last time he loged into the forums was "Last Activity: April 10th, 2006 16:19 "..... i'm sure when he comes back he will have no problem releaseing the source