Monthly Archives: December 2005

Survey Of GBA Coding Methods

Sony’s PlayStation Portable and Apple’s video iPod are enjoying quite a bit of recognition by allowing users to view television shows and movies on their tiny screens. Some folks, however, think that Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance should share in the fun.


Game Boy Advance

Naturally, the PSP and the iPod have a few advantages over the GBA in that they have gobs of storage capacity, either optical or HD-based, whereas the GBA is limited to a few dozen megabytes in ROM. Further, the PSP and iPod presumably have a little more processing muscle (though I do not know the respective specs off the top of my head). PSP and iPod are known to use MPEG-4 technologies for the video. What does the Game Boy Advance use?

Trixter tipped me off about a game cartridge entitled Game Boy Advance Video: SpongeBob SquarePants, Vol. 1. The ROM squeezes out 44 minutes of video. Trixter maintains that the video quality betrays characteristics of a vector quantizer codec. More Majesco GBA video titles can be found here.

What other video options are out there? Trixter pointed me to Caimans video codec for GBA. The website yields zero data about the underlying compression techniques. Further, the MPEG-like 4xm format is known to have been used in at least one GBA title– Britney’s Dance Beat.

The Importance Of Random Numbers

My journey to the new secret location took me across the state of Nevada in the USA. I did not pass through the world famous gambling mecca of Las Vegas but that’s okay because every gas station, road-side rest stop, and outhouse is equipped with gaming facilities. I had the opportunity to set foot inside of an actual, production Nevada casino: Red Lion Inn – Elko. Quite the multimedia display. I was amazed at the sheer diverity of computerized slot machines. I thought there was just one principle type of slot machine and that it had been digitized somewhere along the line. Not so. There are all kinds of themes available. I was especially amused by the machines based on Prince of Persia and Aliens. I could not find any copyright notices on the former machines for Jordan Mechener or Br0derbund. Then again, Prince of Persia might be generic enough that such copyright matters are not in dispute.

It was all a sight to behold as I sat back and partook in the requisite casino buffet while pondering the outlandish odds of the house’s Keno game. Of course, I could not help but wonder how these computerized slot machines are programmed. Outside of cryptographic and security applications, this is one more area where truly random numbers actually count.

While I was away, VAG emailed me and notified me that the GDV document is not completely correct. Imagine that. Apologies to anyone who started working on a decoder but has not been able to finish it yet.