As I read new trivia additions on MobyGames, I see more and more bits about commercial games being open sourced. I figured that there must be some site out there that documents such transitions and lo and behold:

http://www.liberatedgames.com/

I wager there is some custom FMV code in there somewhere. We already know for a fact that:

• Descent II source contains a 16-bit Interplay MVE decoder
• Quake II source contains a Quake II Cinematic (.cin) decoder
• Quake III source contains a RoQ decoder

A number of the games listed at Liberated Games are only free in that the binary executable and data are available, but no source code.

A few more items I would like to investigate:

• Hexen II is open source (GPL). This screenshot makes it look like the game has some FMV. This game is based on the Quake engine. Per my understanding, Quake did not feature FMV. Quake II did.
• Stargunner is free for download. This screenshot looks like it might be FMV.
• Hidden & Dangerous is free for download. These screenshots may or may not represent FMV.
• Further, The Ur-quan Masters (Star Control 2) has released both source and data. Part of the data available for download is a speech pack. Nothing too special; all of the speech is available in Ogg Vorbis format.

Update: Trixter sends this intelligence about the titles above:

• Hexen II — can’t verify if that’s video, but there are Animation credits in the game so it is probably yes. However, most times that stuff is a FLIC file. (BTW, don’t get all bunched up over FLIC — there are two main variants that are easy to support; the rest of all that junk was introduced and supported by only that one company you found the info on.)
• Stargunner: same thing, most likely a 320×200 VGA FLIC.
• H&D: no video as far as I know.

Ordinarily, I disdain overpriced gourmet food stores (in fact, I research my own low-cost knock-offs). Though I will still browse through them. And I actually caved and bought this item because I thought it would be an appropriate addition to my extensive collection of CD-ROM media:

You might think I would hear about these things sooner. Here is a project that has been around since last May that I just learned about yesterday:

ratDVD Official Site

From what I gather based on the website, it is a container format that allows complete encapsulation of a DVD for internet distribution. It can retain menus, navigation, subtitles, special features, etc. It apparently also transcodes video to a custom format named XEB. It also uses some custom variant of the Dolby AC-3 codec called AC-3 VS (virtual surround). These details are a bit sketchy since there is not much code available. The developer claims to want to work with the Linux community to come up with a suitable playback solution.

My first impulse at seeing this was similar to my reaction towards Matroska: Special Microsoft operatives attempting to distract open source multimedia hackers from focusing on more important matters. Not to be outdone in the more-work-for-the-community department, the Matroska developers have a draft of a similarly capable system.

An impromptu search on BitTorrent networks reveals that people are already pressing ratDVD into service for its stated purpose, e.g., making available for P2P distribution such niche-interest media content as Star Wars Episode III and full seasons of 24. So I imagine the demand for this format will eventually grow.

I just learned that a new version of DivX (version 6) is available when I found a file on BitTorrent that mentioned DivX6 in the filename. Fortunately, the file uses the fourcc DX50 which implies that the bitstream syntax is the same as the previous version. Version 6 of the encoder likely features general improvements to the encoding engine but packs the data into the same bitstream (which is apparently compatible with ISO MPEG-4). The DX50 data decodes fine with FFmpeg.