{"id":3483,"date":"2011-07-11T22:51:18","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T05:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/?p=3483"},"modified":"2011-07-12T09:15:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T16:15:35","slug":"mmjournal-the-past-doesnt-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/mmjournal-the-past-doesnt-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Multimedia Exploration Journal: The Past Doesn’t Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

New haul of games<\/a>, new (old) multimedia formats.<\/p>\n

Lords of Midnight<\/strong>
\nCheck out the box copy scan for Lords of Midnight<\/a> in MobyGames. In particular, I’d like to call your attention to this little blurb:<\/p>\n


\n\"\"
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

Ahem, “Journey through an immense world — the equivalent of 8 CD-ROMs.” Yet, when I procured the game, it only came on a single CD-ROM. It’s definitely a CD-ROM (says so on the disc) and, coming from 1995, certainly predates the earliest DVD-ROMs (which can easily store 8 CD-ROMs on a disc). Thus, I wanted to jump in a see if they were using some phenomenal compression in order to squeeze so much info into 600 or so megabytes.<\/p>\n

I was surprised to see the contents of the disc clocking in at just under 40 megabytes. An intro movie and an outro movie account for 75% of that. Format? None other than that curious ASCII anomaly, ARMovie\/RPL<\/a> with Escape 122 codec data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cyclemania<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n\"\"
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

Cyclemania<\/a> is one of those FMV backdrop action games, but with a motorcycle theme. I had a good feeling I would find some odd multimedia artifacts here and the game didn’t disappoint. The videos are apparently handled using 3-4 discrete files per animation. I’ve documented my cursory guesses and linked some samples at the new MultimediaWiki page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Interplay ACMP<\/strong>
\nThis is unrelated to this particular acquistion, but I was contacted today about audio files harvested from the 1993 DOS game Star Trek: Judgment Rites<\/a>. The files begin with the ASCII signature “Interplay ACMP Data”. This reminds me of Interplay MVE<\/a> files which begin with the similar string “Interplay MVE File”. My theory is that these files use the ACOMP<\/a> compression format, though I’m still trying to make it fit.<\/p>\n

Wiki and samples<\/a> are available as usual if you’d like to add your own research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Custom Cyclemania video format spread across multiple file types; Interplay ACMP files which might have ACOMP audio data<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-hacking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t