Steam Videos

[Rash]

Does anyone know what is the video tecnology (audio and video codecs + resize) that the Steam platform uses?

It is truly one of the best video presentations I've ever seen! And its resizing is also amazing. Not to mention fast.

[CWR03]

I believe it's Bink video.

[Rash]

Might be. Game companies like this codec.

Thank you. :)

[CWR03]

It's actually a self-contained video and player, and you're right, the quality is as good as actual gameplay.

[check]

Umm, Bink? Self-contained?? Have either of you even taken a peek inside your steam folders? :P The format is wmv9/wma professional/.wmv and the files are located in Steam\SteamApps\media
smp.exe is the player, passing it a file as an argument (smp.exe %1) will make it play it. I've only tried this with official videos though, so dunno if it's just a transparent implementation of WMP directshow (as I would guess, steam like to use MS components), or a custom decoder set.

[CWR03]

Perhaps I was thinking of the Valve promotional videos, which are Bink files.

[Rash]

Check, those weren't the videos I was talking about. The promotional videos are indeed self-contained, and they are placed together with the other big package files on Steam\SteamApps, and their extention is the same as the others, gcf.

half-life 2 episode two trailer 2.gcf
team fortress 2 trailer 2.gcf

[Rash]

CWR, it turns out that Check was right. These videos are indeed WM9 (VC-1) encoded videos @ 720p with a very high bitrate (around 8Mbps). ;)