Bink?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Hi all,

Does anyone know anything about Bink?

I used it a long time ago to encode some CGI stuff I made with Bryce, and I noticed it's still used frequently by game developers to encode cutscenes.

What's the score?

~MiSfit

[linyx]

I don't encode to bink, but i use RAD Video Tools (http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm) to decode bink videos. They don't seem to look as good as you would think a video properly encoded with x264 would (of the same size), but not bad by any means.

[Sagekilla]

Bink is... good for real time decoding with decent quality. It's not so great compared to x264 as linyx said, but it's pretty much the standard codec used in games today.

[Dark Shikari]

Bink is a 90s-generation video format, back from the days when people were still really creative when designing video formats. Though, Bink in particular isn't too interesting, its more of a case of "throw tons of random features together and hope it works."

But using it for any serious purpose today would be insane. I mean, seriously, it's really really old. And the "fast decoding speed" is no longer really important when basically all computers can play 1080p MPEG-2 back in realtime just fine...

[Inventive Software]

Bink is a 90s-generation video format, back from the days when people were still really creative when designing video formats. Though, Bink in particular isn't too interesting, its more of a case of "throw tons of random features together and hope it works."

But using it for any serious purpose today would be insane. I mean, seriously, it's really really old. And the "fast decoding speed" is no longer really important when basically all computers can play 1080p MPEG-2 back in realtime just fine...

It's good on games consoles, and now defunct on PCs. It also takes a bloody long time to encode.:devil:

[Blue_MiSfit]

Nah, it's not defunct on PCs! Many new games use Bink still today! That's what really surprised me.

I remember Starcraft's cutscenes were encoded with Smacker, and later games (the Homeworld series come to mind) used Bink IIRC. The new Call of Duty: World at War game uses Bink as well :)

http://www.radgametools.com/binkgames.htm

:D

Wow...

~MiSfit

[CruNcher]

Im really surprised that especially the Anime guys don't use it as they don't care for encoding time ;)
Imho i never saw Smacker/Bink being used with Real Scenes in all the last 10 years or @ least very rare for sure there is a reason why it's used mostly for CG compression ;)
sooner or later you won't need it anymore Realtime 3D CG Raytracing In Engine Cut-scenes become more and more realistic and easier to do then 3D renderer-> Video Compression, so someday the time of Bink will be over anyways.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Im really surprised that especially the Anime guys don't use it as they don't care for encoding time ;)

Why should anybody use Bink when x264 is available :confused:

Imho i never saw Smacker/Bink being used with Real Scenes in all the last 10 years or @ least very rare for sure there is a reason why it's used mostly for CG compression ;)
sooner or later you won't need it anymore Realtime 3D CG Raytracing In Engine Cut-scenes become more and more realistic and easier to do then 3D renderer-> Video Compression, so someday the time of Bink will be over anyways.

Yes, game engines can render quite impressive clips in realtime. Often it looks even better than the compressed pre-rendered clips.

But there is one problem: Before you can renderer a clip, you must load the map, the objects, the textures and all the stuff. That takes time!
And you really don't want to get a one minute loading screen, just to see a 10 seconds clip and then get the next loading screen.
Also think about clips that switch between different locations very fast. To render this, you'd have to load a new map at each scene change.
Not really an acceptable method. So I think pre-rendered sequences won't go away soon...

[*.mp4 guy]

Why should anybody use Bink when x264 is available :confused:

Bink is incredibly easy to intgrate into a game engine. It is also based on a flat fee system, so game publishers don't have to worry about royalties, which is quite atractive for them. It also works flawlessly on any system, mac os, windows, ps2/3, etc. It also has incredibly low system requirements for playback.

The main atractions are probably the liscensing, and stability reputation bink has, after being used so extensively for so long.

[benwaggoner]

I used to do game encoding back in the day, both Smacker and Bink. I spent way too much time with Smacker building custom 8-bit palettes.

Anyway, the decode efficiency aspect is a huge deal for games. That allows the game to do other stuff like load in and set up the next game level during the cut scene. Not needing a lot of CPU and memory during that is quite helpful.