need help with video files ripped from xbox 360 game disc

[Clutchins]

i had the brilliant idea to rip the bonus features from the Halo 3 Limited Edition disc, which if you didnt know is an actual 360 disc that wont play in regular DVD drives.

i managed to decode all the files to play in MPC-HC but the display aspect ratio information in the header is preventing the video to display in 16:9. instead it displays in an oddball (heh) ratio of 800:657 and i cant figure out how to fix it without changing my video player ratio settings.

if anybody would like the original files to replicate this issue seeing as this is a pretty niche scenario, im happy to provide.

here is the file: https://we.tl/t-khRZHTb7Q5

here is the mediainfo for the decoded file:

(this disc stores these videos in chunks not unlike a blu-ray, so for example the main documentary "anatomy of a game" is stored in 128 unique 30-sec .m2v files)

<track type="General">
<VideoCount>1</VideoCount>
<FileExtension>m2v</FileExtension>
<Format>MPEG Video</Format>
<Format_Version>1</Format_Version>
<FileSize>26106489</FileSize>
<Duration>30.030</Duration>
<OverallBitRate_Mode>VBR</OverallBitRate_Mode>
<OverallBitRate>6954776</OverallBitRate>
<FrameRate>29.970</FrameRate>
<FrameCount>900</FrameCount>
<StreamSize>0</StreamSize>
<File_Created_Date>UTC 2021-05-12 18:46:02.364</File_Created_Date>
<File_Created_Date_Local>2021-05-12 14:46:02.364</File_Created_Date_Local>
<File_Modified_Date>UTC 2021-05-12 18:46:05.196</File_Modified_Date>
<File_Modified_Date_Local>2021-05-12 14:46:05.196</File_Modified_Date_Local>
<Encoded_Library>&lt;SUDPS_&gt;&lt;000006&gt;02ANP</Encoded_Library>
<Encoded_Library_Name>&lt;SUDPS_&gt;&lt;000006&gt;02ANP</Encoded_Library_Name>
</track>
<track type="Video">
<Format>MPEG Video</Format>
<Format_Version>1</Format_Version>
<Format_Settings_BVOP>Yes</Format_Settings_BVOP>
<Format_Settings_Matrix>Custom</Format_Settings_Matrix>
<Format_Settings_Matrix_Data>0802020202020202020204040204040404040404040404040804040404080808080808040404040804040404040404040404040404040404040404040408080C / 02020202020202020202030202020303030202030303030302030303030303030303030303030303030303030303030303030303030303030303030303030303</Format_Settings_Matrix_Data>
<Format_Settings_GOP>Variable</Format_Settings_GOP>
<Duration>30.030</Duration>
<BitRate_Mode>VBR</BitRate_Mode>
<BitRate>6954776</BitRate>
<Width>960</Width>
<Height>720</Height>
<Sampled_Width>960</Sampled_Width>
<Sampled_Height>720</Sampled_Height>
<PixelAspectRatio>0.889</PixelAspectRatio>
<DisplayAspectRatio>1.185</DisplayAspectRatio>
<FrameRate>29.970</FrameRate>
<FrameCount>900</FrameCount>
<ColorSpace>YUV</ColorSpace>
<ChromaSubsampling>4:2:0</ChromaSubsampling>
<BitDepth>8</BitDepth>
<ScanType>Progressive</ScanType>
<Compression_Mode>Lossy</Compression_Mode>
<Delay>0.000</Delay>
<TimeCode_FirstFrame>00:00:00:00</TimeCode_FirstFrame>
<StreamSize>26106489</StreamSize>
<Encoded_Library>&lt;SUDPS_&gt;&lt;000006&gt;02ANP</Encoded_Library>
<Encoded_Library_Name>&lt;SUDPS_&gt;&lt;000006&gt;02ANP</Encoded_Library_Name>
<BufferSize>245760</BufferSize>
</track>

[poisondeathray]

Problems downloading from that link

Did you try changing the AR info with restream ?

[Clutchins]

Originally Posted by poisondeathray

Problems downloading from that link

Did you try changing the AR info with restream ?

link works for me and yes i tried restream and no luck

[Emulgator]

poisondeathray's suggestion works, just tested:
ReStream -> 16:9 -> Write !
Done, playable as 16:9 AR in MPC-BE.
Strange encode, wrong signalling ?
DAR (1,185) embedded, 960x720x29,97fps MPEG-1 @7Mbps.
Maybe thought only for that appropriate decoder (XBox360).

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by Emulgator

poisondeathray's suggestion works, just tested:
ReStream -> 16:9 -> Write !
Done, playable as 16:9 AR in MPC-BE.
Strange encode, wrong signalling ?
DAR (1,185) embedded, 960x720x29,97fps MPEG-1 @7Mbps.
Maybe thought only for that appropriate decoder (XBox360).

I cannot imagine why someone would use MPEG-1 for anamorphic 720p on the Xbox 360. I was on Microsoft's digital media team in that era, and it was more than capable of real-time H.264 and VC-1 at square pixel 720p. Generally those games were space-constrained as much as anything, so saving bits from video cut scenes should have been important.

Maybe they were trying to do a lot of compute while the video was playing? Hence a very fast to decode codec and anamorphic pixels. All video decode on the 360 was in software.

I wasn't aware of any games that used MPEG-1 on the 360. The most common video codec was Bink, often for bad reasons and yielding poor quality.

How does the file look?

[benwaggoner]

It plays in VLC fine as long as aspect ratio is set manually. I'm guessing they meant to type 1.85:1 for picture aspect ratio but entered 1.185 instead.

It is a truly long tradition that game developers never, ever, ever asking digital media compression experts to help .

[rwill]

The format seems to some sort of modified Mpeg-1. FFMPEG has extra code to handle the differences to standard Mpeg-1 so it plays it back correctly. It can be identified by the string "\0TMPGEXS\0" in a user data video packet. A quick google shows also references to The Witcher 2 and some Sonic the Hedgehog ( Unleashed ) game using some sort of this format. So the format was around in XBOX 360 times and was probably middleware licensed by studios.

It is possible that the sample aspect ratio code meaning is different, given that certain lower level parameters have a slightly different meaning in this format too if compared to the Mpeg-1 standard.

[Clutchins]

i appreciate all the replies trying to help me with this

here is what i have tried so far

changing the AR on restream results in this:

<Duration>30.030</Duration>
<BitRate_Mode>VBR</BitRate_Mode>
<BitRate>6954776</BitRate>
<Width>960</Width>
<Height>720</Height>
<Sampled_Width>960</Sampled_Width>
<Sampled_Height>720</Sampled_Height>
<PixelAspectRatio>1.422</PixelAspectRatio>
<DisplayAspectRatio>1.896</DisplayAspectRatio>
<FrameRate>29.970</FrameRate>
<FrameCount>900</FrameCount>
<ColorSpace>YUV</ColorSpace>
<ChromaSubsampling>4:2:0</ChromaSubsampling>
<BitDepth>8</BitDepth>
<ScanType>Progressive</ScanType>
<Compression_Mode>Lossy</Compression_Mode>

a friend of mine tried changing the "Set aspect ratio" option in mkvtoolnix to 1.617:1 because he thought the PAR might 40:33 after seeing the target reticle in one of the frames appear stretched, but this could be due to a number of factors. anyway, this is the result:

<Duration>30.030000000</Duration>
<BitRate_Mode>VBR</BitRate_Mode>
<BitRate>6954758</BitRate>
<Width>960</Width>
<Height>720</Height>
<Sampled_Width>960</Sampled_Width>
<Sampled_Height>720</Sampled_Height>
<PixelAspectRatio>1.213</PixelAspectRatio>
<PixelAspectRatio_Original>0.889</PixelAspectRatio_Original>
<DisplayAspectRatio>1.617</DisplayAspectRatio>
<DisplayAspectRatio_Original>1.185</DisplayAspectRatio_Original>
<FrameRate_Mode>VFR</FrameRate_Mode>
<FrameRate>29.970</FrameRate>
<FrameCount>900</FrameCount>
<ColorSpace>YUV</ColorSpace>
<ChromaSubsampling>4:2:0</ChromaSubsampling>
<BitDepth>8</BitDepth>
<ScanType>Progressive</ScanType>
<Compression_Mode>Lossy</Compression_Mode>

then he tried just changing that to 1.85:1 and here is that result:

<Duration>30.030000000</Duration>
<BitRate_Mode>VBR</BitRate_Mode>
<BitRate>6954758</BitRate>
<Width>960</Width>
<Height>720</Height>
<Sampled_Width>960</Sampled_Width>
<Sampled_Height>720</Sampled_Height>
<PixelAspectRatio>1.388</PixelAspectRatio>
<PixelAspectRatio_Original>0.889</PixelAspectRatio_Original>
<DisplayAspectRatio>1.850</DisplayAspectRatio>
<DisplayAspectRatio_Original>1.185</DisplayAspectRatio_Original>
<FrameRate_Mode>VFR</FrameRate_Mode>
<FrameRate>29.970</FrameRate>
<FrameCount>900</FrameCount>
<ColorSpace>YUV</ColorSpace>
<ChromaSubsampling>4:2:0</ChromaSubsampling>
<BitDepth>8</BitDepth>
<ScanType>Progressive</ScanType>
<Compression_Mode>Lossy</Compression_Mode>

here are the results of these tests. the restream test may look correct, but it is 1.896:1 and not the proper 1.85:1.
https://we.tl/t-3933cbaR18

[huhn]

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

It plays in VLC fine as long as aspect ratio is set manually. I'm guessing they meant to type 1.85:1 for picture aspect ratio but entered 1.185 instead.

It is a truly long tradition that game developers never, ever, ever asking digital media compression experts to help .

simple reason money.
that's why even today PC games get released with Bink.
there are videos made from still image in 25 FPS i mean who isn't running his monitor with a refreshrate multiplayer of 25?
the darkest dungeon is shipped with 3 types of videos PC, PS4 and PSV.
the console version are AVC with proper quality. the PC version has seconds where you are just seeing 16X16 makro blocks by using theora.
audio is 80 kbit vorbis.
the consoles got 300+ AAC LC.
and all 3 versions are shipped on PC they are simply not used just to make that clear.

it's just as it is.

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by huhn

simple reason money.
that's why even today PC games get released with Bink.

How does money factor into it? Bink has to be licensed, and using built-in video formats is free.

The big reasons Bink got used in the past were developer familiarity and low CPU use so stuff could be done in the background during video playback. Which made sense with 360/PS3 which didn't have HW decoders, but with PS4+ and Xbox One, everything has at least HW H.264. And Windows 7+ has built-in H.264 even if there's not a compatible GPU. And I've not seen a game with a minimum CPU/GPU requirement that doesn't come with H.264 decode in years. Recommended includes HEVC most of the time too.

I think it's mainly because lots of game devs don't know video tech well enough to know what they don't know. Which is fair; there is way more I don't even know I don't know about game development than I know, or know I don't know.

[huhn]

it cost money to even get someone that knows more than the basic stuff so these absolutely terrible decision are made over and over again.

theora is at least free so i can see a reason for why. i would use VP9/8 and stay as far away from hardware decoding as possible but that's me. taking minimum hardware requirement into account software decoding shouldn't be any problem.

i have no clue how much the distribute cost of h264 on PC is.

just to be clear console usually have proper codec use and the PC is the one that doesn't get anything useful.
on PC you "should" "always" deliver the decoder directly with the game no matter what there are all kind of windows version that have limited features like the big windows N version i don't know if the decoder are missing in them too but never risk it.

another major issue could be simple things like this...
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Vide...ideoFiles.html

[benwaggoner]

Originally Posted by huhn

it cost money to even get someone that knows more than the basic stuff so these absolutely terrible decision are made over and over again.

theora is at least free so i can see a reason for why.

Is anyone using Theora for anything in the last decade? It is basically a patched version of VP3, a late 90's codec that never got a high quality encoder. H.263 probably gives better results and is patent free.

I would use VP9/8 and stay as far away from hardware decoding as possible but that's me. taking minimum hardware requirement into account software decoding shouldn't be any problem.

Any game with GPU requirements can know exactly what hardware decoders are available on those GPUs.

i have no clue how much the distribute cost of h264 on PC is.

H.264 is a built-in Windows feature since Windows 7+. You are right that the "N" versions don't have it, but I've not heard of anyone using one of those in the wild for >10 years. Although when I was at Microsoft back then, we did get a hilarious user bug report of "I can't play WMV files on Windows N." Not being able to play media files out of the box is literally the only feature of "N."

just to be clear console usually have proper codec use and the PC is the one that doesn't get anything useful.

I'm glad to hear that's improving. I've seen some games use Bink in the last five years, but don't recall one more recently.

another major issue could be simple things like this...
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Vide...ideoFiles.html

What's the issue there? It seems to be just a very high level of media playback. Is it the potential complexity of containers? That's irrelevant to a game that's playing its own media files which wouldn't use those very rare features.

[j7n]

A PC game should include all its codecs. They are a small part of the total distribution. Far into the future Microsoft might stop shipping some codecs or obsolete the specific interface that the game relies upon (VFW, DirectShow). It is inconvenient to install the Indeo codec, WMA, QuickTime or DirectMusic for older games. H.264 will remain part of systems for decades, but not in the form that the game expects. Having ffdshow and being able to play the particular formats doesn't help if the game wants a specific decoder. Bink, Smacker, FMOD, etc just work. It is unfortunate that media is sometimes bit-starved with space left over on the disc for demos, redists and launchers.

[Clutchins]

here are the full video contents of the disc if anybody is interested

you will need a program like vgmtoolbox to convert the usm files to m2v

https://mega.nz/folder/rRYjgSzZ#YLh8RmQ1d4i1nZeGWLPDtA