Make a CPK video disc

[tzmwx]

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RUN VirtualDub64.exe (or VirtualDub.exe)


File > Open video file
Video > Filters > Add > resize > OK

Video > Frame Rate

Audio > Full processing mode
Audio > Conversion

file > Save file



RUN Avitosaturn.exe

Add files > Start

COPY *.CPK file to CPKCD folder
RENAME *.CPK to G00**.CPK
(** = 01 TO 99 )

RUN CPKCDtoISO.bat

Copy CPK.iso to saturn ODE or Burn to disc

Press START to NEXT CPK video

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

So not to be mean but this is kind of silly. AVItoSaturn is archaic and can only work with 8bit audio, 16bit doesn't work at all. It also doesn't control bitrate very well and will give poor results.

Secondly you don't have to be so strict with settings, you can play with frame rate, resolution, audio, etc. to get what works best for your video clip.

Finally it looks like you're just replacing files in an old demo disc. This again isn't really ideal as the old demo disc may not be that flexible to handle different resolutions, frame rates, and audio qualities.

I get that using an old Mac VM can be frustrating, but pointing people to old tools that don't really work well and just hacking a demo disc isn't really helpful for homebrew purposes. There's a tutorial stickied on this forum that shows how to encode properly and there's commented SBL demos on here as well. I also included the source code in my submission to this years competition that shows how to use gradation, handle different resolutions and aspect ratios, as well as how to implement player controls. I'd recommend people look into those for Cinepak Homebrew purposes instead.

 

[Danthrax]

Thanks for putting all of this together, TZMWX, but I tried this process with three different videos and none of them worked. They didn't run on my Saturn via Satiator, it just showed a black screen. And they didn't run in emulators like Mednafen and Yaba Sanshiro.

 

[tzmwx]

So not to be mean but this is kind of silly. AVItoSaturn is archaic and can only work with 8bit audio, 16bit doesn't work at all. It also doesn't control bitrate very well and will give poor results.

Secondly you don't have to be so strict with settings, you can play with frame rate, resolution, audio, etc. to get what works best for your video clip.

Finally it looks like you're just replacing files in an old demo disc. This again isn't really ideal as the old demo disc may not be that flexible to handle different resolutions, frame rates, and audio qualities.

I get that using an old Mac VM can be frustrating, but pointing people to old tools that don't really work well and just hacking a demo disc isn't really helpful for homebrew purposes. There's a tutorial stickied on this forum that shows how to encode properly and there's commented SBL demos on here as well. I also included the source code in my submission to this years competition that shows how to use gradation, handle different resolutions and aspect ratios, as well as how to implement player controls. I'd recommend people look into those for Cinepak Homebrew purposes instead.

yes，need new software

 

[tzmwx]

Thanks for putting all of this together, TZMWX, but I tried this process with three different videos and none of them worked. They didn't run on my Saturn via Satiator, it just showed a black screen. And they didn't run in emulators like Mednafen and Yaba Sanshiro.

Post your CD file structure diagram.Perhaps your CPK file has not been renamed?

 

[Danthrax]

Post your CD file structure diagram.Perhaps your CPK file has not been renamed?

When I open the CPK.ISO file in CDMage, this is what it looks like:

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

yes，need new software

I agree which is why I'm looking into expanding the Muxer to do what MovieToSaturn does. In the meantime however I'd recommend people use the better Mac based tools rather than using junk like AviToSaturn.

Post your CD file structure diagram.Perhaps your CPK file has not been renamed?

This is why trying to inject new files into an old demo disc isn't the best approach for this. It's error prone and you're at the mercy of the limitations of the original player software. Building your own from source is a better approach.

 

[tzmwx]

When I open the CPK.ISO file in CDMage, this is what it looks like:

View attachment 9579

Upload CPK.ISO file here


and
You can view the cpk file information and test whether it can be played normally

 

[Danthrax]

Upload CPK.ISO file here


and
You can view the cpk file information and test whether it can be played normally

SegaXtreme doesn't allow ISO files to be uploaded to normal forum posts, but it does allow for RAR files, so I put CPK.ISO into a RAR and attached that to my post.

 

[tzmwx]

SegaXtreme doesn't allow ISO files to be uploaded to normal forum posts, but it does allow for RAR files, so I put CPK.ISO into a RAR and attached that to my post.

resize 320*224

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

resize 320*224

View attachment 9583

If you write your own player you can do 320x240. The bigger issue I'm seeing is that the video itself is close to 400KB/s which is way out of spec. This is why AviToSaturn is really bad for this as you don't have good control over the bitrate.

 

[Danthrax]

resize 320*224

View attachment 9583

I just realized that I'd forgotten to manually set the letterbox/crop size to 224. I thought it automatically changed that box when I set the absolute size to 224 up top ... Sorry about that! Thanks for your help. The Simpsons video now runs on my Saturn via Satiator. It even worked in Yaba Sanshiro.

 

[tzmwx]

I just realized that I'd forgotten to manually set the letterbox/crop size to 224. I thought it automatically changed that box when I set the absolute size to 224 up top ... Sorry about that! Thanks for your help. The Simpsons video now runs on my Saturn via Satiator. It even worked in Yaba Sanshiro.

Because SAROO blocks the communication with the VCD card slot, it cannot use VCD like your Satiator, so use this method to let Saturn play video files.
You can make a collection and press start to switch to the next episode

 

[tzmwx]

If you write your own player you can do 320x240. The bigger issue I'm seeing is that the video itself is close to 400KB/s which is way out of spec. This is why AviToSaturn is really bad for this as you don't have good control over the bitrate.

Currently, this is the only method that can complete the production of cpk files under Windows system. I look forward to your new software.Maybe you can contact VirtualDub2 / Wiki / Home and directly use VirtualDub software to convert high-quality cpk files

In addition, SAROO can exceed the 300K speed of a 2-speed optical drive and can use ultra-high bit rate files. If the Saturn player software is upgraded simultaneously, you can try CPK files with higher bit rates.

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Because SAROO blocks the communication with the VCD card slot, it cannot use VCD like your Satiator, so use this method to let Saturn play video files.
You can make a collection and press start to switch to the next episode

Satiator doesn't provide any Video CD functionality either.

Currently, this is the only method that can complete the production of cpk files under Windows system. I look forward to your new software.Maybe you can contact VirtualDub2 / Wiki / Home and directly use VirtualDub software to convert high-quality cpk files

In addition, SAROO can exceed the 300K speed of a 2-speed optical drive and can use ultra-high bit rate files. If the Saturn player software is upgraded simultaneously, you can try CPK files with higher bit rates.

You can produce a Cinepak file on a Windows machine currently using a Mac VM. Is it ideal? No, but it will provide far better quality than using AviToSaturn. The Saturn player software shouldn't need to be upgraded if the drive can provide higher than 300KB/s. But I'm very skeptical that SAROO is actually able to do that if it's properly emulating a CD-ROM drive. Now if it's acting as a ROM cart that's a different story.

That said there are better ways to play Cinepak files on the Saturn than this method. At the very least you should try making your own program rather than trying to hack files into a Demo Disc.

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

If anyone wants a better CPK Player that's not based on hacking a demo disc here is a more generic version of the demo I submitted for this years competition. Simply place your CPK files into the cd directory, then run build.bat and it will generate an ISO in the out directory.

This has the following caveats:

• The max number of files you can have is 50. Which really that should be more than enough.
• Videos can be any resolution as long as they don't exceed 320x240
• Videos can be any frame rate as long as they don't exceed 30fps.
• Audio can be 8-bit or 16-bit PCM in both stereo and mono at any sample rate as long as they don't exceed 44100Hz.
  • ADX Audio is currently not supported.
• File names can be anything as long as they do not exceed 11 characters and have a .CPK extension.
  • The character length includes the extension
• The player supports limited anamorphic scaling. To use this do the following:
  • Encode your video at 320x240 resolution (320x224 will kind of work as well) without any cropping.
  • If the desired aspect ratio is 16:9 put _169 in the file name.
  • If the desired aspect ratio is 2.35:1 put _235 in the file name.
  • You can also use _LB, but this is more of a special case I used for the Star Wars clip. The original video was 2.35:1 but I cropped it slightly on the sides to get it to 320x160, but then it needed a tad more vertical squishing to look right. If the others don't look right give this one a try.
  • Any other file will assume you want it displayed in the aspect ratio of it's resolution.
• R will skip to the Next video, L will skip to the previous video. X restarts the current video, Z pauses the current video.

If there's any issues let me know. This should work for any standard Cinepak file as long as you don't exceed the bitrate of the disc drive.

 

[tzmwx]

If anyone wants a better CPK Player that's not based on hacking a demo disc here is a more generic version of the demo I submitted for this years competition. Simply place your CPK files into the cd directory, then run build.bat and it will generate an ISO in the out directory.

This has the following caveats:

• The max number of files you can have is 32. I think this is a GFS limitation but that honestly should be more than enough.
• Videos can be any resolution as long as they don't exceed 320x240
• Audio can be 8-bit or 16-bit PCM in both stereo and mono at any sample rate as long as they don't exceed 44100Hz.
  • ADX Audio is currently not supported.
• File names can be anything as long as they do not exceed 11 characters and have a .CPK extension.
  • The character length includes the extension
• The player supports limited anamorphic scaling. To use this do the following:
  • Encode your video at 320x240 resolution (320x224 will kind of work as well) without any cropping.
  • If the desired aspect ratio is 16:9 put _169 in the file name.
  • If the desired aspect ratio is 2.35:1 put _235 in the file name.
  • You can also use _LB, but this is more of a special case I used for the Star Wars clip. The original video was 2.35:1 but I cropped it slightly on the sides to get it to 320x160, but then it needed a tad more vertical squishing to look right. If the others don't look right give this one a try.
  • Any other file will assume you want it displayed in the aspect ratio of it's resolution.
• R will skip to the Next video, L will skip to the previous video. X restarts the current video, Z pauses the current video.

If there's any issues let me know. This should work for any standard Cinepak file as long as you don't exceed the bitrate of the disc drive.

Can you make a 500K or greater code rate cpk for me to test saroo?

There is a file missing from the CPK_Player.zip provided by TrekkiesUnite118 which can be downloaded here.
A symbol "\" in build.bat is wrong, it should be"/"

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Can you make a 500K or greater code rate cpk for me to test saroo?

You can make one yourself following the tutorial here:

How To Guide: Encoding Cinepak Videos Properly

So encoding Cinepak Videos can be a bit cumbersome. While Cinepak encoders are a dime a dozen, finding one that will produce something that the Saturn likes while still looking decent is a bit more challenging. AviToSaturn while useable, tends to produce sub-par results, and always garbles the...

segaxtreme.net

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

There is a file missing from the CPK_Player.zip provided by TrekkiesUnite118 which can be downloaded here.
A symbol "\" in build.bat is wrong, it should be"/"

The bat file should work just fine as it is. I tested it multiple times before I uploaded it. If you don't have cygwin installed however then that should be installed properly which you can get it here: Cygwin

That said here's an updated version with the DLL included.

 

[tzmwx]

The bat file should work just fine as it is. I tested it multiple times before I uploaded it. If you don't have cygwin installed however then that should be installed properly which you can get it here: Cygwin

That said here's an updated version with the DLL included.

Thank you for your multi-function CPKplayer.

It would be better if you change the "\" in the build.bat file to "/".