Sierra.avi and valve.avi video format Created 4 years ago2020-03-07 16:26:12 UTC by abbadon

It´s been ages since I did the intro and valve avis of my mod and i forgot what I did to make them. So what´s the format, bitrate, etc. of those videos? And what program you reccomend that can do the conversion?

I've not even seen those startup videos in years...

I've not even seen those startup videos in years...

Yea. For what I know, they are only in the WON version of the game. Not sure though, I don't have them anymore.

Are these videos supposed to be in the 'media' folder by the way?

Good times when Sierra and Valve were friends

The video format is AVI, with DivX encoding, and it's 1024x768. The audio is mono, 32kHz. I think the audio can be different, but that's what I used in 2015.As for tools, well, Sony Vegas could work if you got it, really, even old versions like Sony Vegas 9. Handbrake only does MP4 and M4V, so that's a no-no. You could use ffmpeg.

The files I have must be different from the ones you have Admer. I have two different versions of WON HL and VLC says "Cinepak Video 640x480 15fps" with "araw" audio, mono 22050Hz 8bit.

Ffmpeg can probably tell you more, Abbadon.

ffmpeg need commandline coding, as I see. I hate linux for that... :/ Is there something more "visual"?. Like Movavi.

@Oskar Potatis

I didn't say it must be DivX exclusively. 1024x768 is just the maximum, also.
But yeah, the documentation is pretty poor about which attributes to use, I can't even remember where I got my info from, LOL.

Yeah. ffmpeg sucks bad about documentation. I am trying Virtualdub but with no luck with the files I am working with, it does not swallow neither MPEG-1 nor MPEG-2 and so on. I am quite surprised about the lack of info about this element of a mod and the lack of knowledgement in the modding community aswell!!, I thought intro avis were necessary to know how they are done because the LOGO avi has the same format, and without it WON mods did not work.

Potatis is right, at least from what I can tell. Here's (the important parts of) the mediainfo of valve.avi:

Video
Format                                   : Cinepak
Codec ID                                 : cvid
Width                                    : 640 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Frame rate                               : 15.000 FPS

Audio
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings                          : Unsigned
Sampling rate                            : 22.05 kHz
Bit depth                                : 8 bits

I did some testing with ffmpeg and WON HL (1.1.1.0) and found:

• cinepak encoding works (and is incredibly slow to encode, and has terrible compression. 1991 technology at work!)
• No other encoding I tried works (I tried mpeg1video, mpeg2video, libxvid (xvid), mpeg4 (divx), wmv1 - other formats either don't have encoders available, or didn't exist in 1998)
• Any resolution works, but it's always rendered in 640x480 so you might as well use that resolution
• Any framerate works, it doesn't have to be 15 fps
• Audio is easy: just use pcm_u8

These results will be different if you're not using WON (i.e. Xash, I'm not going to test that but it probably supports more modern codecs).

Given that, here's the ffmpeg command you should use to encode a WON-compatible avi file:

ffmpeg.exe -i source_video.mp4 -c:v cinepak -c:a pcm_u8 -vf scale=640:480 sierra.avi

You should attach this info to the Wiki.

Is there a command to increase the sound quality?

Yes, looks like pcm_s16le, pcm_s24le, and pcm_s32le also work for the audio codec, instead of pcm_u8. The number in the codec gives you the bit depth of the audio. pcm_s64le does not work. For sampling rate, looks like 44khz audio works as well.

So the revised command would be:

ffmpeg.exe -i source_video.mp4 -c:v cinepak -c:a pcm_s32le -vf scale=640:480 -ar 44100 sierra.avi

It works!!, after 2 and a half hours it compiled a useable avi!!, pity that I did read the quality stuff after that time lapse because at 8 bps it sounds horrible, haha!!, thanks Penguinboy, you should do a tutorial from all this information. I will re-compile it using 32 quality

Edit: pcm_s32le gave me no sound video I´ll try pcm_s16le instead

Edit 2: Eureka!! These are the commands that work. I have obtained a very good quality video with reasonable good audio

ffmpeg.exe -i source_video.mp4 -c:v cinepak -c:a pcm_s16le -vf scale=640:480 sierra.avi

Despite the fact that the Don Davis music was erased from the video...

You should probably remove the Warner Brothers logo from the video. It makes it look like they endorse your game, and companies can get aggressive about that. Especially since the name makes you think of Israeli Jewish extremism or national socialism.

oh yeah, stay as low as possible with this mod, the watchowskis are nasty people, theres a story on the net about them threatening to kill the actor of the "operator" cause he refused to star in the sequels

HOLY CHRIST!!!
DELETED!!!
Well, I hope they don´t get too much angry... I thought that tribute works are not prosecuted, but It´s clear that I am SO wrong.
Aniway, the mod is a personal work, and I give it only to people that ask me for it privately, and it has an EULA quite restrictive about re-distributing it.

I thought that tribute works are not prosecuted

The response from media companies depends on who in the company notices it, what company it is, what material you use, how you use it, and what you are making. Some are even happy to see fans remix their material. They don't normally -prosecute-. They send emails/messages requesting you take it down. They contact YouTube, ModDB etc. asking that they take it down. It's usually only when people don't comply that they take legal action. Having that logo there might just make them think you are trying to present this as an officially endorsed product, and that might make them more inclined to make you take your mod off the web.

I gon it. I did just wanted to left crystal clear that the work is practicaly of WB, I deserve no credit for the things that are not mine. But you are 100% right, I have deleted the video, and the mod was retired from Moddb in 2017 even if it was on the site since the year 2006 or 2007, I can not remember very well. In fact, I never pretended to earn nothing of It, au contraire, also I don´t care if they take it and use it, only I hope that what they earnwith it will be used in some charitable association or something like that!! I was lucky of not being sued, as I can see, thanks for the info Oskar.