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[OUTDATED] GameCube Cutscene Ports
By (29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR
(NOTE: The update released on November 7th included lots of video player fixes and great h4m->vp9 encodes, but have worse audio quality due to the sampling rate being wrong. So, that's a thing now.)

Master, we're in a tight spot. The new update's cutscenes are horrible AI upscales, the old ones are awful PS2 versions. Something must be done...
This is a mod that ports the original GameCube cutscenes to the new version of the game. No gimmicks.

Made by me
HVQM4 decoder by Paul B Mahol (richardpl), part of the librempeg project

In the name of Harman...
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Created by
(29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR
Offline
Category: Modding or Configuration
Languages: Spanish
Posted
Updated
27 Oct, 2024 @ 12:22pm
7 Sep @ 4:59pm
3,030 Unique Visitors
155 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
NOTE 
Download + Instructions 
Comparisons 
Notes 
Technical Notes (for NERDS) 
Comments
NOTE
The update released on November 7th included lots of video player fixes and great h4m->vp9 encodes, but have worse audio quality due to the sampling rate being wrong. So, that's a thing now.
Download + Instructions
There are two versions of the mod:
  • Scaled up 1080p version
  • The original unscaled version
This is because the game scales the cutscenes using Nearest Neighbour, meaning they will be pixelated when played back. To avoid this, the 1080p version was made, and it's recommended that you use it. The unscaled version is for those who want the completely unedited gamecube cutscenes.

You can see the comparison between the different versions in the "Comparisons" section of this guide.

Download Links:

Installation Instructions:
Step 1 - Download the cutscenes
Download the cutscenes from one of the links above.
(You don't need to download both, they're different versions!)

Step 2 - Open Killer7's directory
  1. Right click on Killer7 in your Steam Library
  2. Go to "Manage"
  3. Click on "Browse local files"

Step 3 - Extract the cutscenes
Extract the folder titled "Movie" from the downloaded archive into Killer7's directory.
(Accept the overwriting/replacing of all files)

Done!
Now you have the original gamecube cutscenes.
Comparisons
GameCube Ports, 1080p Version:

GameCube Ports, Unscaled Version:

After Update Cutscenes:

Before Update Cutscenes:
Notes
  • The compression artifacts you may see during playback were there in the original cutscene files on the gamecube.
  • These videos are not meant for playback in actual video player software! The in-game video player does color range conversion during playback, which means that the files need to have a wrong color range for correct colors. This also means that if you attempt to view the files in an actual video player, the colors will look washed out.
Technical Notes (for NERDS)
  • The original cutscene files are stored in the HVQM4 (.h4m) codec.
  • For decoding them, librempeg ( https://github.com/librempeg/librempeg ) software was used.
  • This software was used for encoding them as well.
  • The port has a very bad video player, with various problems and peculiarities.
  • Cutscenes need to be in a WebM container with VP9 video and Vorbis audio, which is different from normal WebMs (VP9 + Opus), presumably done this way so that they can keep using the previous audio decoder (previously cutscenes were in an Ogg container, with Theora video + Vorbis audio).
  • Cutscenes need to have a wrong color range set (Limited in Full), because the in-game video player converts them during playback (Full -> Limited).
  • The playback seems to drop frames a lot, regardless of video resolution, bitrate, or the capabilities of the PC. This causes the playback to look jittery/laggy when compared to playback in an actual video player, as if the FPS is 12-15 instead of 30.
  • There is automatic fitting of the video to the screen, but the behavior behind it is bad. The first cutscene that is played in the session sets the fitting parameters for all the other cutscenes, so if the next cutscenes played after the first one have different resolutions, the playback becomes janky (stretched or zoomed in). This actually happens with the official update ai upscaled cutscenes in the Alter Ego chapter, as the 04010101.webm cutscene has the height of 1080, instead of 1052 due to a mistake of the developers.
  • The VP9 decoder used seems to only support "yuv420p" pixel formatting, as using "gbrp" causes the playback to glitch out. If there was "gbrp" support, the cutscenes could've been encoded more faithfully to the original gamecube h4m files.
37 Comments
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arhum 22 Sep @ 3:23am 
Lets just say I'm very stupid (I am) and I forgotten everything, which videos should I use for the current version of the game, unscaled or 1080p scaled? I understand they fixed the nearest-neighbour crap but does scaled vs unscaled have any effect now?
Atomoxetine 9 Jul @ 7:27am 
so how i mux audio?
(29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR  [author] 28 May @ 12:26pm 
those were done only because of in-game player not properly scaling videos - this was fixed in the new in-game player
Thaddeus 28 May @ 12:04pm 
I meant the 1080p ones you provided.
(29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR  [author] 26 May @ 2:13pm 
the sampling rate for the og GameCube cutscene files was 32.0 kHz, while in the new cutscenes they are 24.0 kHz, which makes it sound more "compressed", even if the audio codec used is better

I don't know how engine software managed to do this mistake, but I assume they don't actually have someone knowledgeable in video/audio stuff on their team, considering whatever was going on with the in-game video player before
(29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR  [author] 26 May @ 2:10pm 
(cont.)
the updated in-game video player that's in the latest latest update (the one that added non-ai upscaled cutscenes as an option) doesn't do that post-processing, and instead the cutscene files are of good quality from the get-go

EXCEPT for the audio sampling rate (iirc) which for some reason is lower than the actual one that was used in the og GameCube cutscene files
(29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR  [author] 26 May @ 2:10pm 
upscaled versions? you mean the ones included with the game that aren't the normal versions? I don't think so, they look like shit, but I didn't check whether they have better audio quality than the normal versions, but I'd assume it's the same audio.

don't use any of the files in this guide if you're using the most latest version of the game with the updated in-game video player (aka fmv cutscene player), as basically:

the files here (and the previous files included with the game, aka only ai upscaled cutscenes) were specifically pre-processed to be WORSE when viewed normally (aka in a normal, standalone video player), because the in-game video player did post-processing on them to turn them normal, for some reason
Thaddeus 25 May @ 8:11am 
Are the upscaled versions still recommended, then? Or are the ones the game provides the best option for the moment?
(29♂)Mona ..DUSMANULdinSANITAR  [author] 25 May @ 7:43am 
they are better, but due to the new (for the better) changes in the in-game video player, using the unscaled versions here is not recommended
Thaddeus 25 May @ 6:25am 
So is the audio on the unscaled versions here an improvement over the non-AI versions they added in November?