VideoNow Decoder Test

Test for decoding a VideoNow disc. A custom decoder was written for this since all the other ones I found were awful. This was then encoded with ffmpeg using:
ffmpeg -f rawvideo -pixel_format gray -video_size 80x80 -framerate 15 -i $1 \
-f u8 -ar 44100 -ac 1 -i $2 -c:a mp3 -c:v h264 -sws_flags neighbor -s 800x800 \
-aspect 4:3 ${1}.mkv
The video is just some advertisements that were on the disc to prevent anything nasty happening with content id by uploading actual episodes.
The utility can be found at: github.com/pau...
Should compile for windows/mac/linux/whatever.

[@coondogtheman]

Dude that is awesome, FINALLY a way to decode these. I know it looks like crap but it's been done. Now how about a decoder for the color discs.

[@Aeduo]

I don't have any color discs. I did this because I happened upon a disc at a thrift store and was curious what was out there and found some tools that didn't work particularly well and figured out what they were doing and wrote my own. The color discs are supposedly quite a bit more complicated, employing some sort of video compression, so I don't know if I could.

[@coondogtheman]

@@Aeduo I have a few wav files from the color discs I could send you. It sounds like the audio and video is kind of mixed together in the stream. That is just from hearing it. The disc spins twice as fast as a normal CD. I loaded one of the wav files up in my goldwave editor and put the playback speed at 2.00 and the audio was faint but it played at the right speed. It was the bowling for soup 1985 music video disc.

[@coondogtheman]

@@Aeduo as for the tools I found them too but they didn't work for me either. I'd like something where you put the disc in and the program will either just play It so you can watch the video or you can rip a copy to a digital file. Maybe even rip just the audio.

[@Aeduo]

@@coondogtheman If you can somehow get those to me I could maybe see what I can do but I couldn't make any promises, otherwise I don't really have much interest in making a full on media player or anything like that, just something that gives you just enough to convert them one time.

[@coondogtheman]

@@Aeduo I sent a link to the videonow color intro track. Also I tried following some instructions online on you to compile the decoder. I do have some DOS/command line experience. I got a bunch of errors but it's probably too big for a comment.

[@DhaniNMarie]

It looks like it can be viewed on an original Gameboy

[@elinery2005]

Yes but the audio is highly quality!

[@BluesCluesTheWigglesFTW]

WHOA! HOW YOU DO THAT!?

[@BluesCluesTheWigglesFTW]

also, PLZ do a tutorial?

[@Aeduo]

I haven't messed with this in a long time so I'd have to figure out what I did, which shuldn't be too hard, but I just don't really have the interest in it to bother. Everything's there to do it and I give enough information for someone with enough effort to figure it out.

[@coondogtheman]

So how do you compile this tool into an exe or whatever?

[@Aeduo]

I never bothered but it doesn't have any dependencies aside from the standard C runtime so it should just compile through mingw or something. Might even compile in visual studio.

[@coondogtheman]

@@Aeduo I don't have any of those programs. Is there something light I can use to compile this so can do some video now decoding. Also watching this video on my phone isn't that bad but it looks horrible on my PC. I suppose anti aliasing would smooth the video out.

[@Aeduo]

@@coondogtheman Mingw isn't particularly heavy but it might be a little large. I don't know of other compilers for windows. I know there are others but none i'm familiar with.

[@coondogtheman]

@@Aeduo I'm not worried about HD space or cpu I just don't want to have to download a program that is a trial version. If it's large that's ok. I have a pretty decent PC.

[@Aeduo]

@@coondogtheman mingw is free and i believe visual studio has a free personal edition as well.