I've Created a WC4 HD Video Pack

Pedro said:
Ok I took a look into where the issues are occurring; the DVD window seems to be creating a window larger that your screen (probably bordered) and it's doing that as a child window.

But the latest version uses a borderless window if you select windowed mode. So until I have a proper fix you can try thing; go into OGLSetup.exe, set the resolution to match your monitors current resolution, and then tick "windowed".

It's not ideal but you can play the game full screen with movies. Having tracked down the cause it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a workaround with a borderless fullscreen mode.
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Hi Pedro, thank you I think it will be a good compromise. I have tried to download the "Model Upgrade Pack" but the link seem dead.

I hope to found someone that can upload it again.
 
gr1mre4per said:
Nice work again @ODVS, each time squeezing every inch of quality out possible.

@marco999 the unlimited patch can load your dll. Make your own using the dllentry to call your code and put the name of the dll in to wcpunl.ini
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I have installed the MUP:

OpenGL-WCP_setup(TEST-MUP)-RELEASE-CANDIDATE.exe

becouse seem required before install unlimited patch but the file "wcpunl.dll" is missing.

Can you please send me the link where I need to install it ?

Thanks !
 
Well, for some reason I promised to look into remastering the Privateer 2 in-game FMV during the CIC Birthday party (I'm sure excessive amounts of beer had nothing to do with it) - and boy, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

This one's going to be... challenging.


I've once again used DAIN to increase the frame rate and Topaz Video Enhance AI to upscale the video to 1080p. However, there's no DVD source material like there was for Wing Commander IV and Wing Commander Prophecy - and the footage ripped from the PC CD-ROM version of the game doesn't play as nicely as the footage from Wing Commander III on the Playstation.

While this comparison shows a definite improvement over the source footage, it doesn't exactly look good. I'm going to have to do extensive experimentation and refining of my processes.

If anyone out there in the community has better quality source footage (@Bandit LOAF? @ChrisReid? @AD? Anyone?) I'd love to get my hands on it. Sadly, the VHS rips in the CIC Holovids don't help matters much. The problem with upscaling from analogue sources is they're too fuzzy - you end up with something that doesn't look any better than just using a standard non-AI BiCubic upscale.

As I say, this one's going to be a challenge...
 
I have a little problem with the german Videos for WC4.
The intro Movie runs great until the first decision. After making the first decision, the video playback just stucks. The english Movies work great by the way.
My guess is, that there might be a problem with the audio codec. The audio codec from the intro (SC_0010A) is ac-3. The audio codec from all other videos are mpga. The english Version has ac-3 audio entirely.
Am I doing something wrong?
P.S.: Many thanks for these great conversions. These are probably the best things about 2020!
 
Lohrien said:
I have a little problem with the german Videos for WC4.
The intro Movie runs great until the first decision. After making the first decision, the video playback just stucks. The english Movies work great by the way.
My guess is, that there might be a problem with the audio codec. The audio codec from the intro (SC_0010A) is ac-3. The audio codec from all other videos are mpga. The english Version has ac-3 audio entirely.
Am I doing something wrong?
P.S.: Many thanks for these great conversions. These are probably the best things about 2020!
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Hi @Lohrien - thank you so much for that!

It's entirely possible you aren't doing anything wrong - I'm afraid I don't do a great deal of testing on these video packs (as it would take a very long time!). I rely on you guys in the community to do that, so thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

I didn't actually re-encode any audio - the EN packs are lifted clean from the DVDs and the DE and FR packs were provided from external sources. I'll do some experimenting tonight. If it looks like the FR and DE audio needs re-encoding and re-muxing, I'll put new packs together
 
Lohrien said:
@ODVS Thanks for your quick reply.
I will try to convert the second video to ac-3 sound and report if it helps.
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Please do, @Lohrien - I've just batch-converted all the DE audio to proper Dolby AC3 streams, so if it fixes your issue let me know and I'll remux the entire pack and re-release it.

Looks like the FR pack uses AC3 audio throughout, so that one should be safe :)
 
ODVS said:
Well, for some reason I promised to look into remastering the Privateer 2 in-game FMV during the CIC Birthday party (I'm sure excessive amounts of beer had nothing to do with it) - and boy, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

This one's going to be... challenging.


I've once again used DAIN to increase the frame rate and Topaz Video Enhance AI to upscale the video to 1080p. However, there's no DVD source material like there was for Wing Commander IV and Wing Commander Prophecy - and the footage ripped from the PC CD-ROM version of the game doesn't play as nicely as the footage from Wing Commander III on the Playstation.

While this comparison shows a definite improvement over the source footage, it doesn't exactly look good. I'm going to have to do extensive experimentation and refining of my processes.

If anyone out there in the community has better quality source footage (@Bandit LOAF? @ChrisReid? @AD? Anyone?) I'd love to get my hands on it. Sadly, the VHS rips in the CIC Holovids don't help matters much. The problem with upscaling from analogue sources is they're too fuzzy - you end up with something that doesn't look any better than just using a standard non-AI BiCubic upscale.

As I say, this one's going to be a challenge...
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It's a promising start but it does seem to be having a really hard time on the fine details there.

Some day we'll get there, but it woulkd be nice if you could tell the AI to compare 3 different sources for the same scene and interpret what it should be from that. There are ways to frame by frame use a stacking method like you would in photo editing but it's kind of a pain currently to do with video.

Another issue with the old VHS transfers we have is not having access to the original tapes or proper captures that preserve the interlacing. I don't remember what I copied them off of but some of the ones we have for download were converted to things like DivX once upon a time mostly because it's an early mpeg4 codec that had good file size benefits. But it has the downside of making thigs blurrier than needed. What's more, the VHS p2 collection isn't complete. But it could be a good starting point if I can find the source copy.
 
ODVS said:
Please do, @Lohrien - I've just batch-converted all the DE audio to proper Dolby AC3 streams, so if it fixes your issue let me know and I'll remux the entire pack and re-release it.

Looks like the FR pack uses AC3 audio throughout, so that one should be safe :)
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The game is unfortunately very sensitive. My converting attemtpts did not work out :(. Is it maybe possible, that you upload (or send me) one of your newly converted files with an AC3 stream (preferably SC_0010B). I could do the testing. If this does not work, you wouldn't need to remux all the other files unless we find a propper solution.
 
My guess seems to be correct. Your new file works great!
The game seems to have a problem, if the audio stream is NOT AC3.
So, if you find the time, it would be awesome, if you could upload a new Version of the german Videos with AC3 streams.
And thanks again for your great work!
 
Wow, that was quick!
I played the first mission and watched a few videos. No problems so far. Everything works absolutely fine. I'm gonna start a playthrough with the new videos tomorrow.
 
Well, I switched to a different AI model in Topaz Video Enhance AI:


While it has gleaned some minor improvements, I still don't think it looks that great. The major hurdle here is that the source video is actually even lower quality than WC3 PSX: only 130p at 12fps. Until there's a major improvement in the technology or someone manages to rustle up some higher quality footage, I think this is as good as it's going to get. So, I thought I'd open this up to the community:

What do you guys think? Is it worth forging forward with a full pack at this quality, or shouldI wait until it's possible to do a better job? Personally I'm leaning towards the latter, but I'll move ahead if there's enough interest.
 
Would like to say a huge thankyou for these amazing upgrades to these games. Played just about every space combat sim on PC from the early 90s and WC3 forced me to learn how to upgrade my pc as it wouldn't work on the machine I had at the time of release (A 486 dx4 100 with 4mb ram and a not very large HDD).
I seem to be having an issue with WC IVs video's though.
Everything works just fine, but I am only seeing maybe 1/4 of the video (the top left as far as I can tell).
I've read through the entire 26 pages of this thread and don't see this mentioned anywhere else.
I am running the GOG version of the game, on Windows 10 with an AMD 3950X and a 2080S on a 1440p screen.
Once through the video's, the game plays fine, joystick works, combat is fine and smooth, just not sure why its only displaying a small section of the actual movie footage.
The original videos play just fine, fully viewable.
It appears to be running in full screen windowed mode and I'm assuming its pushing the rest of the screen "outside" the window, but cannot find any way to force it into fixed full screen.
There was mention of Pedro's openGL package for WC:P, and the only version of that I can find will not work with 4 (will not install as Prophecy is not installed).
Any suggestions fully appreciated.
(I just finished watching all of your WC3 footage, absolutely fantastic and the nostalgia is very real)
 
I think the second Privateer 2 test is actually more than a minor improvement. For the first, I think it's kind of a toss up. There are improvements, but some facial detail kind of gets blurred. For the second video, there may be some artifacting, but a lot of the faces still look decent. Also, the overall contrast and color balance is a lot better.
 
I agree on the P2 tests, the second is definitely better. The first looks like a scanner darkly.
@ODVS have you tried a test with the recent youtube P2 videos; I know they aren't perfect but might give a clue how much that improved source could help.

As for my patch; yeah that's WCP only. I've a new dll that helps with the WCP DVD issues and I've passed it to the MUP team.

For WC4 I've not heard of that issue before but unlike WCP we *do* have the source for that patch. I'd rather not take on anymore projects so hopefully someone else could look into it? But worst case scenario I could add it to my list.
 
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