The "the price of freedom" Movie Project

BrynS said:
VirtualDubMod is a slight modification that accepts MPEG2 streams and VOB's IIRC, as well as AC3 (I'd also recommend AC3Filter as your AC3 directshow filter).


Tried VirtualDubMod... Yes it does allow you to edit the file withought needing to first extract the audio. I was impressed with the quality of the uncompressed capture, but it seems that ac3filter automaticaly downmixes the 5.1 to two channels in the process. Maybe I missed a step.
 
AD said:
Tried VirtualDubMod... Yes it does allow you to edit the file withought needing to first extract the audio. I was impressed with the quality of the uncompressed capture, but it seems that ac3filter automaticaly downmixes the 5.1 to two channels in the process. Maybe I missed a step.
Have you set the audio stream to "Direct Stream Copy"? Select the "Stream" drop down menu and then click on "Stream List." Right click on the desired stream and set it to "Direct Stream Copy."

AC3Filter can downmix any AC3 stream to 2.0 or 2.1, as well as a number of other permutations (mono, 4.0, 4.1, etc) but those settings are selectable in the filter itself (to change settings click on the AC3Filter icon in your Control Panel). Try setting your output in the "Main" tab to "3/2+SW 5.1 Channels" if you have a 5.1 speaker setup and see if that makes a difference.

You can also check the number of audio/AC3 channels in a video file with VirtualDub(Mod) by opening a file and then selecting "File Information" from the File Menu. You will see a dialog box like this:

vdubmod019cm.jpg


On a different note, I tried using FRAP's to capture some gameplay sequences on my WC4 DVD (Double-sided version), but was unsuccessful, though it should work if it (WC4) could be run in a window, which I can't seem to do in Windows XP. IIRC, WC4 (CD Version) can be run in a window, so I'll give that a bash later, although I see that you have managed to get FRAP's working with your copy.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
I would like to do this... I really would but at the moment it is too cumbersome to attempt since I dont have a way to edit the ac3 at the same time as the video. I will be looking into the possibility though. Keep in mind that I'm not willing to download cracks. As yet I dont have the funds to purchase a pro suite. (I blew my extra cash on an x800xt 256mb)
Yes, you can use freeware tools (or some LE version of software, bundled with audio card or TV-TUNER-ENCODER).

For ex. you can use the freeware Audacity
with some Dolby VST plugin, like the Sourround encode vst effect from obertone
(but I haven't tried it)

If you make some search on google, maybe there is more.
Just some links:
http://www.kvraudio.com/
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Multimedia/Music_and_Audio/Software/Plug-ins/

and there is some info on Doom9 forum

I agree that it would be really good if this could be done but when I tried to do this once I found it near impossible to fly acceptably from an external view so had to record the whole thing from the cockpit. Shame wc4 doesn't have a replay function (unless I missed it) like wc2 did as this could have been useful for recording different views. Its probably just me and maybe others are better than me in using the chase camera.
Yes, it's not simple; but you can record some scene when there are no enemies, and then integrate at editing time; and you still can record a battle from another view...well, you loose, but you have some good footage :)

though it should work if it (WC4) could be run in a window, which I can't seem to do in Windows XP
and what about under DosBOX?
 
Once again, now that the gameplay sample is up, I'd like to thank you guys for all the suggestion, and help.

I would like to know, aside from the technical issues, What do you think of the actual edits? For example the two briefings (one in high res sample and another in low res sample) actually represent at least 4 different scenes.
 
Wow, the gameplay sample was much more impressive than I expected. Well done. Where did you get that music from? It's not wing commander music is it? Whataver it is sounds very nice.

The edits are probably as good as you can get them. You can hardly tell that the joined scenes were originally separate (except from the fact that we already know that they were separate from the game). Nice work.
 
luminon said:
Wow, the gameplay sample was much more impressive than I expected. Well done...
Just downloaded the new gameplay sample and must say that it comes out very well and quite seamlessly -- great job, AD! I'm really looking forward to seeing this project progress :D

luminon said:
Where did you get that music from? It's not wing commander music is it? Whataver it is sounds very nice.
It's from the Wing Commander Movie sountrack -- Track 6, Into The Quasar, I believe.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
AD said:
What do you think of the actual edits? For example the two briefings (one in high res sample and another in low res sample) actually represent at least 4 different scenes.
I think that the edits done in the high and low res samples are effective and fairly inconspicuous; which is good! The transitions were low-key and appropriate, although I would try and use them as liberally as possible, especially between a sucession of brief scenes. I would think though that you would need to use a fair number of transitions, other than basic cuts for the project, especially when it becomes necessary to convey a brief passage of time between scenes.

IMO, keep it simple and stick to basic fades and cuts, with the odd wipe if necessary. Obviously, given the fairly skewed range (mostly towards mission briefings and outcomes) of video content in the game , much of which is fairly static (e.g. mission briefings) it will be quite a challenge to keep the affect of multple transitions subtle. Also, keeping the pace flowing, as well as a balance between story, action and character development, while going from a static or gameplay sequence, to the big set-piece sequences, like Telamon and Axius, will be tricky, but I am really looking forward to seeing the final result!

As far as the gameplay sequences go, I think keep them tight, vary the angles/views occassionly and keep the chatter going if possible.

Anyway, best of luck and keep us up-to-date.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
@Bryns: it is important, that you run WC4 in 16 or 32bit mode. Old WC4 version supports only 8-bit though
 
Tolwyn said:
@Bryns: it is important, that you run WC4 in 16 or 32bit mode. Old WC4 version supports only 8-bit though
Thanks Tolwyn. Are you referring to desktop resolution here, i.e. 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit? I'll try running it with desktop set to 16-bit colour -- it was set to 32-bit.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
no, you have to run the game itself in 16 or 32-bit resolution. Fraps does not support 8-bit color depth
 
Well, I'm continuing work on the gameplay vids. Getting enough shots to make a coherent video is challenging but I'm enjoying the task!

Yes, BrynS is absolutely right about the music from the sample. What do you think? Do you like it's inclusion? I still will have to see how it will sound amongst the context of the rest of the project. For the most part I am going to try and use wc4 music.

It is going to be a while before I'm at that point, but what do you think about download / distribution options? Episodes (Thee or four parts)? Whole? Or dvd's? Bitrates / Compression? FIle size (compared to image quality)?

Let me know what you think? (about anything related to the project!)
 
AD said:
Yes, BrynS is absolutely right about the music from the sample. What do you think? Do you like it's inclusion? I still will have to see how it will sound amongst the context of the rest of the project. For the most part I am going to try and use wc4 music.

I definitely like the inclusion of this music. When I first heard it I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe including music like this in the duel with Seether might be good.

AD said:
what do you think about download / distribution options? Episodes (Thee or four parts)? Whole? Or dvd's? Bitrates / Compression? FIle size (compared to image quality)?

If this is going to be available by download then I would suggest episodes, since my CD video quality version came out at around 1 GB when compressed quite a bit. With DVD quality video, yours will probably be even bigger, which would be a painful download for people with slower connections.
 
AD said:
...What do you think? Do you like it's inclusion? I still will have to see how it will sound amongst the context of the rest of the project. For the most part I am going to try and use wc4 music.
I really enjoyed the inclusion of WCM music, but agree that it would probably appear more consistent to retain the original WC4 music. Perhaps just use portions of music from the movie for key scenes/moments, as long as the contrast between the WC4 music and the WCM music is not too jarring. I thought that George Oldziey's inclusion of specific WC3 samples in the WC4 music at significant cinematic/story moments, such as when Blair first talks to Melek in the Intrepid's rec room, were very effective at evoking previous experiences and added to the player's immersion.


AD said:
...It is going to be a while before I'm at that point, but what do you think about download / distribution options? Episodes (Thee or four parts)? Whole? Or dvd's? Bitrates / Compression? FIle size (compared to image quality)?
Roughly what size do you envision the final movie comprising? 2GB? 4.5GB? Would the final movie comprise a single, large file or multiple, segmented files? Which containers and codecs do you plan to use? .avi, Matroska, .mp4, .vob? MPEG2 (DVD compatible), MPEG4 (XviD, DivX, etc) or others and for the audio -- .ac3, .mp3, .ogg or something else? Either format or both (MPEG2/MPEG4) would be fine, but please don't use a proprietory codec/container such as Windows Media .wmv or Real's video codec.

You mentioned earlier in the thread that were planning on a final movie length of circa 2 hours and 30 minutes. Given that a typical 2-hour film can be encoded with decent quality at ~1400MB (2x700MB CD's) and almost transparently at 3 CD's (~2100MB) with an MPEG4 ASP codec, such as XviD or DivX and will even be watchable on 1CD (~700MB), one has a fair amount of scope for the final size.

Assuming you're maintaining the original source resolution and aspect ratio, I would personally try to maintain as much transparency with the source material as possible, i.e. keep the quality as high as possible. The original aspect ratio for WC4 DVD was not very wide IIRC, i.e. it was not 2.35:1, more like 16:9/1.77:1 so you would need to throw more bits at the video than if were 2.35:1 due to their being more pixels/data per frame.

If you are getting a fairly transparent final encode with say, 3GB final size, you may as well use the full 4.5GB on a DVD5, as I'm sure demand for a DVD distro would be there, especially for any dial-up users who would be excluded from multple 300-500MB online segments. Have you discussed potential online distribution with CIC member's such as Loaf, ChrisReid, etc? Depending on final size and if the CIC was willing and could handle the bandwidth issues, it could be a very effective method.

The only drawback for a segmented/episodic distribution of the final movie, especially if the focus of the project was recreating a seamless, cinematic Wing Commander film experience is the segmentation and break from immersion if the episode cuts are at arbitrary points to coincide with a specific distribution target (i.e. 250MB per episode). Once the user had downloaded each segment, they would not be able to watch a seamless "movie", unless they edited the sequences together. However, if the final product is planned/edited around an episodic release, it should be possible to make each episode fairly self-contained, yet maintain continuity with previous and succeeding episodes, e.g. one episode could cover the Circe campaign, while another could detail the battle against the Versuvius. The episodes could perhaps be released weekly with a preview at the end of each one for the next installment, although this would add a lot of extra work.

Anyway, keep up the great work -- I'm really looking forward to the final result! If you want any help with encoding/codec settings (I mostly use XviD and VirtualDub or VDubMod) or want somene to test the compressability of different codecs on some of your edited material, let me know! I've got a streamload account to which you could upload some material and I can run a suite of codecs and settings on it to ascertain the best codec settings and bitrate, etc for a given target size.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
BrynS said:
The only drawback for a segmented/episodic distribution of the final movie, especially if the focus of the project was recreating a seamless, cinematic Wing Commander film experience is the segmentation and break from immersion if the episode cuts are at arbitrary points to coincide with a specific distribution target (i.e. 250MB per episode). Once the user had downloaded each segment, they would not be able to watch a seamless "movie", unless they edited the sequences together. However, if the final product is planned/edited around an episodic release, it should be possible to make each episode fairly self-contained, yet maintain continuity with previous and succeeding episodes, e.g. one episode could cover the Circe campaign, while another could detail the battle against the Versuvius. The episodes could perhaps be released weekly with a preview at the end of each one for the next installment, although this would add a lot of extra work.
Anyway, keep up the great work -- I'm really looking forward to the final result! If you want any help with encoding/codec settings (I mostly use XviD and VirtualDub or VDubMod) or want somene to test the compressability of different codecs on some of your edited material, let me know! I've got a streamload account to which you could upload some material and I can run a suite of codecs and settings on it to ascertain the best codec settings and bitrate, etc for a given target size.

I have been trying to keep the video quality as high as possible through the editing process. I do intend to make a DVD that is playable in set top machines, at least for my self... But For internet download I would most likely use Divx or similar encoding. One number Chris gave me was around 500 - 1000 MB per hour. High Quality divx runs the top end of that target.

As far as episodes go, I need to make sure there's a good hook in each segment so an ideal spot to end an episode would be right after Eisen defects. In this version I have blair acompany him so the next episode would start with the scene on the intrepid flight deck when they just arive and the crew is doing damage control. Another good spot to end an episode would be Eisens Leaving the Intrepid.
Ideally I see this a one complete project Yet I am considering this as a way to make it Accessible. Even with high speed internet, a two or three gig download will take a long time... Besides the fact that it will take me atleast twice as long to upload it to start with.
 
AD said:
I have been trying to keep the video quality as high as possible through the editing process. I do intend to make a DVD that is playable in set top machines, at least for my self... But For internet download I would most likely use Divx or similar encoding...
Yeah, I think that's the best way to go about it, it should minimise audio and visual quality loss incurred during each encoding, i.e.

Source (.VOB/MPEG2+AC3) ---> EDITING (MPEG2/AC3/PCM) ---> FINAL (MPEG2/AC3/PCM) ---> Internet Distro (MPEG4/MP3)

AD said:
Ideally I see this a one complete project Yet I am considering this as a way to make it Accessible.
One possibility if you want to keep whole structure of the film intact, would be to create a segmented RAR archive or similar, e.g.

WC4Film_part1.rar (500MB)
WC4Film_part2.rar (500MB)
WC4Film_part3.rar (500MB)
WC4Film_part4.rar (500MB)
WC4Film_part5.rar (500MB)

Each part could be distributed/uploaded over a number of days to conserve bandwidth. Thus, once the user has downloaded all parts, he will be able extract the full movie -- the only downside being that whilst the distribution is episodic, the user will not be able to view anything until they have all the parts.

AD said:
...Besides the fact that it will take me atleast twice as long to upload it to start with.
Yeah, that's going to take quite a while depending on your upstream connection! A few weeks back I was uploading about 300MB of zip files to my Streamload account and it took about 6 hours! I'm on a 750kbps down/128kbps up (about 15KB max) cable connection.

Otherwise, how's the project coming along?

Cheers,


BrynS
 
If you made a source DVD, people would undoubtedly want it. Demand would probably outstrip your ability to make them, but we could probably reproduce copies for birthday presents and such.
 
Hey BrynS, You were right about checking the settings in AC3filter itself. What I'm wondering though is if there is a way to get sound while editing in virtualdub.

As well, Is there a way to encode the video back into a VOB after? Haven't figured that out yet.

For anyone who knows, I would also like information on adding multiple audio tracks. For example, if I get it to work, I could include both 5.1 and the stereo mix I'm currently working with... That way people can chose according to their sound system. Is there a demand for subtitles? I could only do them in english and french, but I imagine that it would take a long time to work out (unless someone already has a text document of the dialogue) If there's demand I suppose eventualy I could forward an english transcript to someone to translate.

Plus , if anyone is interested I may look into recording my thoughts on the story, character, wc in general, and of course the whole process of editing it all into this project and some of the decisions I made in the process and having it as an optional commentary or some such, as a bonus.

Man I have so much work to do, and my project just keeps getting bigger.

Just for an update I have finishes a total of 2 gameplay videos and am part way through the third. I have a feeling this part may take a while as I have to actualy play the mission once to get a sense of what I need, then play it again to get basic structure shots (necessary for plot) plus most of the hud stuff. Then I have to go through it again to get anything I missed the first time. Then I get to play the mission again this time trying to get exterior ship shots using chase and object cameras. And also maybe some victim and missile camera stuff. Then I have to edit it together into a coherent sequence of clips (by dividing the clips into specific shot and rearanging them) and see that it not only makes sense but that the pace is correct. That's when it becomes apparent whether there may be a few shots left to make it complete, so I have to play the mission again, and maybe again and again because damn that was hard to get and it takes a while to get used to flying in chase camera mode, atleast to make it look like you kinda know what your doing. I you hadn't guessed I started having separate saves before each different mission. ( I always used to just save over if I was confident I had been successful). Once I'm comfortable with my cut of the gameplay stuff I then have to figure out which music will go best where. (I am recording sans music. It simplifies the editing )
 
Hey AD!

Apologies for the delay in responding to your questions -- I hope the following responses are of help!



AD said:
...What I'm wondering though is if there is a way to get sound while editing in virtualdub.
Yes there is a way.

Once you've opened a video file, you will usually see a video pane/window containing the input or source file on the left and the output or filtered video on the right (these settings can be changed if desired though, i.e. output file on the left, input on the right, or they can be aligned vertically, i.e. input on the top, output below or vice versa, etc.)

To play either the input/source or output/filtered, click the appropriate "play" (play arrow) button in the bottom left-hand corner of the work area, i.e. "play I" to play the input file and "play O" to play the output. Alternatively, you can go to the "File" drop-down menu and select "Preview input..." ; "Preview filtered..." or "Preview output from start..." The latter two may not playback in real-time if you have a computation-intensive filter (or number of filters) affecting the input video.

If you apply any filters (such as a resize, de-interlace, noise-reduction, de-logo, etc) then they will be realised in the output/filtered video pane. If you are only implementing a "Direct Stream Copy" for the video, then your input and output panes will be identical.



AD said:
...As well, Is there a way to encode the video back into a VOB after? Haven't figured that out yet...
Well technically, yes, but there would be quality degradation and the process would be quite convoluted, as VirtualDub(Mod) does not allow for direct stream copying of MPEG1/2 streams -- the final container must be either AVI or Matroska, both of which cannot comprise MPEG1/2 streams.

The way to go about "saving" an MPEG2/VOB source back into a MPEG2/VOB after cutting/filtering it in VirtualDub(Mod), would be to encode the output with a lossless codec, such as HuffyUV, and then re-encode that lossless segment into a compatible MPEG2 stream with a utility such as Tsunami MPEG Encoder. As you can imagine, this would be fairly inefficient and is not recommended due to the monotony, as well as the increased probability of introducing quality loss and syncing errors into the production.

With hindsight, I have now realised that recommending VirtualDub/VirtualDubMod at the beginning of this thread was not very well considered/thought through on my part, given the scope of your project and the processes it requires. I hope I haven't led you up the garden path, AD, regarding VirtualDub(Mod) usage and can only apologise for any setbacks/problems incurred from its use on my recommendation. VirtualDub and VirtualDub(Mod) are very useful pieces of open source software and I can envisage a good place to use them in the project, but I should have been clearer on their effectiveness and limitations from the beginning.

To clarify, while you can use VirtualDubMod to open and then cut/trim/filter specific VOB files (MPEG2 & AC3 streams) and therefore preserve the original Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, VirtualDubMod is not a non-linear editor and also requires the inputted VOB stream to be further filtered/compressed with an appropriate codec suitable for the AVI or Matroska containers, i.e. with VirtualDubMod you cannot open a particular WC4 VOB file, edit and then save the edited portion as a VOB directly.

Considering that you want to compile an MPEG2 DVD version first, it would be better and much more straightforward to import all the VOB's into a suitable editor (as you mentioned doing so far) and maintain the source format (MPEG2) all the way through production and then only convert to MPEG4 once the final MPEG2 DVD version is complete. The only downside being (again as you mentioned in your first post) that you would need to discard the AC3 option, unless you can find a way (perhaps a 3rd party plugin?) to integrate this capability into the editor you are using or upgrade to a more professional (expensive) package or suitable open source programme.

Where I can see VirtualDub(Mod) being useful is for the encoding of the MPEG2 final cut into a suitable MPEG4 package, as well as for adding multiple audio streams and sub-titles, as detailed below the next quote.

You mentioned in one of your first posts that you were using Cyberlink's PowerDirector to edit the scenes -- I've downloaded a trial version of the programme and will give it a go to try and get a better feel of the processes you are using and to try and see if it's possible to somehow import AC3 directly or through a workaround involving other programmes.

Two other programmes that you could experiment with are firstly Chopper XP 2.7 which opens VOB files and allows you to trim/edit and then save to VOB, but you can only cut/edit to within 1 second, instead of 1 frame, which may hamper creative choice. The other programme is Cuttermaran 1.6.3 which is a frame accurate MPEG2 cutting tool. I believe that is quite widely used amongst enthusiast's, but was very unstable on my system when I tried it.



AD said:
...I would also like information on adding multiple audio tracks. For example, if I get it to work, I could include both 5.1 and the stereo mix I'm currently working with... That way people can chose according to their sound system...
Yes, this can be done.

For less complications and ease of use, I would recommend sticking with one audio format throughout the editing process and then only convert to another once the final edit has been encoded, e.g. if you're editing the main film with an audio track comprising portions of WC4 gameplay (say Stereo WAV or PCM) and video portions downconverted from 5.1 AC3 to stereo WAV or PCM, then maintain that until the final edit. You can then de-mux (separate) the audio from the video and encode it separately into say, Stereo MP3 or Ogg Vorbis or upconvert it to AC3 5.1 or 2.0 (there will be some minor quality loss and redundancy in the upconversion process, especially to 5.1, as the source would be stereo, albeit originally a 5.1 AC3 source).

Once you have the final MPEG2 movie compiled, say with Stereo MPEG Layer II audio or Stereo MPEG Layer III, it will be possible to de-mux/demultiplex the audio and then upconvert it to AC3 or vice versa and then multiplex the two audio streams back into the video stream and then author the MPEG2 version to DVD.

For the MPEG4 version, you can use either VirtualDubMod or another modified VirtualDub utility called NanDub (available at Doom9). NanDub only allows for the muxing of a primary and secondary stream (i.e. 2 audio streams) and AFAIK, the AVI container cannot contain more than 2 audio streams, whereas VirtualDubMod can AFAIK mux more than 2 audio streams, provided that the Matroska container is used.

Putting more than one audio stream in an AVI file is essentially a hack, as it was never designed to handle more than one audio stream. As such, either a specific audio stream switcher is required to playback an AVI file with two audio streams or a suitably configured media player is needed. If viewed via Windows Media Player, you need to install the Morgan Stream Switcher -- you should then be able to toggle between the two streams, however I recently downloaded the latest version of this and tried it with Windows Media Player 10 and was getting conflicts and syncing problems. I can recall it working with Windows Media Player 6.4 and according to the switcher's documentation, the latest version should work with Windows Media Player 9.

The other option and the one I would recommend, would be to use and suggest a media player like Media Player Classic (available at Doom9) or VLC Media Player -- the DivX Player also allows you to toggle between streams.

To test compatibility with different media players, I encoded a short WC4 DVD sample with 2 audio streams [384kbps CBR 5.1 AC3 & 192kbps CBR Stereo LAME (MP3)]. To download it, right-click the link below:

wc4excaliburpeleus1ow.jpg


WC4 DVD - Excalibur Encounter in Peleus (15.3MB)



AD said:
Is there a demand for subtitles? I could only do them in english and french, but I imagine that it would take a long time to work out (unless someone already has a text document of the dialogue) If there's demand I suppose eventualy I could forward an english transcript to someone to translate.
Well, I'm not sure about the demand -- perhaps someone at the CIC has some stats on the number of registered users from French/German/Spanish/etc regions and a better feel on the language demand/demographics (I have always been under the impression that WC has a large German following, amongst many other demographics for example). While the language of conversation on the CIC Forums is English, I know that there are quite a few member's that regularly post whose first language is not English and I would think that they and other foreign language fans would appreciate sub-titles in their own first language.

My WC4 DVD does not contain sub-titles, although there may be other localised versions that do, so you would probably need to generate your own once the final cut is complete. I would think that the programme that you eventually use to author the MPEG2 DVD version should allow you to add sub-titles (although they in turn may need to be compiled with a different utility). When encoding the MPEG4 version, you could use VirtualDubMod to add a number of sub-title languages if necessary, (a number of sub-title compilers are available on the Doom9 download section) although I have never tried this myself.



AD said:
Plus, if anyone is interested I may look into recording my thoughts on the story, character, wc in general, and of course the whole process of editing it all into this project and some of the decisions I made in the process and having it as an optional commentary or some such, as a bonus.
That would be great and widely appreciated I'm sure, but like the sub-titles, it's one of those tasks that doesn't really need to be done until the rest of the project is finished, but if you can fit them in at the end, it's a bonus.



AD said:
Man I have so much work to do, and my project just keeps getting bigger.
Yeah, I know how that feels! All I can say is don't let it take priority over other work/committments/real life and don't let it become all-consuming. Just take it as it comes and try not to let the whole thing become a chore.

Thanks for the update on the gameplay extraction process -- you should be an expert on the in's and out's of each WC4 mission after having to replay each one so many times :) Lastly, I've hosted a 9.18MB video file called wc4test.avi which I seem to recall getting from the CIC 6-12 months back, although I've tried to search through the CIC's archive and file sections and can't seem to find any references or credits. It's a short compilation of scenes, quite nicely edited together from the WC4 DVD and you may find it useful, that is if you are not the mystery author of the video :D

Anyway, keep up the great work!

Cheers,


BrynS

P.S. Link to Doom9.net - The Definitive DVD Backup Resource
 
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