Wing Commander IV Gets Holovids Treatment (August 14, 2016)

Cpl Hades

Mr. Kat
In honor of Wing Commander 4's 20th birthday earlier this year, we have taken all of the cinematics from the DVD version of the game and put them in to our Holovids section! AD has converted all of the videos to the latest streaming formats, and these have been combined with the game's script as transcribed by Wedge for the best viewing experience possible. You can find all of the WC4 videos here. Don't forget that if watching the videos gives you a craving for actually playing, the full DVD version of the game is available on GOG!

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Original update published on August 14, 2016
 
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We ran into a few interesting things while combing over the videos to get them into the holovids section (some of them that I was aware of but hadn't totally looked into before)... anyway, a big thanks to capi3101 for getting me the CD versions of the movies, so now the holovids versions all include sound. The DVD for some reason was missing audio on the Lexington hallway walkthroughs as well as a handful of other scenes which has been rectified here . Some of the other scenes without sound were the two shots of either a Lance or a Vindicator returning to the Intrepid after the Telamon sequence, and the Hawk variation (in the Spearadon branch) in the middle of the chew-out Blair gives to Maniac and Catscratch if you decide to not let Catscratch die.

There's a couple other scenes missing on the DVD as well. The DVD has an alternate scene for when the Intrepid jumps in to Spearadon compared to the CD version that includes the bearcat assembly plant sequence. The DVD is also missing the bar segment from the game ending where, if you perform badly enough early on in the game, Tolwyn removes you from active service and you go back to the farm. The part of the scene in Tolwyn's office is complete on the DVD but all the last bit with Blair drinking back on Nephele is missing. The end of the scene in Tolwyn's office also has different music than the CD version. I will eventually make these available as alternate versions instead of replacing the ones from the DVD currently in Holovids.

If you've also spotted any other scenes with differences between the CD and DVD versions let me know. One other minor difference: The doorbell sound is very different in both versions of the scene where Blair rings on Eisen's cabin but nobody's home. It's very muted on the DVD but more high pitched and chirpy on the CD. There's also a couple scenes where the aspect ratio changes on the DVD in the middle of a scene from WC's roughly 2:1 aspect to 4:3 and then back. Blair's execution is also 4:3, however it appears it's not an 'open matte' situation and regretably more of a "cropped to fit your old CRT TV" situation.

EDIT: Also, I feel like we discussed some of this once upon a time... but anyway part of my goal is to also make VOB versions and put them in a zip that you can put into your WC4 game install too.
 
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Glad I could help out. Makes me glad I kept those discs out where I could find them rather than ship them out to storage.
 
I didn't realize there are that many differences in the videos.

The CD version also features a different ad for Dolby Digital sound. Where the DVD features the big helicopter flyby over a city the CD version has a more subdued sepia toned locomotive spooling up.

I remember the compression being so bad I couldn't tell it was a train engine until it started moving on screen.
 
Yes, I much preferred the train intro. I downloaded the vob file for it years ago. Doing a quick search it looks like you can get it here. Hypothetically all you should have to do would be to rename it and you could play this instead of the helicopter trailer.
 
Yes, I much preferred the train intro. I downloaded the vob file for it years ago. Doing a quick search it looks like you can get it here. Hypothetically all you should have to do would be to rename it and you could play this instead of the helicopter trailer.

The problem with the WC4 Dolby logo is that it's not encoded as a separate video. It's attached to the intro. You would really need to cut and re-splice the train onto the intro.

I agree that I always liked the train better, but something else to remember is that Dolby Surround and Dolby Digital are two different technologies. The logo video isn't just a Dolby logo, it's telling you about what audio format the video is using.

'Dolby Surround' is basically a stereo setup where your amp processor creates the center and surround channels from the left and right audio (oversimplified version is that the center is made from anything that is the same between the left and right and the surround channels are created by taking the left and right audio and delaying it slightly). 'Dolby Digital' is 5.1 or 6 channel sound where each channel is recorded and played back independantly.
 
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