ROM Hack Extracting Video/FMV data from Nintendo DS games

[Cyber Akuma]

I am trying to extract sound, video, images, etc data from DS games.

While I now know how to use tools like ndstool or Tahaxan to extract the individual files from DS roms....... this is about as far as I get.

Some games make it easy to find where everything is, with all files and folders organized in english like BG, Sound, Movie, etc.

..... others (Like Pokemon Black) just have a bunch of numbered directories.... with more sets of numbered directories WITHIN those directories, and then extension-less numbered files....

Regardless however, after I extracted the data.... I can't use it.

For example, one of the games I tried the video file was clearly opening.mods.

I tried goggling it (which proved futile since google happily ignores the period and brings me all sorts of console and pc mods instead, no matter how specific I made my search) and I did find a "Mobiclip video codec" but even though I installed this, I couldn't figure out how to get it to work.

Can anybody help me figure out how to actually playback and convert audio/video data from DS games?

 

[rastsan]

The sounds the images you can get. but as that codec (for the .mods) is liscenced by nintendo you might not have any luck. If you did a search there were several topics on this here on gbatemp. one hinted that it got somwhere but it was more can you build a codec for us than we have the codec. another thread I found seemed to say get the codec here and use virtual dub and then these are the instructions. But again it didn't work. The commercial codec for encoding for other devices does not include the one for the ds. I even went so far as to search for a previous made codec which is close to the same thing GenuineAct imagine codec from the same people who made mobiclip (just before it got licsenced to nintendo and got a name change)
If you can find that codec someone out there who has that codec it might be worth it to try that. otherwise sorry. If you wann try the virtualdub way I'll post it when you ask.

 

[FehnrirX]

Virtual dub can read ds video files? With what?
Avisynth didn't works, because there isn't codec for that..

 

[Cyber Akuma]

The sounds the images you can get. but as that codec (for the .mods) is liscenced by nintendo you might not have any luck. If you did a search there were several topics on this here on gbatemp. one hinted that it got somwhere but it was more can you build a codec for us than we have the codec. another thread I found seemed to say get the codec here and use virtual dub and then these are the instructions. But again it didn't work. The commercial codec for encoding for other devices does not include the one for the ds. I even went so far as to search for a previous made codec which is close to the same thing GenuineAct imagine codec from the same people who made mobiclip (just before it got licsenced to nintendo and got a name change)
If you can find that codec someone out there who has that codec it might be worth it to try that. otherwise sorry. If you wann try the virtualdub way I'll post it when you ask.

Isn't the codec also used by many other devices, like Nokia/Symbian cellphones?

As for the virtual dub thing, I think that to to encode something TO MobiClip format.

Now that I think about it, I think some people were encoding videos into mobiclip (.mo) format to insert into games in place of the original video files, if that worked, woudlen't that mean the codec is the same thing.... or at least clone enough, to work with the publically available mobiclip codec?

Even if had the proper codec though, I don't know how to read the CONTAINER format that the DS uses, any insight on that?

 

[FAST6191]

The phone mobiclip and the DS one are two different things and while they might share a measure of compatibility at some level (both aimed at portable devices) it is sadly not that easy.

Actimagine do a video codec used by a lot of DS games but word is they lock it down hard even at the SDK level (phone homes/lockdown timeouts in addition to whatever nintendo have) and nobody has done much there.

The people behind ADX and AHX (CRI Middleware) do a codec used in some DS games- they even have a nice list http://www.cri-mw.com/product/adoption/platform/ds.html . Not sure about playback options at this point in time.

Lastly the PC favourite RAD / Bink have some stuff on the DS although not much and I have still yet to try it http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

After this it is mainly in game cutscenes using the OAM and sprites, backgrounds (all things that emulators and maybe a bit of fiddling with cheats can lose) and whatever else the hardware affords. There are some minor animation formats available in the nitroSDK that some developers use (and later versions of crystaltile2 support) but that is rare.

Nobody is going to pull apart a video codec- my usual example is to say have a look at something like MPEG1 ( http://www.cmlab.csie.ntu.edu.tw/cml/dsp/t...g/coding/mpeg1/ ) and now consider most modern stuff is going to be more complex and thanks to the existence of software patents less than intuitive.

Nothing stopping you from slicing up games (either repointing an end of game sequence as the title or injecting something that has a nice intro with something from another game) and using an emulator for playback purposes though (screencapture type recording).
Do note that many videos on the DS store their sound separately* but sound ripping is easy enough.

*a useful bit of info if your emulator, flashcard or PC is struggling to do the lot at once and you can simply blank the music.

@Cyber Akuma if you find a link to people doing that do post it as I would be interested to read such things.

 

[rastsan]

mobiclip uses zlib compression by the way. If any programmers slash video guys know how to use that to their advantage. Also sadly the commercial codec for phones is NOT the same thing. (I tried, may have had the wrong settings, but yes I have tried). He may have bben referring to the psp/psone forum that listed the virtualdub method.