[RM2K/2K3] VIDEO REQUEST THREAD: HOW TO BRING VIDEO INTO RM2K/2K3

• Video for Windows (.AVI): of course Microsoft had to make a clone(1a) of QuickTime as soon as possible, and they managed to do it within one year. Maybe this is why the original VfW specification was such a braindead format. It didn't have most of the advanced features QuickTime has. The format was extended by the OpenDML group to tackle some limitations of the original specification. Later on, MS dropped support for AVI in favour of their new WMV format. One reason was that VfW was not a big success. The main reason however was probably because AVI had become the format of choice for pirated movies — maybe due to the link between the simplicity of the format and the simplicity of the average teenage scriptkiddie pirate. Arrrr. Technically however, those movies are not AVI files because Microsoft's VfW specification doesn't allow the use of the typical pirate codecs.

• MPEG-1 (.MPG, .MPEG, .MPE): this is a format designed by the ISO, or International Organization for Standardization. It is about as braindead as AVI, but was much more popular due to the fact that it is an ISO standard, and was inherently linked to a compression scheme which was really good at that time. The format was, and is still used in Video CD's (VCD). The nice thing about this format is that it's an open standard. This means that playback is supported pretty much everywhere, although you need to pay a license to make an encoder.

author=vgperson
...I don't know how the videos for either were originally created. There are various video editing programs that could do the job, and the readmes don't say anything about it. Farethere's movies are basic enough that I think you could get away with just Windows Movie Maker, but the moving parts of Ib's storybook tell me it probably used something with more features.

The small filesize, though, is thanks to me. The Japanese versions of both games had uncompressed videos that hugely inflated the download.

(Note:These were originally 400mb - 100mb in size as you'll see below. - LBR)

This could've just been due to the creators not knowing any better, but also, most codecs don't work properly with RM2K and RM2K3, with some users getting either incorrect playback or a DirectShow error. I've been told the safest bet is to use the Cinepak codec, which isn't the best quality, but it's widely supported. You can convert a video (ideally an uncompressed one) to a RM2K-compliant Cinepak format like so, using the program FFmpeg:

ffmpeg -i <input_video> -c:v cinepak -c:a adpcm_ms -vf scale=320:240 <output_video> (Will post more on this method, below)

Method 1: Rpgmaker2000/2003 CinePak AVI

1)Once your video file is in an avi format, you'll want to use ffmpeg to optimize it to a smaller file size.

Installing ffmpeg: (Installing ffmpeg, was tricky for me but this is a step-by-step process I followed on windows 7.)
Hopefully someone will come up with an easier method.
https://www.wikihow.com/Install-FFmpeg-on-Windows


2)Once ffmpeg has been installed open up a terminal command in windows and type:

ffmpeg -i <input_video> -c:v cinepak -c:a adpcm_ms -vf scale=320:240 <output_video>

ffmpeg -i (drag&drop video file location) -c:v cinepak -c:a adpcm_ms -vf scale=320:240 (drag&drop video file location, but with new name)

i.e.
ffmpeg -i <C:\Documents and Settings\Logo.avi> -c:v cinepak -c:a adpcm_ms -vf scale=320:240 <C:\Documents and Settings\Logosmaller.avi)

(this conversion takes awhile, but once complete, the video looks great and the file size is incredibly small - this is the method vgperson uses for videos on games such as Ib, Farethere City and is playable across all platforms)

Method 2: Rpgmaker2000/2003 MPEG1 Muxed.

This is another method to use, when converting a completed video file.

(this method is a bit easier to use, but was just as complicated to figure out - while beta testing Beloved Rapture, I wanted to see if animated cutscenes were a variable option. This eventually lead to discovering and eventually buying Compressor, a sister application for Final Cut Pro 7, that easily outputs a wide range of video files to mpeg1.

There's three problems with using Compressor though:
1)The version I have, is for Mac os x 10.6 and I don't know how the licensing key works, so I don't know if I can share it.)
2)Compressor has trouble rendering video files with text at lower resolutions.
3)The sound isn't great.

But, this is a great option if you video file has no text, as it provides a decent file size for full motion video.

Another option and the one I mostly use now for all my rpgmaker2000/2003 video rendering is CCE (download here)
Without going into too much detail, it will convert .mov, .avi .dv and df files. to mpeg1 using these settings:

(I've included a file with these settings as well)

...The only drawback is that this program, currently only works for Windows XP. But yes, this is the method I use for converting most of my video files for use in rpgmaker2000/2003 games - this is how i do it.