Unknown video format for files from a PC Game (details ins)

[Milfeulle]

Hello everyone,

Okay, this is a unique request since I have tried multiple methods and codec paks with little success. Well, okay, first off, I've been working on a certain project for several months now concerning in-game video files from a Japanese PC Game called "Galaxy Angel Eternal Lovers", and that project being a proposed Anime Music Video.

The way these video files are set up are that they are placed inside a "dat" directory inside the root game directory, and they all end with a ".pak" extention. These files can range from anywhere from 6 MB to 100+ MB, depending on the length of the video. These are very high quality, so they get rather large as they get more lengthy.

Anyways, in the first game, simply called "Galaxy Angel", these movie files can be played inside Windows Media Player and are decompressed using the MPEG-1 codec with full sound, but this is not the case for the next 2 games, "Moonlit Lovers" and "Eternal Lovers", where no player can render the files at all. These files can only be played in-game, so it is obvious that a codec for it must exist in order for the game to access them for viewing.

I have gained some progress in that when I installed the ACE Mega CoDecS Pack, where the AC3Filter inside this pack is able to decode and play the audio for all these files for these 2 games, but still cannot detect the video stream inside the files. I am certain these files do contain the video streams since they are similar in size to the files in the first game, and it's kinda rediculous to think that a 1:30 minute audio file compressed with the MPG/AC3Filter codec would yield a 90+ MB file.

So I am asking for some assitance on this, since I have tried everything I can think of in order to find out what type of video stream these files are encoded in and get the to play outside the game in a player (IE: Classic WMP). I am attaching a link to the smallest video in Eternal Lovers, which is a 5 second clip of one of the ships being hit with an attack and a girl (Mifie) screaming. I know it's kinda morbid, but it's the smallest size and I can't manage much room on my webspace.

If someone out there with considerable video file knowledge could grab this file and find out what the video format for it is, so I can utilize it to rip footage from these files.

Basically, what I'm trying to do is be able to access these files independantly from the game to rip the video/audio from them. Video capturing to an outside application also has not worked.

FYI: My system is a Window XP based system, so don't worry about any MAC related issues.

I would be eternally grateful, for I am at my wits' end. Thank you.

LINK: http://students.washington.edu/duranr/AMV/gadat104.rar

~Milfie

[celtic_druid]

Ok, according to mplayer it is an MPEG-PS file and the audio is mp3. The video it couldn't detect due to the lack of a sequence header. Guess maybe a different mpeg parser would have more luck?

[guns1inger]

The .pak extension was used for games based on the quake engine and it's variants. It was infact a renamed zip file. You could try opening it with a zip program to see if what you want lies within.

[Milfeulle]

Still need help on this.. Even though we know the video is MPEG-PS, I cannot find any resources on this codec. Plus, I have no knowledge on MPEG Parsers or anything else that may help with this...

Also, even though they're .pak files, doesn't mean they work the same way. Trust me, I tried the "Quake" reference a LONG time ago and of course, it didn't work.

~Milfie

[celtic_druid]

Yes they are MPEG PS streams which means that they are not zip's renamed but mpg files renamed.

Resources on what codec? I couldn't even find out what video codec it uses.

[Milfeulle]

Like I said, I don't have any real knowledge on codecs and such.. To me whatever could decode this MPEG PS Stream is the Codec for the files.

When I said I looked for "resources" I mean I googled "MPEG-PS" and didn't get anything that really helped this issue.

~Milfie

[celtic_druid]

MPEG-PS just means MPEG program stream, it is the container not the codec.

[JeremyIrons]

This may not end up helping... but I thought it would be worth a mention: Perhaps you can look at ffmpeg. It will transcode to/from all kinds of formats, common and specialty