converting video formats (For Hasbro's VideoNow) I know the

[Roborob142003]

Ok,I modified the player to fit a whole cd-rw(80min.) and burned 67 minutes of B&W video on it. It playes all of it, so the player doesn't limit the length of a B&W video at 30 minutes, however that means that color is limited to 40 minutes max on a modified player.

[razor1000]

I just attempted to make some movies for my b&w videonow, but I was unsuccessful.

I attempted using VideoThen v1b, but it didn't work for me. I got up to the point where I chose the "File->Start Render" menu item, and it instantly gives a pop-up saying it is finished. It creates "audio.dat" and "video.dat" files (I believe the audio file is 22k, the video is empty). That's it. I tried it on two different machines, one with XP, the other with 2k server, same result.

I installed the newest JRE; the *only* one that was available on the www.java.com site. The full name is "Java 2 Runtime Environment, SE v1.4.2_04"

I tried VNConvert also, but it said that no .bmp files were in the /Files folder, when there were.

I would guess that both of these apps don't work correctly with the new runtime. Are either of these programs still being supported?

Also, I tried to find "mystuffnow", but all of the download links for the shareware version lead back to the manufacturer's site, and they've pulled it. Supposedly because they are getting ready to release the color version... but I don't see why.

Does anyone have a copy of the shareware "mystuffnow" that I could have? Perhaps I can get a code from the company anyway.

Thanks!

[mastersmurfie]

I just attempted to make some movies for my b&w videonow, but I was unsuccessful.

I attempted using VideoThen v1b, but it didn't work for me. I got up to the point where I chose the "File->Start Render" menu item, and it instantly gives a pop-up saying it is finished. It creates "audio.dat" and "video.dat" files (I believe the audio file is 22k, the video is empty). That's it. I tried it on two different machines, one with XP, the other with 2k server, same result.

I installed the newest JRE; the *only* one that was available on the www.java.com site. The full name is "Java 2 Runtime Environment, SE v1.4.2_04"

I tried VNConvert also, but it said that no .bmp files were in the /Files folder, when there were.

I would guess that both of these apps don't work correctly with the new runtime. Are either of these programs still being supported?

Thanks!

offering my two cents worth...it's been a while since I thought about this...

what version of VirtualDub did you use to render your AVI? this seemed to make the biggest difference, if I remember correctly...

mastersmurfie

[Roborob142003]

yes, i use version 1.5.3 virtualdub and don't forget to save in old avi format, use the included proccesing file to load prossesing settings, and i use eo video to convert to 15 fps to keep my audio and video in sync. Hope this helps (still no news from mystuffnow)

[razor1000]

Ok, I'll give those a try... (I used whatever version of Virtualdub is newest.)

[razor1000]

Ok, so I used Vdub 1.5.3 and it worked. I should say that it produced an .avi file that was acceptable to Videothen. But now I'm stuck. I don't know the exact way to burn the thing.

This is what I attempted (although I'm sure I'm wrong here, somewhere):

1. removed WAV header from file with HEXeditor, renamed file to 'video.bin'
2. burned resulting 'video.bin' as an audio cd using Nero (i couldn't get burnatonce to work)
3. resulting cd wouldn't work on my videonow with the swap trick (i've never been able to do it correctly)
4. read cd in as a data image via clonecd
5. used guajiro's website to create a new .ccd file for image
6. burned image using new .ccd in clonecd as data image

Now i'm waiting for it to finish burning, but I don't have much faith that it will work.

Where have I gone wrong in my methodology?

[impmon2]

It has been a while since I've posted here. It does seems the do it yourself color VNCD has not developed at all due to the face a portabe DVD player costs just a little more than a color VideoNow player. However color player seems to be selling better than I expected so... :P

I did come across something new: mini-DVD. I've seen the nonworking unit at Best Buy earlier and it's a bit bigger than Gameboy SP and plays 3" DVD. Several titles (mostly cartoons but few feature movies as well) are already available in 3" DVD and supposedly works well in standard DVD player so it's safe to assume burned 3" DVD-/+R/RW will work in the portable player but that remains to be seen.

The two drawbacks I could see with this unit was the size of the display. It's about the same size as Color VideoNow player's display. :P Another is the price tag, it retails for $120 (not available for sale yet so dunno what street price will be), a bit more than a standard DVD player with 5" display. :P :P :P (I smell major price cut and clearance bin before end of this year) Each mini-DVD retailed at $15 each though Best Buy had them all at $10.

More at http://www.cyberhome.com/mdp-2500.asp?Page=Overview and http://www.warnervideo.com/minidvd/files/home.html (note, I have no connection with either web site or mentioning Best Buy and I will get nothing from posting these links)

To get this thread back on track, the only thing I could think of Razor1000's problem is that you may not be saving as "old format" AVI And yes the version of VDub did matter, older version didn't have the right options and version from 1.5.8 (or 9? can't recall ) had changed the structure of AVI file to be "correct" and broke VideoThen. Other software support like Java could have changed since VideoThen was last updated.

[doppletwo]

This sounds like a fun project for tinkerers, but like has been said probably a million times on this thread.

There is a 5 inch portable DVD player at Walmart for $100. only twice as much as the VideoNow and no need to mod the unit or convert video files.

I am not sure how much of your time is worth $50 dollars.

But I am not not knocking you guys by any means what ever floats your boat.

Sometimes I like to do things that aren't necessary just to do them.

I don't mean to discourage anyone sounds like you all are having fun.

This reminds me of the PortableMonopoly.com guy who created the Afterburner to backlight Gameboy Advance. Well technically it was a frontlight, but looked as good or better than back lighting. The messed up thing is Nintendo stole his design for lighting a Gameboy Advance screen and put it in the Ganeboy Advance SP.

This stole his thunder and his business.

It sound like you guys are just doing this for your kids or just to do it and not to make money or anything.

It would be funny if Hasbro stole your idea and decided to include software to allow you to do this. But I doubt that this would happen since their business model for the product relies on selling overpriced short length discs.

[maxedroom]

If anybody still cares about the videonow color file format I was able to get some information out of it. I found the audio track. It starts at byte 45. Then you take every 10th. byte from there and it forms the data stream. Then I tacked on the header for a 8 bit, stereo, 32.0 kHz WAVE file to the front of it and changed the size to the correct value and was able to hear the audio part of the video. I'm thinking the other 9 bytes are 3 sets of 3 RGB pixel values because I was able to get an image using that data, although it's not exactly what you see on the player so I'm sure it needs a little more work. The image I was able to get is posted below:

[EwanG]

My middle daughter is multiply handicapped, and has the VideoNow Color Junior - which has big buttons she can easily push, is in a non-folding format she can easily hold (as opposed to most of the cheap DVD portables that fold out), and is rugged enough that it's been dropped on numerous occasions onto both the tile kitchen floor and the concrete driveway without affecting the player (though the disk did skip...)

For this reason, "I" would still be VERY interested in finding a way to put material into VideoNow Color format - at least until the tablet form DVD players get to be much cheaper and sturdier (or even cheaper than that so I can afford to drop one).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[GregSmith]

EwanG,

You're the first person I've heard of that had a good reason for reverse-engineering the VideoNow Color format. If you have read earlier posts, you may know that I reverse-engineered the VideoNow B&W unit and was able to burn disks for it.

I and other people have had copyright issues with Hasbro. So, it is not commercially viable to create burning software.

However, in your case, I will consider helping out. If someone can post the .wav files on the internet where I can find them, I will take some time to review the data.

[EwanG]

However, in your case, I will consider helping out. If someone can post the .wav files on the internet where I can find them, I will take some time to review the data.

Would it help to send you one of the disks, or do you need the data extracted somehow? Do you have one of the units, or would you need one? Am not the most technical person (just read my blog entry today on how I discovered the power cord on my TV), but am willing to do what I can to help out

Thanks from me and from Savvy (Savannah)!

[GregSmith]

I may pick up a disk this weekend. I don't have one of the devices. But I can decypher the file format - if you can extract the set of .WAV files from the disk that would help.

[EwanG]

OK, pulled the 14 WAV files off the "Elmo Reads a Book" "disk". I'm guessing I can't email these, so what's an appropriate way to get them to you?

FWIW, I was surprised that I was able to put the disc into my DVD/CD-RW drive and have it rip the .WAV files without any monkeying around. Thought the size was going to be a problem, but I guess not.

[GregSmith]

see your Personal Mail on this site

[maxedroom]

Greg, I hope this give you a little head start.

Okay, here's what I've found so far. The audio track goes all through the file starting at byte 45 and then every 10th. byte after that.

00 00 01 01 05 02 07 03   ........
FF 48 09 04 0B 05 0D 06   .H......
0E 07 FF 4E 12 08 14 09   ...N....
15 0A 18 0B FF 5B 19 0C   .....[..
1B 0D 1D 0E 1F 0F FF 6A   .......j
00 28 01 29 02 2A 05 2B   .(.).*.+
FF 74 06 2C 09 2D 0C 2E   .t.,.-..
0E 2F FF 79 10 30 13 31   ./.y.0.1
15 32 17 33 FF 7F 19 34   .2.3...4
1B 35 1E 36 1F 37 FF 85   .5.6.7..
00 38 01 39 04 3A 06 3B   .8.9.:.;
FF 8A 09 3C 0B 3D 0D 3E   ...<.=.>
0F 3F FF 89 11 40 13 41   .?...@.A
15 42 17 43 FF 80 19 44   .B.C...D
1A 45 1D 46 1F 47 FF 73   .E.F.G.s
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF   ........
FF 6A FF FF FF FF FF FF   .j......
FF FF FF 6D FF FF FF FF   ...m....
FF FF FF FF FF 78 FF FF   .....x..
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 85   ........
20 03 32 20 04 42 20 04    .2 .B .
32 90 20 04 41 10 04 41   2. .A..A
10 04 41 94 10 04 41 10   ..A...A.
04 41 10 04 41 94 10 04   .A..A...
41 10 04 41 10 04 41 97   A..A..A.
10 04 41 10 04 41 10 04   ..A..A..
41 A4 10 04 42 20 04 42   A...B .B
20 04 42 B6 20 04 42 20    .B. .B
04 42 20 04 42 BD 20 03   .B .B. .
42 20 04 32 20 04 42 B7   B .2 .B.
20 04 32 20 04 42 20 04    .2 .B .
42 A6 20 03 32 20 04 32   B. .2 .2

Once you strip out the audio and delve into the file a bit, you get the video information which starts out with some kind of header, which I haven't figured out yet, which is 144 bytes long. After that you get the frame information.

00 00 01 01 05 02 07 03   ........
FF 09 04 0B 05 0D 06 0E   ........
07 FF 12 08 14 09 15 0A   ........
18 0B FF 19 0C 1B 0D 1D   ........
0E 1F 0F FF 00 28 01 29   ........
02 2A 05 2B FF 06 2C 09   .*.+..,.
2D 0C 2E 0E 2F FF 10 30   -.../..0
13 31 15 32 17 33 FF 19   .1.2.3..
34 1B 35 1E 36 1F 37 FF   4.5.6.7.
00 38 01 39 04 3A 06 3B   .8.9.:.;
FF 09 3C 0B 3D 0D 3E 0F   ..<.=.>.
3F FF 11 40 13 41 15 42   ?..@.A.B
17 43 FF 19 44 1A 45 1D   .C..D.E.
46 1F 47 FF FF FF FF FF   F.G.....
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF   ........
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF   ........
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF   ........
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF   ........
20 03 32 20 04 42 20 04    .2 .B .
32 20 04 41 10 04 41 10   2 .A..A.
04 41 10 04 41 10 04 41   .A..A..A
10 04 41 10 04 41 10 04   ..A..A..
41 10 04 41 10 04 41 10   A..A..A.
04 41 10 04 41 10 04 42   .A..A..B
20 04 42 20 04 42 20 04    .B .B .
42 20 04 42 20 04 42 20   B .B .B
03 42 20 04 32 20 04 42   .B .2 .B
20 04 32 20 04 42 20 04    .2 .B .
42 20 03 32 20 04 32 20   B .2 .2 
04 42 20 03 42 10 04 41   .B .B..A
10 04 41 10 04 41 10 04   ..A..A..
41 10 04 41 32 20 04 42   A..A2 .B

If you look at the black and white image in my previous post this actually would be what the image would look like if you removed to color filter in front of the black and white LCD part of the display. The way I understand color LCD displays, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it's just a black and white lcd with a color filter over it. Anyway, I figured out how the color filter was configured and filtered the data to get the image below. I did a little brightening and blurring to make the image a little more visible. The thing I can't figure out is that the data only seems to define an image that's 108 x 160. Anyway, I'm going to see if I can rip a video and then maybe by then somebody else will have figured out how to invert the process to make a VideoNow format file.



I almost forgot, the configuration of the color filter is as follows:

ROW 0 : G R B ...
ROW 1 : B G R ...
...

Even rows are Green, Red, Blue and odd rows are Blue, Green, Red, if you start counting from 0, like a programmer would. If you're a normal person and you start from 1, then, well you can figure it out.

Good Luck!

[GregSmith]

max,

you are very far along. i think i know something that may help you.

lcd displays are actually collections of dots - red, green, and blue dots. They are arranged in a pattern like this ...

R G B R G B R G B R G B
.B R G B R G B R G B R G
R G B R G B R G B R G B

do you see how the pixels make up little triangles of RGB? That is why you are getting those strange patterns in your image. you will have to arithmetically combine the pixels so that three pixels are combined into one on the screen. let me see if i can draw this ...

column
..0   1   2   3   4   5

R   G   B   R   G   B
.\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
..00  01  02  03  04  05 - row 0
..|   |   |   |   |   |
..B   R   G   B   R   G
..|   |   |   |   |   |
..10  11  12  13  14  15 - row 1
./ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /
R   G   B   R   G   B
.\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
..20  21  22  23  24  25 - row 2
..|   |   |   |   |   |
..B   R   G   B   R   G
..|   |   |   |   |   |
..30  31  32  33  34  35 - row 3
./ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /
R   G   B   R   G   B

The pixels on your screen are numbered 00, 01, 02, etc...
So, to create pixel 00 you would combine the RGB elements that are indicated by the lines.

I hope this makes some sense.

greg

[EwanG]

see your Personal Mail on this site

You have mail...

BTW, I do have about 50 GMail invites (not a typo), so if you or anyone else helping out would like a GMail account just let me know.

Thanks!

[maxedroom]

Just a quick little note to anyone who is trying to follow my ramblings and use them for their own research. I guess I should have looked at more than one of the tracks from the disk. The offset of the audio track is variable. However, the distance between bytes of the audio track is still 10 bytes. Sorry if this has messed anyone up.

[maxedroom]

Greg, I used your RGB matrix suggestion and got the follwing image:



I still only get 108 x 160 instead of the advertised 216 x 160. I wonder if they are counting the staggered pixesl?

..1234
1 R G
2  B R

for example counting the above as 4 x 2 rather than the actual 2 x 2. Maybe they are interlacing? I don't know. Anyway, the work goes on.

[Cornucopia]

What about simply non-square (aka FAT) pixels?

Scott

[EwanG]

OK, so assuming that the format can be "figured out", what does one use for media? I checked the link a couple pages back to Amazon, and noticed the single review there said that they had ordered six months ago and never received the disks. I gather that the size currently being used is larger than a 3" CD-R, but not as large as a standard CD-RW.

Someone mentioned "cutting" their discs, but I can't imagine making a circular cut that would be even (of course I may just be missing the right tool).

Suggestions?

[canadateck]

Maybe use those Biz card CRr's? If you do cut a Disc it can be any shape.

[maxedroom]

I just take a pair of tin snips to a regular CD-R. Oh, it's not pretty in any way, but it gets the job done. It just has to be small enough to fit in the player and even enough not to wobble as it spins. I don't try to do a circular cut because it tends to bend and rip the reflective backing. I just make a bunch of tangential straight cuts on the edge. I'll usually take a real videonow disk, put it on top of the CD-R, use a dry erase pen to mark the circle on the CD-R. Then I'll use a very sharp exacto knife to carefully cut through the reflective backing along the circle I just drew. This stops any ripping that might occur when I'm cutting from going any further than the circle. Then just snip, snip, snip. Like I said, it's not pretty but it works. By the way, if you don't know what tin snips are they are the tool that is used by heating and cooling installers to cut through vent pips and other things made of thin sheet metal. Kind of a big, bulky pair of scissors. Cuts through CD-R's like butter.

[GregSmith]

max,

that picture looks very good. as Cornucopia indicated, you will want to use a non-square pixel. I'm thinking 1.5:1 (3 pixels/2). You didn't mention if the colors are as expected?

As for what media to use, it's unclear. we need to experiment with creating a copy of existing files. that was my first experiment when learning how to burn VNCDs in black and white. I used the standard 3" mini-cdr. So, I tried to recreate an existing disk. Somebody should try that (I'd do it, but i dont have a VNC/jr.).

It should be possible to build a VNCD/color on a standard 3" disk without the toothpick hack - people have done it for VNCD/bw.

greg

[maxedroom]

I looked at the VNCjr last night and the pixels do look fat. I have already made a working copy of the sample disk, for educational purposes only, which I immediatly destroyed and threw in the trash, so as not to break any copyright laws. However I did make it on a cut to size disk, not a standard mini. I'm pretty sure that the VNC reads the outer track to verify size. I'm lead to this conclusion because I wasn't able to play B&W videos that I made for my old VN on standard mini's. As for the image above, the colors are as expected. The creatures look like the characters from the Nick Jr. show, "The Backyardigans". I'm going to try to make a video this weekend on a cut-to-size disk. Now that I have a good grasp on the audio and video formats I looked at the rest of the file and compared it to other tracks and I noticed that the information that wasn't audio or video was pretty much the same. Wish me luck.

[GregSmith]

max,

good luck!

everyone may be interested in a new device by hasbro/tiger called "ChatNow" - it's a walkie-talkie in the guise of a cell phone. it has a 2-mile range and does text messaging. they come in pairs for $75. each unit has its own "phone number" for unique dialing.

hmm... what if you connected one to your pc - could you do wireless vonage? hmmm...

[GregSmith]

max,

i used your info from earlier (about the interleaved bits) but was unable to fully extract images. I have a player written in java. it takes as input a .wav file and displays the video on-screen. But the colors are all wrong. Can you send some more detail as to how you combined the different rows of pixels?

thanks

greg

[maxedroom]

The following code snippet is written in C. It uses a file, referred to as pInFile, for input and pOutFile2 for output. It assumes that the input file is only the video frame information. I've already used a different program to strip out the header and audio information. It also assumes that you have data that represents 108 columnds by 2 or mor rows. It buffers the first and second row in a 219 byte array, the extra 3 bytes are so I can use the same offsets without having conditional logic. Then it copies the previous row down and fills the second half of the array with the current row for the next output row. Just read the code carefully and it should be obvious what I'm doing. If not, please feel free to ask questions. It's not my best code or the most copiously commented, but it does the job. It writes strictly RGB pixels, no attempt to put it in any readable format like PNG or even PPM, which would probably be really easy. The last row is a special case and probably isn't all that accurate. Good Luck!

    char  strInBuff[ 1024 ];
    char  strOutBuff[ 1024 ];
    char  strRowBuff[ 219 ];
    int    x = 0,y = 0;
    int    intRowSize = 0;
    int    i;

    strOutBuff[ 0 ] = 0;
    memset( strRowBuff, 0, sizeof( char ) * 219 );
    fread( strInBuff, sizeof( char ), 1, pInFile );
    while( !feof( pInFile ) )
    {
      strRowBuff[ intRowSize++ ] = strInBuff[ 0 ];
      if ( intRowSize >= 216 )
      {
        int  i;

        if ( y % 2 == 1 )
        {
          for( i = 0; i < 108; i += 3 )
          {
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 1 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 108 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 1 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 109 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 2 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 110 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 3 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 2 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
          }
        }
        else
        {
          for( i = 0; i < 108; i+=3 )
          {
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 109 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 108 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 109 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 1 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 110 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 2 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 111 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
            fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 110 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
          }
        }
        memcpy( &strRowBuff[ 0 ], &strRowBuff[ 108 ], sizeof( char ) * 108 );
        intRowSize = 108;
      }
      x++;
      if ( x > 107 )
      {
        x = 0;
        ++y;
      }
      fread( strInBuff, sizeof( char ), 1, pInFile );
    }
    memset( &strRowBuff[ 108 ], 0, sizeof( char ) * 111 );
    if ( y % 2 == 1 )
    {
      for( i = 0; i < 108; i += 3 )
      {
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 1 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 108 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 1 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 109 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 2 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 110 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 3 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 2 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
      }
    }
    else
    {
      for( i = 0; i < 108; i+=3 )
      {
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 109 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 108 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 109 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 1 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 110 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 2 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 111 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
        fwrite( &strRowBuff[ i + 110 ], sizeof( char ), 1, pOutFile2 );
      }
    }

[GregSmith]

max,

thanks, your code looks good. i'll review it over the weekend. i'm working in java (but i used to be an avid c programmer), your code should translate pretty well.

Thanks

greg