RSS Parrot

na_game_tool 0.5.0 released

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2026/01/na_game_tool-0-5-0-released/

Published: January 19, 2026 05:18

Grab it from the usual place if you’re interested in it for some unfathomable reason. I’ll try to document the formats when I have time (and multimedia.cx server does not suffer from crawlers).

na_game_tool: final stretch before 0.5.0

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2026/01/na_game_tool-final-stretch-before-0-5-0/

Published: January 15, 2026 17:29

As I’m somewhat tired with na_game_tool development (for now), so I’m just picking bits for the release goal to do that and switch to something else (I’ve found a couple of interesting MOV files to analyse, maybe I can improve my Indeo 3 encoder and such).…

na_game_tool: more FLICy formats

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/12/na_game_tool-more-flicy-formats/

Published: December 27, 2025 11:19

I’ve added another bunch of formats to na_game_tool, including both old video formats and game archive support to extract some of those (and other) formats from. For example, I’ve finally added an extractor for Conquest Earth WAD with its 16-bit FLH (a…

These weeks in na_game_tool

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/12/these-weeks-in-na_game_tool/

Published: December 14, 2025 17:38

Last time I talked about MVI formats, mentioning that I had one more equally German MVI format. Well, the official specification uses CauseWay DOS extender which compresses executables (and I still haven’t found a way to make DosBox debugger dump loaded…

Being right for wrong reasons

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/12/being-right-for-wrong-reasons/

Published: December 6, 2025 18:15

I consider 2020 to be the cut-off point after which it was time for various idiots to shine and make impact on the world. And they’ve been doing an outstanding work since. Among their achievements is something I didn’t expect to see and yet here it is:…

(Semi) interactive movies — less explored multimedia niche

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/12/semi-interactive-movies-less-explored-multimedia-niche/

Published: December 2, 2025 21:21

Here’s something worth reminding of, something I’m not going to tackle myself and it’s not likely somebody else will pick up. I’m talking about an intermediate form between static videos and interactive games, which I called (semi) interactive movies. The…

History versus historical claims

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/11/history-versus-historical-claims/

Published: November 30, 2025 18:45

Occasionally I watch videos about old games and gaming history (because there might be an old adventure game I have not played or an old game with a custom video format I haven’t looked at). And sometimes I see the claims about somebody doing stuff first…

Ikarion MVI formats

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/11/ikarion-mvi-formats/

Published: November 21, 2025 18:19

So I found another pair of rather peculiar game video formats. What’s curious is that while MVI1 and MVI2 are rather different internally, they both are used in Battle Race demo, and that’s not saying anything about their design (yet). Both MVI1 and MVI2…

Some words about DMV format

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/11/some-words-about-dmv-format/

Published: November 14, 2025 17:55

I said it before and I repeat it again: I like older formats for trying more ideas than modern ones. DMV was surprisingly full of unconventional approaches to video compression. First of all, it uses fixed-size blocks with palette and image data occupying…

Quickly about VC2

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/11/quickly-about-vc2/

Published: November 12, 2025 08:13

As I mentioned some time ago, Paul has shared a decoder for bytedanceVC2 codec. From the first glance it looked like H.266 rip-off. After a more thorough looking it seems to be more or less plain H.266. There are some tell-tale signs of codecs using…

Archive extraction support in na_game_tool

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/11/archive-extraction-support-in-na_game_tool/

Published: November 8, 2025 16:18

Back in the day I said that I want 0.5.0 release of na_game_tool to be more than a mere decoder and also support game data archive extraction. And what do you know, less than half a year later I’ve finally started to work on it. The idea is rather simple:…

FFpropaganda

https://codecs.multimedia.cx/2025/11/ffpropaganda/

Published: November 1, 2025 04:19

Recently this tweet was brought to my attention (by somebody else who saw it and found hilarious). While I agree with the message (I also find those OMGsecurity people annoying and rather counter-productive), the premise is bullshit, namely those two…