Random Thought

good one.

International, dunno... from the real world last week or so, a manhunt was finished with the cellphone triangulation technique.

G.I. Joe suck, compared to it Watchmen is a serious and deep movie - i'd recommend watching it instead if you're into "superheroes" stuff.

It won't be long now before Avatar arrives. Somehow everyone around got me excited about it too. There's not many good sci-fi movies around these days, let alone from Cameron. Just not sure if i should go to premiere (which cost some insane $) or just wait a bit? If i wait i can at least buy a nearby seats so nobody is chewing popcorn nearby while i watch so no one get hurt

Almael, if i'm not mistaken - A-GPS uses triangulation to boost GPS startup time, meaning it can be done in seconds. All you need is IMEI of the phone and request same procedure.for it remotely.. That's why all the bad guys use satellite phones or internet based stuff

Well, for a movie like avatar, from my experience, the theaters are full even after months. You just have to come early or just the last showing of the day.

GPS actually requires quadulation on two(three) frequencies with two different keys (civilian, military).
Since europe tried their galileo or so system the us agreed to provide more precision.
Calculation requires relativity compensation. Something also used in doppler radar. For some reason people seem to think this is new tech and used it in scifi.

I thought classic GPS required signals from 3 different satellites - the delay between each allow to determine the location... But it's been a while since i read anything about GPS except for using them but that just require me to input location.

Btw, a question - why is it computer in my friend's Lexus has it's GPS compas poles "swaped"? The car is obviously made for US and GPS wasn't altered for europe but still - why it show wrong poles? The traditional compass of the car works fine.

As for Avatar - yep, i guess i'll have a problem getting to see it. Maybe Imax won't be that populated - it's pretty expensive here to be so busy all week long.. But i just gotta go to theater - watching it home even on large tv with good surround sound is still different experience.

AlexT wrote:I thought classic GPS required signals from 3 different satellites - the delay between each allow to determine the location...

It has always been that 4 satellites are required. I'm pretty sure on this. However, under certain circumstances it can work on less eg if position references are already known.

Btw, a question - why is it computer in my friend's Lexus has it's GPS compas poles "swaped"? The car is obviously made for US and GPS wasn't altered for europe but still - why it show wrong poles? The traditional compass of the car works fine.

I'm not sure about this problem. Maybe there is some build-in secret fix region position. In this case it would be the other half of the globe. Since the calculation doesn't make sense or because of some software if-clause it turns around resulting in the changed pole.

I will post a new lost-story3 part sometime this week or week-end.*starts writing*

I watched that episode of BONES last Thursday on Fox where the subplot dealt with Sweets and Hodgkins and one of the lab assistants getting tickets to Avatar.It also had a tattooed fangirl.
Finally used to seeing David Boreanaz NOT turn all vampirey after all those seasons he was on BUFFY and ANGEL.
My literary geekiness hath now led me into the whole Who Wrote Shakespeare?question.

Hello, everyone, I hope you doing well and wish early merry christmas. Now what I been up to is finding all the songs that were on my favor list over at imeem before it shut down, lucky all playlists will on myspace, if both companies hurry up with tranfer. Luckly, there are other music sites like lala, last.fm, youtube, and playlist.com listern free streaming music. After my favor site shut down, I decide buy half my favor tunes off itunes or amazon.com (plue use software that copy streaming music) and back-up everything to CD. Finally, I'am try pay off bills, so me and friend can go anime con in the future.

That's not music, that's low-bit horrible sound that is only good for preview.
It's always surprise me how people can listen to that kind of quality. Why not download mp3 then anyway?

Merry Christmas Lymh and all readers!

AlexT wrote:That's not music, that's low-bit horrible sound that is only good for preview.
It's always surprise me how people can listen to that kind of quality. Why not download mp3 then anyway?

LOL
A decade ago we used .wav, .ai, mp2, .rm and a bunch of formats you never heard of.
Now a day it's about .ogg, or .flac
Formats & software change you better have both to use them. Besides, human ears are very tolerant, especially for disco deaf people.

Almael wrote:
LOL
A decade ago we used .wav, .ai, mp2, .rm and a bunch of formats you never heard of.
Now a day it's about .ogg, or .flac
Formats & software change you better have both to use them. Besides, human ears are very tolerant, especially for disco deaf people.

Now a day it's about .ape, .cue etc.
I happen to know a thing or two about this stuff
I only meant that streaming formats used by youtube and such are a lot worse than low bitrate mp3s or other formats. So if you use some stream grabber (which only make things worse) - you'd be better off with mp3 since you "violate copyrights" in either way anyway so not even a moral bonus for stream grabbers..
As for "human ears very tolerant" - not THAT tolerant And actualy - it's not, if you know what to look (or listen) for and had chances to see (hear) the difference in you life.

.wav, .ai, mp2, .rm

Wave format
Audio Interface
Mpeg 2
Real Media
Ogg Vorbis lossless
FLAC lossless media/audio

Ah yes... still never have been able to decrypt the Tachyon audio files.
Uses some kind of unique encryption key pared with Rad Game Tools M-audio.

There tons more available at the project to revive old stuff.

Hmm, Tachyon uses some old files (.pff?) those are just compressed. Normally the files are just some kind of simple archives with a simple shift key. It would be too trouble if they were really encrypted.

I'm talking about the audio files themselves. Some are in wav, some in mp3, others come out extracted as RAW... but they are some kind of mpeg format with encryption keyed to the programs they used at the studio/the composer.

The PFF was broke long ago, people been in and out of that thing since 2000.

I believe it's called "container" - the format (and not codec used for encoding content), like .mkv - the most popular for anime here because it contain subtitles as well

Question to those experienced with home theaters/formats/AVreceivers if any

Spoiler:

A question to everyone: how do you listen to music/watch movies atm. ? I mean - do you have home theater, stereo, 5.1, headphones or whatever you're using. I should've posted it in my old Hi-Fi zone thread but so far it's just a small poll of sorts. Wanna continue my Hi-Fi topic.

Spoiler:

JGZinv wrote:I'm talking about the audio files themselves.
but they are some kind of mpeg format with encryption keyed to the programs they used at the studio/the composer.

I still believe they used a simple shift key. In the past western games rarely used any encryption. It's even less now a day. Hidden codes are often and still are being prefered.
If the first bytes look similar or their relations are similar it's definitely a simple shift. Only the key length or value are unknown.
Only the japanese seem not to tire to complicate things.

AlexT wrote:I believe it's called "container" - the format (and not codec used for encoding content), like .mkv - the most popular for anime here because it contain subtitles as well

Nah, that's just calling a different stream by another names. avi had that, but you couldn't simply separate it because it's not specifically market. ogg was the first to make a separation...etc

Spoiler:

A question to everyone: how do you listen to music/watch movies etc? I mean - do you have home theater, stereo, 5.1, headphones or whatever you're using. I should've posted it in my old Hi-Fi zone thread but so far it's just a small poll of sorts..

Well, the difference is only clearness and surround sound. I don't really need that to enjoy a good movie. But any loudspeaker is better than headphones.

I would prefer a nice surround sound system myself, but I tend to listen through multi speaker stereo or headphones with a dolby 5.1 mixamp in between.


...and if you want a piece of the freaky audio to try your shift idea with, I can upload something. I've thrown probably 40 different applications at the file, only to get a faint (what it should be) signal covered by 20 tons of static out of it... using tweaking and importing as raw audio.

Almael wrote: Well, the difference is only clearness and surround sound. I don't really need that to enjoy a good movie. But any loudspeaker is better than headphones.

Stereo is just as good at making surround sound as multi-channel audio, provided stereo is good enough. A good pair of speakers with a good source are capable of recreating whole sound stage with each instrument occupying certain position in your room while detail and precision of each sound make instruments come alive. So i'd say i agree with many people who say Stereo is absolutely better for music, it's all about quality then.

As for headphones vs speakers - good headphones are usualy better than cheap speakers. Speakers start to shine only at certain price point (350-400$ and up) when they get manufactured by Hi-Fi brands and are really hi-fi and not just a fancy sticker, but i prefer speakers too - there's no way headphones (at least middle-priced) can sound as spacy and transparent as real speakers though hi-end ones do manage somehow... Anyway - good stereo is better than cheap 5.1 you can buy for same $.

JGZ, many movies have separate stereo track that will give you much better experience and quality than 5.1 mixed to stereo. Simply because in DTS stream each channel's is about the same as 128kb mp3 while stereo track has a lot wider. Also no mixer can do a better job than sound director at the studio when making stereo. And stay away from those Dolby headphones - better stick to good stereo like Sennheisers.

...and if you want a piece of the freaky audio to try your shift idea with, I can upload something.

It would be interesting to hear it, will you upload it soon?

JGZinv wrote:
...and if you want a piece of the freaky audio to try your shift idea with, I can upload something. I've thrown probably 40 different applications at the file, only to get a faint (what it should be) signal covered by 20 tons of static out of it... using tweaking and importing as raw audio.

AlexT wrote: It would be interesting to hear it, will you upload it soon?

The fact that you could get out some sound with normal applications only means it's not truely encrypted like with RSA. A sound key may be longer and complex but still technically simple.
Sure, I would like to take a look. If it's really simple I may write a simple decoder program, but nowadays I'm really lazy at programming. Hmm...or maybe it's more efficient to let the deciphers do the work but I should look for hidden headers to warn them that the code is not pure

Edit: Btw. I have to commend on your long interview. Great dedication.

AlexT wrote:
Stereo is just as good at making surround sound as multi-channel audio, provided stereo is good enough.

Stereo is pretty much standardt everwhere now a days so it's not really much of a problem except for good equipment.

Alex - What I've got is a pair of ATH-AD700 (I think) Audio Technica stereo headphones, which go to the surround decoder/amp which is Astro Gaming's Mixamp. This all being hooked up to my Xbox 360.

The main house living room has 2 Bose cube systems (it's a huge living room) but due to the design of the room and everything else, there's absolutely no way you'd get proper surround sound out of it. It's also... close to 20 years old equip now. Bose's wiring system is... supremely annoying as well.


Almael - Here's about half of what I've got files wise. I included the extractor I used to get them
out of the original SBF archive files. Which, it may be that the extractor was poorly made too, or just not right for Tachyon, since I believe it was for Delta Force to begin with.

http://files.fringespace.org/jgz/SBF%20Issue/SBFExtractionsAlmael.rar
http://files.fringespace.org/jgz/SBF%20Issue/Ttfmusic.sbf

The last file should be uploaded in 4 minutes from now.

The .SBF file seems to be a simple archive type with header block data, file name, start address, length
The extracted files are mostly of the same file format, except first, last, and leading name files.
Here the extractor may have done it wrong, but I doubt it, because of simple package.
The headers are the same because all zeros are at the same locations for all similar files.
The differing name files are similar to each other which suggest they are special, maybe they are key holders for files using same prefix names.
In any case each file has a different key, the question is where it is located. Since the headers are the same, the header could hold the key or that's so because of same format.
The key happens to alternate for the first two BnDxx files, at least the distances for the first two bytes are the same but reversed.

Hmm, key length....can't determine since the content is unknown.
I think you got a good chance to have this resolved by the guys in the encryption community.

Well I've got darn near every file from the total program. If you can define what you need
I may be able to try and find it. Why they have these files like this, and yet had other very similar files
in standard WAV and MP3.... instead of making them all standard is odd.

Course we're talking about a rushed game that was unfinished, using hard/soft ware dated to 1998/1999.

There's really not much outside the exe, but I've got the other half of the SBFs extractions if you want that or the other three sbfs.

The audio themselves, was largely used for cutscenes, or character audio during missions.
So perhaps the key is again, related to RAD game tools, which I know has a key or encryption that individual owners can setup. It's part of the features listed on their site or documentation.

Nah, I'm not eager to crack this.
Looking at the tails I believe it's sound format specific changes like having the key change some sound variable plus some extra to make it safe. If the key are variable as you say then a differing instalation should show the differences in the files, hence allowing to find all files that are involved. If there is a key file it would be among them.
I don't believe the original soundfiles are different, but re-encoded (according to vairable extra key-part) when installed. So the normal key could be included in the files but not necessarly. Hmm, the files on the CD itself and the installed ones need to be check to get a better conclusion.

Since this are cutscene sound etc. they could be related to bink files. If so you should see the bink logo somewhere. If not it's house internal. The have been normal standard in the past and seem still in use by europeans.

Oh I know it was used with BINK and Miles Sound System. RAD has it listed as such on their site as the only game Novalogic used Miles on, and their logos are in game, and on the box. Half the time, most people would get a BINK.exe error for about a dozen different reasons when the game starts up. So it's well rooted in tach history.

Back when I was working on it, I found them to be most audible at 44 kbps at 4 bit, 11 or 22khz
IMA ADPCM with tweaking done to the play speed.

There was another guy that asked about this:
http://www.fringespace.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=125

Evidently he thought Kyle Freeman invented the format.


Some notes from MSS:
Took out the virtual memory feature of VTOR - use the Smacker utilities to convert huge wave files to RAWs.

A note from BINK:
How do you create a Bink audio stream using the old audio codec format (for use with applications using an old version of Bink)?
To do this, just add 100 to the compression level in the
compressor or mixer. For example, instead of level "4", use level
"104".

Somewhere in either the Miles or Bink history of changes, is where I found a note in the development history stating that there's some kind of key or whatnot that the sound designer can set up so it's locked to his setup. Something like that... my memory is rusty.

They may or may have not done that. The audio itself (most of the time) is used in scenes where in game footage is presented like a cutscene. Other than a single intro, there are no cutscene video files for Tachyon. It was all in game footage. Being that some of the SBF extractions are rather long, and some of the audio belongs to different scenes, there's very likely a measure or something that acts as a marker so the game can use it like keyframes. Freespace 2 has a system like this, and both games were made about the same time.

It could well be that the extra data in the file is messing up the playback and being interpreted as static, but that's the only idea I've got.

I looked at their history page, at the time bink was pretty much just developed so we can be sure it's simple, prone to some errors, fixes may have been done-in house, bad documentation. They may not remember what they did now, except the guy who programmed their tools.
Heh, I found the mentioning of the mixer, which would be a good tool to skew the data.
The 100 bit is interesting it might be the basic skewing setup they set arbitrary in the past.

Since old games with bink used to have key code in them, you should look at the exe. I had thought this before since this was pretty much used before later windows made trouble to morphing codes.

Well, if there are keyframe infos then they are stored either in the mission configuration/setup files. The BnDInt and BnDEnd files might show if those infos are within the audio files, but I doubt that, because it causes more complex level design work.

Well I can get you the mission config files, those are just text after some decrypting.

If I'm looking at the exe (presumeably in hex) what should I be looking for?

Here's a list of what does what file type wise.

BAS files are for the bases, they list what music or sounds are played in station.

Also control the models used for the hangers, the map where the base is, the lobby

some data rects, icons for weapons and ship selection, lighting and fonts for the bases.



BIN's contain game text, menu text, error text, ship - weapon - pilot descriptions, music location identifiers,

and other data.



JOB's control all mission related attributes, some music, rewards, maps, mission image, some model/texture references.



MNUs pertain to game menus, sounds and buttons, Very heavy on button action code such as [on event] type text.



MP3s - audio files, most are voice clips.



NWS are the controlling files for news reels at bases, audio, model/texture, titles, and other

related info configuration.



PWF's are archive files containing audio effects such as weapon, ships, and menus in WAV format.



SCR's appear to have a lot of "actor" info and they also control what audio file plays at a certain

event. Also controls what a ship pilot says on event or common, and lists details and images about the craft.



SBF's are archive files containing raw audio files of voice over music, and background music.



SEN's appear to have to do with cutscenes - camera positioning, audio, player position, duation.



WAV's are Wave format audio files, most are voice clips.



WNG's are control and config files for the wingmen, mostly profile/base related data, model/texture, audio and var checks.