Better quality cutscenes?

[Grove4life5]

Hi,

 

I belive everyone has it, but all cutscense/video's are very blurry and not that enjoyable to watch, I post this because I belive some years ago I used to have better quality but that was long before I discovered CnCNet, I watched some on Youtube but then I remebered Youtube is ALWAYS blurry, and in the sameway the cutscenes in the game are.

If it's possible to get to watch them in higher quiality please help! Thanks!

[Tore]

The cutscenes are blurry because they are in 320 x 200 resolution. No higher resolution versions of them were ever released. The PlayStation versions of them are slightly better looking if I remember correctly, but not by much.

 

You can do certain things to get them to look better though such as watching them in the correct aspect ratio and/or on a CRT monitor.

[TaxOwlbear]

Removing the scan lines (which the CnCNet version does) is the best we can do unless EA releases the original footage (provided it still exists).

[Plokite_Wolf]

Removing the scan lines (which the CnCNet version does) is the best we can do unless EA releases the original footage (provided it still exists).

It does, at least some of it. EA_CIRE once posted a picture of old RA2 cutscene tapes on Facebook.

[tomsons26]

Removing the scan lines (which the CnCNet version does) is the best we can do unless EA releases the original footage (provided it still exists).

Short answer yea.

Long answer they could be rebuilt at double resolution using super resolution.

 

Retaliation FMV example, note original FMV is 320x240, scaled it to double for comparison sake.

 

TS VQA example, from a radar VQA which is 140x110.

 

The downsides are:

1. SR isn't really available that simply besides a few demo apps, some obscure stuff, private implementations and tbh rather crappy implementations that really just look like the frames are scaled with Lanczos.

2. While the PSX videos can be worked with, VQA's tho seem to tend to turn quite messy sadly, think we'd need some SR algorithm that is build with how VQA's work in mind.

 

3. SR uses neighbouring frames to reconstruct things. However a lot of the the cutscenes are really static turning the image into SR'd actors against a blurry background.

With Dune 2000 and later it would make a larger difference.

Come to think of it i never experimented on the PSX D2K FMV's.

 

The only people messing with superresolution really are Star Wars fans that are trying to restore the old movies and that's about it.

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-GOUT-in-HD-using-super-resolution-algorithm/id/17552/page/49

 

It does, at least some of it. EA_CIRE once posted a picture of old RA2 cutscene tapes on Facebook.

We have asked a long time ago. EA drove a lot to a landfill.

The Westwood assets EA lost while moving from Vegas to LA are all that exists now at this point unless someone saved everything from the landfill before it was buried under tons of garbage.

 

In 2015 they threw out everything else

Superweapon Games dev's managed to save some posters and platinum CD wall mounts

https://twitter.com/SuperweaponTeam/status/598917966676111360

[Grove4life5]

The cutscenes are blurry because they are in 320 x 200 resolution. No higher resolution versions of them were ever released. The PlayStation versions of them are slightly better looking if I remember correctly, but not by much.

 

You can do certain things to get them to look better though such as watching them in the correct aspect ratio and/or on a CRT monitor.

 

Yes, that's it, I used to have an CRT, for watching then in the correct aspect ratio do I need to change the game resolution for that?

[Plokite_Wolf]

It does, at least some of it. EA_CIRE once posted a picture of old RA2 cutscene tapes on Facebook.

We have asked a long time ago. EA drove a lot to a landfill.

The Westwood assets EA lost while moving from Vegas to LA are all that exists now at this point unless someone saved everything from the landfill before it was buried under tons of garbage.

That almost physically hurt to read. Any source?

 

In 2015 they threw out everything else

Superweapon Games dev's managed to save some posters and platinum CD wall mounts

https://twitter.com/SuperweaponTeam/status/598917966676111360

Just that?! No, nobody in their right mind would throw things just like that...

[Nyerguds]

Yeah, the Playstation videos are the only ones in higher resolution, and it's like, just a tiny bit. They're still 320 wide, but their height is actually correct for 4:3 aspect ratio, whereas the resolution of DOS C&C is technically 320x200 stretched to 320x240.

Also, the PSX videos are high-colour while the PC VQA is 256-colour, but the downside of that is that the mpeg compression on the PSX videos really messes up some colours. Skin colours, notably, look a lot more yellow in these versions.

GDI1 briefing video (PSX version) played in the C&C3 engine: (for the now rather dead C&C3: Tiberian Dawn mod project)

Comparison of smooth colour fades in the PSX version vs the PC version: (showing they were reconverted from original source, and not just from the PC VQAs)

 

 

[CCHyper]

It does, at least some of it. EA_CIRE once posted a picture of old RA2 cutscene tapes on Facebook.

We have asked a long time ago. EA drove a lot to a landfill.

The Westwood assets EA lost while moving from Vegas to LA are all that exists now at this point unless someone saved everything from the landfill before it was buried under tons of garbage.

That almost physically hurt to read. Any source?

 

Various email conversations I have had with key people. I cannot share the content, but the brief overview of the two main events are; Almost all Westwood digital assets where lost when transfering from one location to another around 2004~. And the Victory Games studio offices where completly emptied out (except computers and some documentation). As you can see, Superweapon Games Twitter link, Amer Ajami managed to salvage that from the skips (I got the impression that he got the heads up from someone).

[Plokite_Wolf]

Various email conversations I have had with key people. I cannot share the content, but the brief overview of the two main events are; Almost all Westwood digital assets where lost when transfering from one location to another around 2004~.

Weren't they just lost in 2003 when WW was absorbed to EALA? I thought that only extended to the source code.

 

And the Victory Games studio offices where completly emptied out (except computers and some documentation).

Well, I heard they moved their stuff to DICE LA for storing.