FMVs are WORSE quality than the original version :( ** FIXED **

[ThunderPeel2001]

I thought I'd dig out my old CDs and do a quick comparison see to how the original 1999 version (actually January 2000 for Windows, but close enough) fares against this new version. As some people know, the Steam version of FFVII actually featured higher quality FMVs than the PS or previous PC version.

Not so here!

See for yourself:
http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy129/ThunderPeel2001/FFVIII-Compare-70_zpse5458acc.png~original

Another example:
http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy129/ThunderPeel2001/FFVIII-Compare-2_zps657ea9f4.png~original

Extra big version here[i784.photobucket.com]

The new version has WORSE quality videos than the original 1999 PC version! :(

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UPDATE: Rob01m has made a discovery! Here's what he said:

It was curious that this release had the bink dll already.

I did some experimentation, and it turns out, all you need to do is take the original bink video files from the original PC version, rename them to match the current "avi" files (which are actually matroska, oddly), and it works.

For example, the original "Clip031h.bik" gets renamed to "disc00_30h.avi", and when placed in the proper directory ("\Steam\SteamApps\common\FINAL FANTASY VIII\Data\movies")... you have just replaced the intro FMV with the version that was in the 2000 PC version.

---

SECOND UPDATE:

Thanks to Replicators, you can download the original PC versions here:
http://www.4shared.com/zip/aMgD5HYF/FF8_Movies.html

Thanks to Kayael, you can also download upscaled versions of the original PC FMVs here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/39150/discussions/0/666828126807201587/

Note: Replicator's versions work fine, but there have been some bugs reported with Kayael's versions.

All that needs done is for them to be extracted to ".\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY VIII\Data\movies" directory.

[Rukk]

I knew I wasn't imagining things. They did look a lot worse than I remembered. Looks like they overdid it on the filtering, it erased a lot of detail. Terrible upscaling job.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Very disappointing indeed :(

[Rukk]

Originally posted by ThunderPeel2001:

Very disappointing indeed :(

Disappointing doesn't begin to describe it, it's freaking inexcusable. They took the crisp and detailed FMVs from the original PC release and destroyed the quality.

And that's IF they used those FMVs. Maybe they were so lazy they used the PSX FMVs.

[Mr. Wonderful]

I don't own this yet, but shouldn't it be simple enough to swap out these video files for the old ones?

[b00]

Originally posted by Zera:

Originally posted by ThunderPeel2001:

Very disappointing indeed :(

Disappointing doesn't begin to describe it, it's freaking inexcusable. They took the crisp and detailed FMVs from the original PC release and destroyed the quality.

And that's IF they used those FMVs. Maybe they were so lazy they used the PSX FMVs.

This and the soundtrack quality. I almost bought this 13 dollar scam. It's a shame, I'd rather try to find a PS1 with a controller and the original game than buy this at this point.

[Blackened Halo]

what a shame :( but to be honest, i didnt even notice it :) though i saw only the intro for the time being :)

[Rukk]

Originally posted by Melancholic:

I don't own this yet, but shouldn't it be simple enough to swap out these video files for the old ones?

The videos are not in the same format. Someone would need to extract them from the discs and convert them to a format compatible with the Steam release. The thing is, I don't believe anyone wrote a tool to extract those. There is a tool to open the archive and play them, but I don't think it supports extracting.

[Blackened Halo]

Originally posted by Zera:

Originally posted by Melancholic:

I don't own this yet, but shouldn't it be simple enough to swap out these video files for the old ones?

The videos are not in the same format. Someone would need to extract them from the discs and convert them to a format compatible with the Steam release. The thing is, I don't believe anyone wrote a tool to extract those. There is a tool to open the archive and play them, but I don't think it supports extracting.

but why "we" should do this? oh my god :(( Square Enix ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up completely :(

[Dex]

You're really expecting anything more than a lazy port from Square? Comon! The days of FFVI and Square actually caring about the series is long gone. Now it's just FF 13 Lightnings revenge, wedding, life and death sequels. FF is now a cow that is being milked for everything it can be.

[S-YXG98]

Sorry, but this seems a bit unfair. The original game runs in 640x480. When you play the game at 1080p you will always see compression artifacts because it has to stretch the image and re-time the sequence of pixels. The same problem comes about in other 2D games like Ogre Battle 64 on the Wii which looks rather suspect on the 2D front (everything is stretched basically) but looks fine in 3D.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Originally posted by Zera:

Originally posted by Melancholic:

I don't own this yet, but shouldn't it be simple enough to swap out these video files for the old ones?

The videos are not in the same format. Someone would need to extract them from the discs and convert them to a format compatible with the Steam release. The thing is, I don't believe anyone wrote a tool to extract those. There is a tool to open the archive and play them, but I don't think it supports extracting.

Here's one: http://www.qhimm.com/ff8fmv.zip

But really it would be better if the .exe just played Bink video files again.

Note: The original 1999 release played Bink video. This new version plays just plain old .avi. No idea why they would change it, as I would presume they still have the license for Bink?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Originally posted by Quadocky:

Sorry, but this seems a bit unfair. The original game runs in 640x480. When you play the game at 1080p you will always see compression artifacts because it has to stretch the image and re-time the sequence of pixels. The same problem comes about in other 2D games like Ogre Battle 64 on the Wii which looks rather suspect on the 2D front (everything is stretched basically) but looks fine in 3D.

You sound like you haven't actually bothered to look at the two images side by side. It's got NOTHING to do with it no longer being in 640x480.

[Rukk]

Originally posted by Quadocky:

Sorry, but this seems a bit unfair. The original game runs in 640x480. When you play the game at 1080p you will always see compression artifacts because it has to stretch the image and re-time the sequence of pixels. The same problem comes about in other 2D games like Ogre Battle 64 on the Wii which looks rather suspect on the 2D front (everything is stretched basically) but looks fine in 3D.

Did you even check the screenshots on the OP? It's not about running in 1080p (which I did in my old PC copy, and looked MUCH better than this release), the fact is that they completely wiped out the detail of the old PC FMVs. Unlike FF7, the pc release of FF8 had exclusive high resolution FMVs (for the time) that weren't present in the PSX version of the game.

[Terra_Ex]

*sigh* square, these fmvs were the crowning glory of your games back in the day. Now I know you're currently on a mission to drive your flagship franchise into the ground (the FFXIII series is making great strides on that front) but do you really have to tarnish the legacy of your old titles like this?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Investigating further:

So basically they took the original .bik (Bink video) files and converted them to .avi -- making everything look terrible in the process. I thought they might have done this because they don't have the license for Bink anymore, but they're still distributing Binkw32.dll with the game.

Weird.