[Higher bitrate video cutscene mod] Work in progress

[Vanosea]

So, as you guys have realized how much the PC's video cutscene suck, we decided to make a mod to replaced these horrible videos to as close to the PS4's as possible. It is a work in progress so the quality may not closely match the PS4's version but it is definitely close.

Thanks to 百合 姫's amazing work (she does all the PS4 recording, encoding it to wmv and all the magic jazz) that this is possible. I hold no credit in this project.

Click here[drive.google.com] to download the mod.

Place it into the "BLUE REFLECTION\DATA\x64\Movie" folder

Also, like I previously mentioned, since this is a work in progress, please report of any issue with the video playback. It's really helpful into bringing the mod into perfection. I also made a guide to optimize your framerate and configure your graphical settings (small it may be but better than nothing) here.

PS: The mod has a 60fps version now (with the help of interpolation magic!) and can be found in this Link[drive.google.com].

Cheers :3
Cutscene fixed:

• Opening Video*
  
• Opening Song*
  
• Hinako's Yuzu's and Lime's Transformation Video*

* : 60fps version available.

[百合 姫]

Here there be dragons. Or, better quality videos.

Q: There are a lot of files, which version should I get?
A: If you just want to replace the videos with better ones, use the ones in the main folder.

   If you're a fan of frame interpolation, grab the ones in the "Test 59.94 fps (interpolated)". As half the frames are interpolated, slight artifacts may be observed, but the video should feel much smoother. You do need a fast computer to play back 1080p 59.94fps videos, so beware!

   If you're having problems with frame stuttering, give the "Test 30 fps" a try and report back whether it works. If there is no interest, I probably won't maintain that branch.

Q: Some of your videos are _SMALLER_ than the PC version!
A: Some of the files _don't_ need the bitrate the PC version uses. I use VBR (variable bit rate) to encode the videos. Instead of targeting a particular bitrate, I target a particular quality. If a scene needs 1mbit/s to look good, great! If it needs 100mbit/s to look good, that's fine too. Files get smaller when the average bitrate over the entire video is less than 10mbit/s - but it can still be superior to the original KT encode.

   The reason KT's original videos suck so much is because they use CBR (constant bit rate), where the encoder will spend the same number of bits on the half a second where there are sparkles everywhere, as well as that static panning scene. Of course, during the static panning scene, KT's video will deliver much higher quality... where it doesn't matter anyway.

   I honestly have no idea why they are using CBR, because the only correct use of CBR is for live streaming.

Q: The colors are (slightly) different!
A: Yes, yes they are. I don't know whether PC or PS4 is correct, so let's just assume PC is wrong because PS4 is higher quality.

Q: The first few frames of the videos are awful / different!
A: Yes, on the PS4, the first few frames run at 60fps instead of 30, probably because the PS4 falls behind when starting the video, and has to catch up by playing frames faster. Because of this, my 1080i capture card can't capture them properly. So my solution is to use the PC version's video frames for the first 1/4 second, then switch over to my capture.

xoxo

Yuri Hime / Lily

If things worked my way, I would have used mp4 instead of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ wmv. We found out the hard way that playing those back in windowed mode crashes the game, though, so...

By the way, someone said that it would have been better if they used 720p high quality videos instead of 1080p low quality videos. They're right - VC-1 does really horribly when bandwidth starved; at the same file size, a 720p encode would look a lot better.

[Vanosea]

Originally posted by 百合 姫:

If things worked my way, I would have used mp4 instead of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ wmv. We found out the hard way that playing those back in windowed mode crashes the game, though, so...

By the way, someone said that it would have been better if they used 720p high quality videos instead of 1080p low quality videos. They're right - VC-1 does really horribly when bandwidth starved; at the same file size, a 720p encode would look a lot better.

I see. Interesting facts there.

[Botan]

Good stuff. I was expecting a fix to this. Is this PS4 Pro share recording or capture card recording?

[Vanosea]

Originally posted by Botan ):

Good stuff. I was expecting a fix to this. Is this PS4 Pro share recording or capture card recording?

Captured directly from a video capturing device. So it's high quality. It is compressed to reasonable size, but still retains the quality.

[ソ瑠璃(soruly)]

Wow thats great :D
Do you plan for replacing all remaining cut scenes?

[Vanosea]

Originally posted by soruly:

Wow thats great :D
Do you plan for replacing all remaining cut scenes?

You have to ask 百合 姫 about that :)

[百合 姫]

Originally posted by Botan ):

Good stuff. I was expecting a fix to this. Is this PS4 Pro share recording or capture card recording?

The only lossy steps are
1) ps4 decoding whatever's encrypted on the disc - unavoidable at this point
2) ffv1 -> wmv encoding

If Expression Encoder could take AVISynth or lossless h264, it'd take me a lot less time.

[Harvestasya]

In my Atelier Sophie I used the PS3 opening file (H.264?) just remuxed into a MKV (I converted the audio to from whatever crazy sh*t it was to FLAC or something) and I think renamed it with the ".wmv" extension and it worked no problem. What was the problem in this game you said?

[Vanosea]

Originally posted by Raúl DJ:

In my Atelier Sophie I used the PS3 opening file (H.264?) just remuxed into a MKV and I think renamed with the ".wmv" extension and it worked no problem. What was the problem in this game you said?

You need to properly encode it to wmv file. If you encode it to mp4 and just rename it to wmv, it crashes your game if a video playback runs while the game is in windowed mode.

[Harvestasya]

Originally posted by Vanosea:

Originally posted by Raúl DJ:

In my Atelier Sophie I used the PS3 opening file (H.264?) just remuxed into a MKV and I think renamed with the ".wmv" extension and it worked no problem. What was the problem in this game you said?

You need to properly encode it to wmv file. If you encode it to mp4 and just rename it to wmv, it crashes your game if a video playback runs while the game is in windowed mode.

Well, I always play in fullscreen so that must be the reason I never had a problem. What a piece of trash engine.

[Vanosea]

Originally posted by Raúl DJ:

Well, I always play in fullscreen so that must be the reason I never had a problem. What a piece of trash engine.

It's a good thing we found out what is crashing the game before we launch the mod, or people would flip when they found out they can't progress because it crashes whenever a video plays.

Funny how I stumble upon this while trying out the video while in windowed mode. So, it's kinda lucky that I just happen to be in the right condition for it to happen.

[NEPAFU]

Thanks again~

[Uzu]

Thanks a lot for this, Koei should be the ones doing a patch for this using their own lossless files but hey, I'm glad you're here to save the day.

[Harvestasya]

Originally posted by Vanosea:

Funny how I stumble upon this while trying out the video while in windowed mode. So, it's kinda lucky that I just happen to be in the right condition for it to happen.

Indeed, you were very lucky to find that problem so quickly . Thank you very much and keep up the hard work so we won't have to watch that ultra-compressed trash ever again!

[KyuKyu]

Does it help with cutscene crushing? My game crashes on videos in full screen, this is really frustrating.