Acorn Replay

good to see the signs of it being resurrected

Which signs are these, Andrew?

And why should anyone want Acorn Replay to be resurrected?

The first signs appeared in the git feed, and then the Bonus binaries download.

Why? I don’t know. ;) Akin to asking why on earth are we still using sprites or Omni?

The first signs appeared in the git feed

The three mentioned (ARPlayer, AREncode and ARWork) appear to have been in the repo for 23 years per https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS/Sources/Apps/ARPlayer . They had some sprites added three weeks back, hence ‘recent activity’. Maybe were in a private bit of the repo? No sign of ARMovie.

appear to have been in the repo for 23 years

IIRC the reason for the delay was getting the necessary approvals to open-source the software. This was mentioned in one of the ROOL talks (perhaps at the MUG Xmas meet) but I don’t have exact details.

And why should anyone want Acorn Replay to be resurrected?

Because it’s fun. I’m not expecting a major revamp for 21st century use cases, but it would still be cool to have a version of it that’s open source, ARMv7/v8 compatible and works with newer pixel formats.

This was mentioned in one of the ROOL talks (perhaps at the MUG Xmas meet) but I don’t have exact details.

It’s mentioned in the Iconbar’s write up that “Replay is now open source” was one of the highlights, but since I wasn’t there, I don’t have any more detail about what’s planned.

IIRC the reason for the delay

You know this thread started fifteen years ago, right? ;)

You know this thread started fifteen years ago, right? ;)

Yes, and I was aware of Ben Avison’s post from that year which stated “ROOL hasn’t ruled out a future release of these parts of the source code”. Given that releasing the Replay source code wasn’t (and still isn’t) a high-priority item on ROOL’s to-do list, it might be expected to take a long time. Some people might feel that 15 years is unacceptably long, but I’m in the “it takes as long as it takes” camp.

Some people might feel that 15 years is unacceptably long, but I’m in the “it takes as long as it takes” camp.

So long as we are talking nano-Brahmas, we’re in the right order of magnitude. http://www.robbierocks.ch/LPcovins/Hawkwind-Space%20Ritual.ic.htm

Oh, Hawkwind is going to fly¹ right off into Aldershot, especially if you’re going to start pointing at photo’s of Stacia²

¹ Retiring to the hotel for a cup of cocoa is more their thing these days

Well I have managed to get Cineworks 1.07d (04 Feb 2001) working on RO 5.31 on a RPi4b4GB machine (needs Aemulor and !ARWork)
I can load in some sample files – eg apple and bluewren. I can generate a test ARMovie file and save it to disk.
Unfortunately I don’t seem to be able to play it.
Does anyone know how to play Replay files on RO5?
Do have a copy of !ARPlayer 1.35 (17 Jan 2024) and can get it to load to iconbar.
Can drag a Replay file to the player and a window will open ready to play the file.
When click on play get an error eg:
Internal error: undefined instruction at &0014DBC [with the Apple sample]
Internal error: undefined instruction at &00016638 [with the Blue Wren sample]
Internal error: undefined instruction at &0016614 [with test output file from Cineworks]

Would also like to be able to output MPG or AVI files if at all possible (this is why i bought the original Cineworks back in the day on the RPC – to generate MPG / AVI files from a string of JPEG stills). Believe these plug ins were available for Cineworks but unable to find them and not sure if they work with this free release.

Internal error: undefined instruction at

Since it is video decoding…is it perhaps using unaligned word access?

to generate MPG / AVI files from a string of JPEG stills

ffmpeg ;)

Instructions how at the bottom: https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20230401
It’s using ffmpeg for Android, but ought to be pretty much the same thing on RISC OS.

Internal error: undefined instruction at

Since it is video decoding…is it perhaps using unaligned word access?

An unaligned access wouldn’t cause an undefined instruction abort though, it’d be a data abort.

At the moment the ARMovie resource is in a bit of limbo. When I last asked Ben at ROOL about it I think the significant licence issues had been cleared, but that still left the chore of importing it all so that an army of volunteers could sort out the zero pain and unaligned access issues in the sources. It comprised 108 components.

The ARWork, AREncode, ARPlayer, supporting ARLib and ReplaySpt module all got done for the MUG Christmas market last December, so that’s 5 of 108 done, just not so useful on RISC OS 5 without the bulk of ARMovie.

Thanks for replies Rick and Sprow.
Raiks RiskFF front end for FFMpeg is pretty good and have managed to use it to do a conversion (not Replay unfortunately)
may still make some files from a string of JPEGS but that was a need 25 years ago on the RPC using some CAD software on a 586 card to generate a ‘3D’ (blue and red shift) movie walk through a building – hope to revisit it one day (to show the children).
would also explore Thomas Milius’s MakeMJPEG too for this, although the original appeal of using Cineworks was to have editing, titling, transitions, effects, etc (and I have got Cineworks working on the latest RO5)
Henrick Bjerregaard Pedersen did have a MakeMPEG application that appears to convert Replay to MPEG but although the program will start i cannot get it to do anything with a Replay file – comes up with an error ‘no frames’ or similar (not at the RO machine at the moment). IF could get the MakeMPEG program working then there would be a workflow option with existing setup.

Thanks for the flowers ;-)

I have found this
https://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/0.6/rpl_8c-source.html
but I’m not sure if a ffmpeg version is available with. May be one of the Chris know more ;-)

Have try all the ffmpeg versions I have… all the same. Replay is detected but can not handle the videostream.

Henrick Bjerregaard Pedersen did have a MakeMPEG application that appears to convert Replay to MPEG but although the program will start i cannot get it to do anything with a Replay file – comes up with an error ‘no frames’ or similar (not at the RO machine at the moment).

Give MakeMPEG a very short try. Found sources in MPEGWorks and recompile the MPEGEncoder. Now it works for me in RPCEmu with 5.30 without aemulor but not on Titanium and PBPro.
Maybe I find the time to try a bit more.

Here is something to play with it that’s a bit bigger than the sandpit demo.

https://fi-template-images.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/Cartoon2%2Cae7

I don’t know much about this other than it made its way to .au occupying an entire syquest disk at the time.

Obviously if I have offended anybodies copyright sensibilities by posting it I will remove it immediately and without question.

Alan

Raik – happy to give a recompiled version of MakeMPEG a spin. Have 5.28 on RPCEmu and 5.31 on a RPI4b4GB – let me know if you would like some wider testing (would need a link though).

No problem. I can send. Send me a mail via riscos.berlin. There is a contact form.
For me it looks like the Basic stuff with the inline assembler is also a problem.

Mmm, looks like my contact forms (also on riscos.openpandora.org) are no longer working :-(

Have convert Cartoon2_2 on PBPro via commandline. Is a bit fiddely.

My first changes on MakeMPEG you find here

Edit: !ARMovie has to be seen by the filer, Convert24 (inside MakeMPEG) has to run under Aemulor. I have no idea why the Basic fails without error message.

Awesome Raik, I managed to convert both the Cartoon and the Apple (replay sample) movie on both RPCemu0.94 with RO5.28 (on a Win10 machine) and on a RPi4b4GB with RO5.31H. Some queries associated with the process (ie have to click ‘Y’ for a number of items post conversion – not sure why, and need to play with the speed a bit more). My initial Cineworks test output replay file didn’t seem to work but that may be that it was only a limited number of frames, will revisit and advise….
But for now need some Zzzzs for a meeting and some work needing to be done prior in the morning (too easy to spend hours on RISC OS stuff).
So a big thank you for recompiling, and for the Edit telling me how to use it.

Some queries associated with the process (ie have to click ‘Y’ for a number of items post conversion – not sure why, and need to play with the speed a bit more).

Press ‘Q’ after conversation ;-)

Very strange. Have a Replay musicvideo for WIN (Eidos copyright) and this was never working with Replay on RISC OS.
This video I can convert with ffmpeg …

mmm… when get a bit more time (meant to be working next couple of days) will try again with sample replay output from cineworks.
Will try:
1. converting cineworks replay output with MakeMPEG and
2. will also try to run the cineworks replay output through ffmpeg – did you use RiscFF for this ?

I am getting the impression that there may be a Replay player for Windows – is that right ? Or is it an embedded part of eg Eidos games etc. If yes there is a windows replay player can you tell me where to get from and what version of windows it is known to work on.

ffmpeg – did you use RiscFF for this ?

No, commandline. At first, from RAMDisc as activ Dir, something like
*ffmpeg -i replay.rpl convert.vob
(without path, ffmpeg use the DOS syntax)…

I am getting the impression that there may be a Replay player for Windows – is that right ?

Is from a music CD with a multimedia part. There is a .exe on it. Maybe is the player but is round about 1999.
I never try but I can do with WIN11. The question is … universal player or only for this video…

The question is … universal player or only for this video…

If there was a generic player, it would most likely have been a part of the ESCAPE Video Studio.

The Escape codecs were used by quite a few Eidos Interactive titles during the late 90s (including the first three Tomb Raider games), and I’d imagine that was the primary motivation for it being implemented in FFmpeg, and why it doesn’t (yet) support the Moving Lines/Moving Blocks codecs that are more common on RISC OS.

I haven’t encountered RISC OS versions of the Escape 122/124/130 codecs for use with !ARMovie, but I would be interested to know if those existed or if it was originally Windows/Mac only.