The Dreamcast Movie Creator+SFD Player On Modern (2021) Linux Tutorial, The Holy Grail Of Dreamcast Video Playback

General Dreamcast discussion applies here. Before posting here please check the other forums in the Dreamcast section to see if your topic would fit better in those categories.

Moderators: pcwzrd13, mazonemayu

Forum rules
Please check the other forums in the Dreamcast section before posting here to see if your topic would fit better in those categories. Example: A new game/homebrew release would go in the New Releases/Homebrew/Emulation section: http://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 or if you're having an issue with getting your Dreamcast to work or a game to boot it would go in the Support section: http://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=42
alexfree
fire
Posts: 75
Contact:

The Dreamcast Movie Creator+SFD Player On Modern (2021) Linux Tutorial, The Holy Grail Of Dreamcast Video Playback

Post#1 » Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:59 pm

First, you need to install Wine (tested on 6.0 stable). On Fedora (33) you can use this command:

sudo dnf install wine

Next, download Dreamcast Movie Creator (part of the Sega Dreamcast SDK) - http://www.dc-swat.ru/download/pc/SFD_T ... y_SWAT.exe , and SFD Player - http://www.dc-swat.ru/download/dc/SFD_Player.7z .

Next set up a custom wine prefix so you can make it a win32 win95 prefix capable of running Dreamcast Media Creator using this command:

env WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-dmc winetricks win95

Now we need to run the previously downloaded file 'SFD_Tool_Pack_v1.0_by_SWAT.exe' with wine. This file is actually a self extracting 7zip archive. It will by default extract to wherever 'SFD_Tool_Pack_v1.0_by_SWAT.exe' is. Extract the files, and close the self extracting 7zip archive window. In your Terminal cd into the directory you just extracted (named 'SFD Tool Pack v1.0 by SWAT' and located wherever 'SFD_Tool_Pack_v1.0_by_SWAT.exe' is) and execute this command:

env WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-dmc wine 'Movie Creator/Standalone/mcsetup.exe'

This is the Dreamcast Movie Creator Installer. Click 'Next' at the 'Welcome' and 'Software License Agreement' screens. At the 'User Information' screen you are required to type in a 'Name' and 'Company' to click 'Next'. Anything 1 character or longer in the 'Name' and 'Company' text fields is valid. Click 'Next', and at the 'Choose Destination Location' and 'Select Program Folder' screens leave it at the defaults and click 'Next' once again. After clicking 'Next' at the 'Select Program Folder' screen a dialog box will appear titled 'Install DirectShow 6.0 now.', the default is 'Yes'. Click 'Yes' and then 'Finish'.

Now that Dreamcast Movie Creator is installed, we can run it within the custom wine prefix created earlier with this command:

env WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-dmc wine ~/.wine-dmc/drive_c/Program\ Files/Dreamcast\ SDK/DCMovieCreator/dcmvcre.exe

Now you need to convert a media file to prepare it for use in Dreamcast, so minimize the Dreamcast Movie Creator window opened by the above command for now.

I use ffmpeg to convert media files. You can start out with any video file type ffmpeg converts, and what you want to do is convert that video file to an specified MPEG-1 video. The defaults are 3600 kbits/sec video and 396 kbits/sec audio for a total bitrate of 3996 kbits/sec. Use these commands, change 'yourfile.mp4' with whatever you want, somefile.mkv, afile.avi, whatever:

ffmpeg -i somefile.mp4 -vcodec mpeg1video -b:v 3600k -maxrate 3600k -minrate 3600k -bufsize 3600k -s 352x240 -an video.m1v

ffmpeg -i somefile.mp4 audio.wav

Note, for longer video you may want to lower the bitrate to fit more on the disc. I don't really recommend going any lower then 900k though...

Go back and open the Dreamcast Movie Creator Window. If you closed the entire program, you can open it at any time using the previously mentioned command:

env WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-dmc wine ~/.wine-dmc/drive_c/Program\ Files/Dreamcast\ SDK/DCMovieCreator/dcmvcre.exe

Uncheck 'Use Identical Files' in the window, it is enabled by default. After that, click 'Select...' across from 'Video:' and pick your previously made 'video.m1v' file. Then click 'Select...' across from 'Audio:' and pick your previously made 'audio.wav' file. Change any options, if you want, including where you want your output file to be at (keep the .sfd extension!). When your ready click 'Start Encoding...'. Wait for the files to be converted, the quoted time takes a while to be acurate. When you see the 'Encoding Complete' dialog box, click 'OK'.

You will get 2 files in your previously selected output file destination, a .sfd (your video) and a .sfa (your audio). rename the .sfd to 'BUMPER.SFD' and .sfa to 'BUMPER.SFA'.

Now extract the 'SFD_Player.7z' file downloaded earlier. Copy both the 'BUMPER.SFD' and 'BUMPER.SFA' into 'SFD_Player/movie'. Note that this will overwrite an exisiting '/SFD_Player/movie/BUMPER.SFD' file, which is what you want to happen.

After this, you have 2 options. You have all the files you need to burn in the 'SFD_Player' directory. You can either burn the contents of the 'SFD_Player' directory as data to a CD-R using standard software (this however will require you to first burn Utopia Boot Disc, boot it in your Dreamcast, and then swap it with your burned CD-R) or make it a self-boot CD (not yet covered in this tutorial...).

nelsonh
noob
Posts: 1

Re: The Dreamcast Movie Creator+SFD Player On Modern (2021) Linux Tutorial, The Holy Grail Of Dreamcast Video Playback

Post#2 » Fri Jun 03, 2022 11:46 am

saludos quiero instalar esto en windows 10 pero el ejecutable no abre lo ponco compativilidad en win8 y no funciona tampoco solo se cierra en seguida que lo abro mo podria dar una mano

User avatar
Ro Magnus Larsson
Vagabond
Posts: 795

Re: The Dreamcast Movie Creator+SFD Player On Modern (2021) Linux Tutorial, The Holy Grail Of Dreamcast Video Playback

Post#3 » Mon Oct 31, 2022 8:00 am

nelsonh wrote:saludos quiero instalar esto en windows 10 pero el ejecutable no abre lo ponco compativilidad en win8 y no funciona tampoco solo se cierra en seguida que lo abro mo podria dar una mano


No debe entender el español, traducele con traductor google
Ro Magnus
Argentina.-

  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Lounge”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users