It's with much pride that I announce a full English translation patch release for all six discs of "Birdcage of Horrors" (Grauen no Torikago / グラウエンの鳥籠) for the SEGA Dreamcast!
"Birdcage of Horrors" (グラウエンの鳥籠) is a horror/murder mystery film series produced and published by Sega in association with ASCII Entertainment & Communications. The series was described as an "iDra", or "Internet Drama", and took the form of six multimedia GD-ROM discs. While the format and structure of these discs is not technically MiL-CD, they do leverage Sega's own MiL-CD playback software.
The film series was available through the Dreamcast Direct online service and was uniquely presented in 365 one-minute episodes across each of the six discs. Each episode became accessible gradually over a year, from October 1st, 1999 to October 1st, 2000. Originally, viewers had to connect their Dreamcast to the internet daily and download special save files to their VMU to unlock new episodes. Additionally, each entry of "Birdcage of Horrors" was only available to those who completed the previous chapters.
Additionally, a dedicated "Birdcage of Horrors" website was hosted by ASCII Entertainment & Communications where viewers could stream the series using Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, or QuickTime Player on their PC or Mac.
Shortly after the final episode was released, the servers went offline. While there does exist a special VMU save file that allows viewers to watch the content on all six GD-ROMs, this English translation patch removes this requirement. Instead, all six discs now function as standalone pieces of software.
These six patches are meant to be applied against the original TOSEC or Redump rips of "Grauen no Torikago" for the Sega Dreamcast, and are for use with ODEs (GDEMU, MODE, USB-GDROM) and emulators.
Note that, for two reasons, no CDI version of these patches is presently available for those without an ODE who require burning to CD-R. Firstly, no "scene" CDI releases for these titles were ever released, and therefore there are no source disc images against which patches can be generated and distributed. For legal reasons, the distribution of patched and complete CDIs is not being offered by this translation project. Secondly, because all six original GD-ROMs utilized nearly the entire capacity of the disc, the aggressive video downsampling required to fit their contents on a CD-R results in very poor video quality, unacceptable by this project's standards.
Below is a high-level list of changes implemented for this English translation patch.
- New English-language title screen graphics have been implemented.
- New English-language playback software graphics (e.g., contents list, logo, messages) have been implemented.
- A new English-language VMU icon has been implemented, including brand-new code for VMU icon support missing from original software.
- Lockout mechanism has been removed which prevented video playback without the use of special VMU save files, allowing each disc to function standalone.
- All 407 videos (film series chapters, bonus clips, extra footage, and interviews) have been translated and subtitled into English.
- Added an English-language disc art PVRs to all six discs for users of GDmenu on GDEMU.
DOWNLOAD PATCH / VIEW README
https://github.com/DerekPascarella/Bird ... hDreamcast
TWITTER POST
https://x.com/DerekPascarella/status/18 ... 5793340497
(Nitter mirror: https://twiiit.com/DerekPascarella/stat ... 5793340497)
If you're looking for CDIs, there's a certain romantic CD website that just might be hosting them.
Please note that, as described above, they are very poor quality.
