Post subject: TAS Movie Editor creating massive files
Brandon
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Location: Tennessee
So, I've been using tas-movie-editor.exe to edit my SNES TAS, and every time I do, the file in question grows significantly for no reason. Right now, my file is 80 MB. Why would this be? How can I fix it?
All the best, Brandon Evans
gia
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Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
can you post a test case? simple: a starting file and the minimum number of steps to have your bug show up. ie. open this file, just save it back, boom, size exploded. If it is an user error then you could be adding blank frames at the end of the movie. If it is a wrong format "error" it could be your starting format is more compressed than the format you/the program saves as (unlikely but could be).
Brandon
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Posts: 913
Location: Tennessee
gia wrote:
can you post a test case? simple: a starting file and the minimum number of steps to have your bug show up. ie. open this file, just save it back, boom, size exploded.
It just happened after editing over and over again is all. I think the filesize doubles each time. Here's a sample file: http://www.brandonevans.org/uploads/Spider-Man%20and%20the%20X-Men%20in%20Arcade's%20Revenge%20(U).smv
All the best, Brandon Evans
gia
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Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
er do you have the original small version? this says 160mb although I doubt I downloaded that much in a couple seconds.
Brandon
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Posts: 913
Location: Tennessee
gia wrote:
er do you have the original small version? this says 160mb although I doubt I downloaded that much in a couple seconds.
No. If I did, then this wouldn't be a problem.
All the best, Brandon Evans
gia
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Can you please post a movie of the same game with the same "header" (author and stuff, if any, vba has this kind of stuff) and just 10 or so frames of data, and another with no frames recorded (empty movie). Thanks.
Noxxa
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Brandon: try opening the movie file in SNES9x, play through the movie, then on the last frame make a savestate and load that savestate (in read+write). Maybe that fixes the filesize.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
gia
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Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
The file has some data at the beginning, possibly header that's why I ask for the empty movie, then its 160MB of zeroes and then at the end of the file the game's name (header again?) and the frames themselves. I assume TME has an error saving the header of snes movies, or maybe this specific snes movie. The version of TME I have can't open the movie, I'll see what is the current. This I am doing blind but maybe one of the movies work: http://www.mediafire.com/?ixy8a7ulowup6cw
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gia wrote:
this says 160mb although I doubt I downloaded that much in a couple seconds.
It's possible that the server sends files compressed (http supports compression). If the file was mostly full of zeros (or other repeating data) it could compress a lot, explaining the fast download.
gia
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Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
ah so thats stuff like apache deflate in action? awesome Anyway, fixed the movie (or so it seems), luckily the google repository had documentation for version 4 (i see there's no documentation, at least there, for version 5) http://www.mediafire.com/?d1t3l5wi15nf3y5 Now, don't use TME for snes9x movies until the issue is fixed, it screws up the header's savestate + controller offsets for whatever reason (for snes9x, I haven't had trouble with vba movies for instance). At the very least test your file won't increase in size after saving before trying to use it. I don't promise I'll fix it so if I dont and this is putting your work on hold, get an hex editor. The first 4 rows of sixteen values are the header, copy from the start of the file until address 82 (131 bytes = 131 boxes with values) to a new file or something. Then, looking at the "string" output, find the last instance of "X-MEN", on the hex it will say something like CB 8C 87 AE 58 2D 4D 45 4E. Copy from the start of this (CB 8C ...) until the end of the movie. and paste it on your new file then save. The CB should be at address 83 since address 82 was from the first copy. Then, starting at address 18 (25th value), replace the values with this 9E 00 00 00 00 03 00 00. Then save, your movie is fixed. Don't let it grow that huge next time, should have reported the error asap (if you didn't).
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gia wrote:
ah so thats stuff like apache deflate in action? awesome
Could be plain RLE as well if the dummy data is all zeroes. In fact they would be pretty much equally efficient then. :)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
gia
Player (108)
Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
Ok I did a quick test with the latest version and it doesn't screw up the file size. So I assume you just had an older version and continued using it because TME didn't show any error. Support for these movies was only added on the last update. Get the latest version and just in case keep a backup of your files and report any problems right away :)
Brandon
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Posts: 913
Location: Tennessee
OK, I think I'm set for now, though I'll admit I edited a little bit before you notified me that I was using the wrong version. I'll clean it up before submission, but for now, 160KB isn't unmanageable. Thanks!
All the best, Brandon Evans
gia
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Joined: 5/3/2006
Posts: 223
That got you into trouble on the first place, clean now, then resume work.
Brandon
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Editor, Player (189)
Joined: 11/21/2010
Posts: 913
Location: Tennessee
gia wrote:
That got you into trouble on the first place, clean now, then resume work.
If / when it goes over 1MB is when I'll be concerned. 160KB isn't good, but it's also manageable.
All the best, Brandon Evans
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In TASedit, using "save-as" instead of just "save" works for me.
nesrocks
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I'm having trouble using the TAS movie editor to edit a GMV file. I open the file, but then if I save it, the file becomes corrupted somehow. TASme can't open it anymore, and gens says the header is missing info.
Editor, Expert player (2310)
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SMVs get messed up for me too ever since I'm on Win7, VBMs work fine though. SMVs used to be fine in XP.
nesrocks
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Ok, so I looked it up on a Hex editor and the problem seems to be exactly that the TAS movie editor doesn't write the word "Gens" on the first bytes of the header. It's adding blank space. It can be fixed by adding that manually on an hex editor.
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@FODA: Are you using Win7, too? EDIT: I've addressed that bug. It was locale-related and quite dated. I wonder how it could be there in the first place. @MUGG: So does it work as expected when you are just editing, but corrupt the files when you save them?
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
nesrocks
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I'm using win xp professional SP2 and latest TASme.
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You can see if the new update (found here or here) can solve these problems.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do