Hi all,

In this forum topic the question arose: can EVA movies be reasonably played on a MSX2? The answer is no. Speed is not an issue, 3.58MHz is enough for the EVA replayer to do its job. The problem lies in the YJK-encoding (MSX2+/MSXturboR) of the video. For proper display on the highest screen possible on MSX2 (SCREEN 8), we need an EVA-format which is RGB-encoded. Does someone out here know about the exact EVA-format, so a RGB-conversion program could be made?

On this webpage you can find useful EVA-related files. Check for example the AVI2EVA PC-DOS conversion tool, the EVA-Player for Windows and the BMP2YJK converter.

Here you can download version 0.09beta (perfectly working) of the EVAIDE player, the EVA-replayer for the Sunrise ATA-IDE interface. On this page you will find several MEGA-SCSI-related EVA tools. There was also some GFX9000 EVA replayer, but I can't find it anywhere on the net anymore. Seems like the author's page (Sergio Guerrero) has vanished from the face of the net :\... I have the replayer, but I don't know if it's intended for MEGA-SCSI or ATA-IDE. It doesn't replay from CD-ROM, unlike all other mentioned EVA-tools.

Note: the GFX9000 version has the same version as the ATA-IDE version, so I think it's intended for ATA-IDE.

Here on HansO homepage is the latest version of EVAIDE, with full source. I tried a lot of assemblers, but was not able to compile it on any of them.

The good news is that the source has a description of EVA format.

The bad news is that a RGB file would be considerably bigger, since eva are YJK raw data. And if you plan to do some conversion of the fly, that will probably reduce the framerate...

That's not really true at all

You know a S12-picture has the same size as an SC8-picture, you win some color data by using the YJK system. Instead you can't use every color anywhere, you have restrictions per four bytes.

I'll look into the EVA-format, for some reason my EVA YJK to RGB converter still doesn't work. I'll put it online when it's finished.

Thanks for the link: the source code is really helpful! Don't worry too much yourself about the converter; I'm working on it

You don't have to modify EVA-player it self, it can play SCREEN 8 EVA's on MSX2 if you just enter "/8" switch. Somehow it just seems, that there is just no program to make them... As there are many SCREEN 12 -> SCREEN 8 converter routines available, this should not be hard. Data size is 100% same. Anyway to get best result, modify to AVI2EVA should be done. (I think, this is the most common way to do EVA files)

I can now announce I have a working version of my preliminary EVA-YJK to EVA-RGB conversion program. I've tested it, and the output movie looks almost exactly the same as the input movie; sufficient for MSX2!

SLotman: your game will be MSX2-compatible!

D-Tail rulez! ^_^

SLotman, I've sent you an e-mail concerning the converter and some other stuff, to this e-mail address. I found it on your website

Quote:

D-Tail rulez! ^_^

Do I?

Is it made for MSX or PC?

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D-Tail rulez! ^_^

*cough*ahum*cough*

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Is it made for MSX or PC?

PC

Sonic rules as well, thanks to his apparently useless overhead-issues the program actually works ^_^

<-- so you do have the credits, now don't you Sonic .

Euhm... The program was written in Java, it works in Win32, it should as well work in Linux and Mac OS and all other OSs which have a Java VM. Not tested the latter though.

Nyyrikki: you might as well know MSX is too slow for realtime EVA-conversion, and static conversion (like this conversion program does) will cost too much time on a MSX, even turboR. It's now like it can convert ~100 frames per second on my Pentium III 600.