FF8 FMVs on your PC HOWTO

This document describes how to extract the STR files (a common file format for FMVs on the Playstation) from Final Fantasy VIII. It is maintained by Victor Ganata<aswang@earthlink.net> Please e-mail if there are any mistakes or if you have any other questions.

Requirements:

• Windows 9x

  It might run in NT or ME, but I haven't had a chance to test it.

• Pentium class CPU with MMX

  PSXPlay (see below) requires MMX.

• FF8 CD utilities

  For extracting the STR files.

  Download ff8cdutil.zip.

• PSXPlay

  For playing the STR files.

  Download psxplay.zip.

  This program is crippled (it will only play 80% of the file.) I don't have the registration key, so don't ask

Instructions:

NOTE: Extracting the STR files will require familiarity with the command line (the DOS prompt).

1. Unzip the archives using whatever tool you wish (WinZip, PKZip, GNU unzip, etc.) I recommend unzipping ff8cdutil.zip to the directory (the folder) you wish to extract the STR files to, as there is no way to specify this. e.g., C:\PSX
2. Drop to DOS (Start-->Run; type in "command.com"; Click on OK) Change directories to where you extracted ff8cdutil.zip e.g., type: cd \PSX
3. Insert the disc which you wish to extract FMVs from.
4. Type: ff8cdfnd D:ff8discN.img
   • where D: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM
   • and N is the number of the disc (1-4)

   This will generate ff8cdadr.ini, which contains the exact addresses for the beginning of each FMV. ff8cdfnd will echo a string of dots and a hexadecimal number for every 16777216 bytes it traverses (every 0x01000000 bytes) to standard output.

5. Type: ff8cdstr D:ff8discN.img X-Y
   • where D: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM
   • N is the number of the disc (1-4)
   • X is the first FMV you wish to extract (from 0 to m)
   • Y is the last FMV you wish to extract (from 0 to m)
   • • m depends on which disc you are extracting from
       • disc 1 contains 31 FMVs (numbered 0 to 30)
       • disc 2 contains 34 FMVs (numbered 0 to 33)
       • disc 3 contains 32 FMVs (numbered 0 to 31)
       • disc 4 contains 7 FMVs (numbered 0 to 6)

       See the FMV listing below

WARNING: Each disc contains between 200 MB to 373 MB of FMVs. Make sure you have enough disc space! ff8cdstr does not seem to complain if you run out; it will just truncate the file.

You are now ready to play the resulting .STR files with PSXPlay. The interface to PSXPlay is relatively intuitive, so I'll leave you to figure it out for now. It has the ability to convert the .STR file to .AVI as well.

Quick Reference Guide

ff8cdfnd D:ff8discN.img

where D: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM

and N is the number of the disc (1-4)

ff8cdstr D:ff8discN.img X-Y

where D: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM

N is the number of the disc (1-4)

X is the first FMV you wish to extract (from 0 to m)

Y is the last FMV you wish to extract (from 0 to m)

m depends on which disc you are extracting from

disc 1 contains 31 FMVs (numbered 0 to 30)

disc 2 contains 34 FMVs (numbered 0 to 33)

disc 3 contains 32 FMVs (numbered 0 to 31)

disc 4 contains 7 FMVs (numbered 0 to 6)

See the FMV listing below

FMV List

The filenames are in the form ff8xNXX.str

where N is the disc number

and XX is the index (0-m)

Disc 1

Disc 2

Disc 3

Disc 4