[Fry_Day]

http://www.nma-fallout.com/binaries/fallout_utils.shtml

That is an MVE player with FULL SOURCE included, and a doc about the structure of MVE files.

[Kazan]

hmmmm

[Kazan]

the format is even documented

[Inquisitor]

How is this legal?

[Kazan]

copyrights expire

[Inquisitor]

After like 50 years.

I looked at these downloads when someone posted them in the other thread. One of the downloads thanked HH. These do not, but Ifail to see how this is sufficiently different from what he did.

It was HH's code that Interplay yanked, remember?

Volition yanked the MVE portions of the code for a reason. It's the format that Interplay owns.

How about we ask Interplay/Volition, instead of just pretending we have law degrees and assuming since Interplay hasn't yanked it, that it is indeed legal.

[Fry_Day]

It was NOT HH's code in MVEextract. He himself said that he didn't figure out the format itself, just extracted the executable part of executable videos (such as the D3 trailer), and would simply add the EXE part to .MVE files. This is source code.
Besides, if you build a player according to the document, without using the source given (If it's indeed copyrighted), it is purely legal, as shown by Glide Wrappers (In the Creative-3Dfx lawsuit about 'Unified')

[Inquisitor]

FYI:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hlc

Simple solution. We ask. I totally disagree with your assessment, but I may be wrong. And I think MVE's are a terrible way to go.

Let me find out who to ask.

[Fry_Day]

M'kay.

I just hope you are wrong

[Inquisitor]

Maybe, I still think doing the DivX thing is the best way to go, I understand the "backwards" compatibility issue that people have, but future stuff should be on a open standard.

It's text like this that bothers me, the readme from the MVE player library, that I assume is built from this source:

.MVE player
copyright (c) Interplay Productions
http://www.interplay.com
appears courtesy of Heiko Herrmann alias HH-Software Images from the Descent Network Team
http://www.descent-freespace.com/descman

Packaged by Maxxim [[email protected]]
for Russian Fallout CRPG fans at http://www.fallout.ru
January 24, 2000

[Fry_Day]

I wouldn't bet on it, as the people of the D2x project (Descent 2 source modification) have been having much more problems with the source than with the built one (Source didn't work without modifications, player did)

Edit: I believe MVE playing code is already somewhat integrated to the D2x source

[Inquisitor]

Doesn't mean that it's legal Just means interplay hasn't cared enough to do anything about it Or they have been very quiet about this.

I can imagine that quite a few people are gonna be pissed at me if I start mucking around and we find out that Interplay DOES care and just hadn't noticed.

[RandomTiger]

Perhaps the fs2_open code could be programming in such a way that seperate projects that want to include MVE can just slot it in. All that would take is a filename check and an empty function.

A few weeks ago I had a play with that code. I dint quite manage to get it working but I dont think I was too far off. However some of the things I had to do to get it that far suggested that putting it into FS2 my not be that easy. If anyone has got any further I would really like to hear from them.

I personally want to have an exe that lets me play FS2 with videos and no GF4 bug. It would be nice if that code was in fs2_open but will understand if its not.

Perhaps this should be decided for definate for fs2_open before someone actually has the ability to put it in.

[Blue Lion]

Bah, I just wanna be able to play the cutscenes on their own

[Fry_Day]

A single note as to why I don't think this is Interplay code is because it uses SDL (MVEplay.c -> #include)

[Fry_Day]

Erm, this is pointless. Just ask someone.

[RandomTiger]

Yes, all that SDL stuff is an arse and seems to rely of old tech.

If you want to view the movies on their own then download the converter. It turns them into self playing exes and is as far as I know legal. Cant remember the link. Ask around or use google.

[Bobboau]

no that's iligal, I'm still in favor of the run_exe function that would minimise freespace run an EXE when the EXE is done freespace would reopen, if some people want to use this to play converted MVEs, well it isn't our fault we put it in to have FPS levels and stuff right

[##UnknownPlayer##]

Nah let's just have it call out to a dll which does it. You don't like it, don't use the dll and have the code detect is presence before it does something stupid. Problem solved.

[WMCoolmon]

I like UnknownPlayer's idea. Make the DLL with MVE support, but also make one with DivX etc. support. If Interplay doesn't like that, the team stops supporting the DLL and removes it from the download servers- simple as that.
This also makes movie support extremely modular, so that it could easily be changed without recompiling the entire code, or updated to support a new codec/version of codec.