"StretchMovies=yes" for fullscreen videos with retained aspect ratio

[deepblue22 0]

"StretchMovies=yes" in ra2.ini does not work for Red Alert 2. A mod which would get "StretchMovies=yes" to work, in order to have fullscreen videos with retained aspect ratio, would be nice.

Edited September 21, 2014 by deepblue22

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Doesn't work with widescreen. RA2 wasn't designed to accommodate widescreen resolutions for videos.

[deepblue22 0]

As you may know, unlike CRT monitors, running low resulutions on LCD monitors, will result in a blurry image. So I will run Red Alert 2 on a high resolution, which will give me a sharp image.
I would be glad if there would be a mod which would stretch the movies to high resolutions (with retained aspect ratio, of couse)

Well, I don't have a widescreen monitor. However, 4:3 isn't bad.

Edited September 27, 2014 by deepblue22

[Doctor Destiny 41]

There is no such mod. It can't be done. The videos are either going to be blurry or not play correctly. You'll just have to deal with it.

[Nyerguds 100]

Surely there must be driver options to make the low resolutions less blurry? Setting the resolution so you have exact double pixels might help.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

You get better results playing it windowed with a supported resolution honestly.

[Chad1233 0]

I am not sure why RA2 never actually stretched anything yet Yuri's Revenge will stretch it's menu and videos to fit my screen and I am running at 1280x1024.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Chad1233

[Cannoneer_D 0]

Unpacking the movies01/02.mix files, resizing the video files and repacking them back in works, I managed to make videos play full screen in 1920x1080. BUT! For some reason the edited videos don't have any sound in game, they do have sound when played in a video player outside of the game. I've tried everything I could think of, but I was unable to get the sound working in game. If someone can figure it out that would be awesome. I used Bink 2 tools to resize the videos.

[Plok 320]

Bink 2 debuted in 2012 and the game is from 2000, you're lucky you see anything. Use the original Bink settings.

[Mugnum 0]

On 26/02/2022 at 10:50 PM, Cannoneer_D said:

Unpacking the movies01/02.mix files, resizing the video files and repacking them back in works, I managed to make videos play full screen in 1920x1080. BUT! For some reason the edited videos don't have any sound in game, they do have sound when played in a video player outside of the game. I've tried everything I could think of, but I was unable to get the sound working in game. If someone can figure it out that would be awesome. I used Bink 2 tools to resize the videos.

The solution is to set "Compress level" to 100. This will force the old RDFT algorithm, which the game is expecting. Tried with one cutscene as proof of concept and got it working: the video plays at correct resolution in game and has working audio.

Spoiler

That said, it does noticably degrade the audio. If you're willing to go an extra mile, it's possible to also download an older version of RAD (webarchive link) and use "Mix in sound" feature to edit only the audio track and get better quality (it can't read modern containers such as MP4, but you can still mess with the audio). Anyway, I'll see if I can sift through the cutscenes and will let you know if anything comes out of it.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Mugnum

[Mugnum 0]

Uploaded 1080p version on nexus in case anyone is still interested.