Bik Video Encoding Tutorial Using 'the holy trinity' of tools - By Kitsune1982

[Kitsune1982]

Hello all, Kitsune1982 here, with a brand new video encoding tutorial.
Today i am going to teach you all out there in fileforums land how to get a
perfect quality .bik file with an insane low bitrate, and this will work
even with small 2-7 mb biks too!!

ok, so you're going to need 3 software apps for this.
one is free, the others not so you're going to have to either buy them
or google it as i am not allowed to post them here.

heres what you will need in the order of processing.

Stage 1 - Conversion.EasiestSoft Video Converter/Any Video conversion app that can open bik files
Stage 2.- Editing/Effects/Exporting Uncompressed AVI - Magix Video Pro X
Stage 3.- Converting uncompressed avis back into .bik format
Stage 4.- <Optional> Adjusting Aspect Ratio/Real Time Rendering/etc - Magix Vegas Pro 15
Stage 5.- <Optional> Editing/Trimming/Resampling Audio - Goldwave/Magix Sound Forge Pro/Audacity

ok so here we go.

First off, take your legally purchased Easiestsoft Video Converter and make four folders.
1 for your original biks
1 for the output mkv/avi - i suggest mkv for best format-to-format quality
1 for the output biks
1 for the uncompressed AVIS - WARNING!! make sure you have a lot of extra storage space. its not
uncommon for a folder of 15 biks to be around 20-30 gb in size as uncompressed avis, even more so
if its for long video cutscenes like in FF13/RE7 etc.

now open easiestsoft or whichever video converter you can find that accepts bik files -
<hint, Easiestsoft, Pavtube Video Converter and Brorsoft bluray video converter can open biks..>
<but i use Easiestsoft because it is easy to instruct the program to keep all original values>
<frame rate, bitrate, etc>

click the add file button and go to the folder with your original bik files in it.
click the dropdown for filetypes and select 'all files' then load your bik file/s.

<hint: i will be using easiest/easesoft video converter, so if you're not using that just try
to follow along>

click output settings.
if its not set already change all the dropdown boxes for bitrate/framerate/aspect ratio to
'keep original' then set output to mkv and choose h264 as the output video codec.
click start conversion and wait a few minutes.

Stage 2 - Video Editing

Now open your legally acquired Magix Video Pro X and load it.
Unlike the previous app you cant mass load videos, and theres a bit of an extra step to load
them all.

click file->start new project
click ok.
depending on your video source, in the dropdown change the output framerate to either 1.85, 4:3
or 16:9 depending on your source, and select your output audio frequency rate in khz.

now click on open, then in the dropdown click videos and movies, and then select your mkv files.
however!! open the first one, then click the little + symbol to the right of the project title and
click 'dont close' when it gives the popup asking if you want to close your current video.

now click open and repeat the process for each movie you want to load. this may take some time
if you have a lot of videos.

once your videos are open, you will probably want to make them brighter, as for some reason
bik movies gamma levels are low making the movies appear 'dark'.

to rectify this, click on the video in the timeline and click 'effects' at the top right of your
screen and click 'brightness and gamma' then scroll down and in the brightness text box
which is located to the right of the slider, click inside the box and scroll your mouse wheel
up or down to increase or decrease the brightness. i suggest a value of 59 for brightness.

once you are satisfied your videos are bright enough, and you dont desire any other changes, click
file->batch conversion. under 'format settings for
selection conversion jobs' click the box and in the dropdown choose 'uncompressed AVI 'and then under
output, depending on your video source and display criteria,
click on the frame rate and display ratio and change it to your source videos settings.
usually its either going to be 1.85:1, 16:9 or 4:3. now click advanced settings and choose your
export folder, then change the display resolution in the box. finally click the 'calculate video
effects on GPU' then click ok and finally click 'start processing.'

wait for awhile, this may take some time.

when your videos are done converting, close magix video pro X - remember to save your project
first!!!

Stage 3. Re-encoding avi files back to bik format.
Almost done. Now, open rad game tools, and then navigate to the folder your newly created AVI
files are in. click the first one and press ctrl+a to highlight all the videos then click
'bink it!' next comes the real magic. for data rate put 320000 then select 'keep peak data rate
under a multiple of' and type 1.0 then for frames to preview put 64. for compress audio put 0 and
then click batch.

then press ok and let bink do its magic. this process will be the longest depending on how long
your videos are and how many frames bink has to compress/re-encode.

once its done, check out your newly created bik files. you will be stunned at the quality!

====Optional Steps====


4.Editing the video/Real Time Rendering with Magix Vegas Pro

now, this part isnt really required as your video is perfectly shrunken down
to perfect quality and size. but lets say you want to change some parts of the video, or
copy/paste/insert new video, or change the aspect ratio.

Load the video you want to edit into vegas, 'MAKE SURE YOU USE VEGAS PRO 15!!! I cannot stress
this enough! Otherwise you will not be able to import your avi files because vegas will spit out
an error saying either 'the file type is not supported'' or 'the file could not be opened'.
AFAIK vegas pro 15 is the only version of vegas that supports avi files.

Now add it to the timeline.

Click the gear icon in the preview box to set your video device/preview - rendering device
settings as per your preference. I dont do a lot of editing with vegas so i will just say that
all you will really need to change is the pan/crop fx. click 'pan crop fx' then under workspace
change the dropdown for 'maintain aspect ratio' to no, and change 'stretch project to fill screen' to yes.
then click on file->render as, and click 'advanced rendering options' and tick the 'stretch video to screen do not letterbox'
checkbox, then click customize template. now there are hundreds of customization options here, so all i can really say
is for most older games you will need to change the height/width to 800x432 or 800x600 for games which use
pre-rendered graphics such as the syberia games, and 1280x720, 640x360 or even 1920x1080 for all other games.
its trial and error, really. you will just need to play around with the settings and see what works best for you.
when you are ready to export, again depending on your source, either use AVI for bik as its the least fussiest
when it comes to compatibility, or you could even export it as Sony AVC/MP4 but this is not really necessary to edit
unless you want no letterboxing aka no black 'bars' on the video or you are making a video for a colleague or
a project. for the most part you are done. all thats left, if you desire, is to edit the audio.


5.Audio Editing.

First you will want to rip the wav files from the original bik files. to do this,
simply load rad game tools, go to the section where your video files are - the biks that is, the
originals, NOT your new ones!!and press ctrl+a to highlight all of the files then click
'convert a file' and under output click 'WAV' then start the batch process.

Now Open your editor of choice. For this section I will be using GoldWave.
click file->open and select your wav file you want to edit. now in the dropdown for save format as,
click attributes then uncompressed PCM/ADPCM, for khz depending on your source choose 48000 khz, 8000 khz or
44000 khz. Now lets say your wav file is too long. click the little handlebar icon in the timeline and
select the part of the audio file you want to cut out then click and drag the handle icon over the
part you want to cut out and then click 'edit->cut'

then when you are happy with your shortened file save the wav file.

6.Final Step - muxing multiple audio tracks into the output bik file.

Ok, i forgot to mention this part. some games, such as Alan Wake, have multiple audio tracks,
and depending on the source of it, it may or may not have additional languages, though I -do- know
for a fact there are multiple tracks which contains the dialog, sound effects and such.
If you want these in your new biks you will need to rip the wavs in the previous section then remux them.
to do those, once you rip the wavs from the original bik files, there is a bit of a trick to remuxing
multiple files.
Also, if you are doing this by hand, you will also need to set each additional track under input options to input from track, and for
each additional track you will need to add an extra new_ to the bik. also to gain access to the sound conversion/change section, you will
first need to select your edited bik file then click 'mix in sound'.

if you try to remux the new wavs into the bik file using the same filename you will notice when you try to add them,
that it will overwrite all of your previous wavs you inserted!!


to get around this, you have two methods available. either a. make a batch script to manually rename each bik file to
new_bik.bik new_new.bik etc or the pain in the butt but most foolproof method is to make multiple copies of the bik
file then remux each wav adding a new_ to the output file. you can also click the 'use bink 1' radio bubble button
under the bink it section and click it over and over, then copy paste each new_ to your file adding an additional new_
to it, then once all the wavs are successfully injected back into the edited bik, you can just right click it, and click rename,
then set the output name to the original bik just with the edited one in its place.

that should wrap this tutorial up. thank you, its been a joy writing.
catch you all on the flip side. peace.

-Kitsune1982

[doofoo24]

i tried your method bik to mkv with 264 > avi uncompressed > bik
the quality not good
* i kept the same quality as the original bik with mkv and avi

[Kitsune1982]

doofoo, i do not know which program you used, but if you want to get the perfect results like i did, you will need to use magix video pro x like i did. all those other freeware apps will compress the video and make it look bad and poor quality. i previewed all my biks before writing this tutorial and they look amazing.
i have tried many other video conversion software programs and they all ruin the video when converting from h264 to mkv. my only advice is to google video magix pro and see if you can find a trial copy or something, because thats the only software i have tried that actually looks flawless. also, i know you use uncompressed avi but what resolution did you use? the videos i tested were 800x432 and 800x600. you can also follow elits tutorial and shrink the videos to 640x360. i wish you all the best with your video encoding. try the software i used and see if it helps you any.

catch you on the flip side.
-Kitsune1982

[doofoo24]

i used the same program...
video is 720p 30fps...
who knows maybe i missing something

[Kitsune1982]

doofoo, there is the problem. whenever you downscale from 1080p/720p regardless of your source, there will be a significant degradation in quality. my suggestion to you would be to re-encode your videos at 480p, such as 800x600
or 640x360. if you output the 720p videos at the original resolution, and use my settings, the higher up you go using those settings is going to cause the video to lose quality. i suggest you re-encode the videos at a smaller resolution such as 800x600 or 640x360, and then use magix vegas 15 to output the videos in full screen mode as per the info i listed at the end of the tutorial. you will still get the full screen movies just without the letterboxing, aka the 'black bars' at the top and bottom. try this and post back and see if it helps any.

-Kitsune1982

[doofoo24]

isn't better to compress to 50% data rate with the same resolution 720p rather than re-encode to lower resolution ?

[Kitsune1982]

No, because compressing it to 50 percent will make it look worse. if you use 320000 bitrate and re-encode it to 480p it will look much better. because if your source video is 5 mb/sec bitrate, 50 percent or 'half' would be 2.5 mb/sec and while that doesnt seem like much, the more you compress it the worse the video will look. take a look at elits tutorial about bik re-encoding and you will see that there is very little difference in quality aside from slightly blurry video when he downscaled from 1080p/720p to 640x360 using similar bitrate that i used. try to re-encode it to a smaller resolution and report back the settings you used and optionally a 'before' and 'after' pic set of how it looked originally then how it looked when you re-encode to 480p.

-Kitsune

[darkwolves]

i just convert to avi lower the resolution and encode back to bik with high bitrate
my videos look nearly identical to the original ones only slightly different

[darkwolves]

this was done in 720X480 resolution
using format factory and radtools
the bitrate is 200000
the original video before the recode 46.2 mb
after re encoding and adding sound back 18.7 mb
i did this one months ago but it was not included in the compression method [email protected]
i resized the picture in microsoft paint so it would not flood the post lol

[doofoo24]

ok i tried on different bk with the same method i used in the first it seems..

[darkwolves]

sometimes when you add a data rate it comes out bad so i let the bik encoder handle that part when needed
i usually have the bitrate set to 1200 on format factory when i reduce the resolution so if i let the radtools handle the file it will automatically encode with more favorible settings...
sometimes trying to set a data rate can be bad but it can be good dependant on the game
format factory supports mkv,avi.wmv, various video and sound formats
plus it multithreads wich is why i use it

[-NORO-]

or just use bpk lossless compressor and get smaller(30%) bik videos with 0 difference

[darkwolves]

Originally Posted by -NORO-

or just use bpk lossless compressor and get smaller(30%) bik videos with 0 difference

i do both but only on certain games..i don't recode them all sometimes i want my videos smaller than just 30%..
there is really not much of a difference if you encode them right

[FitGirl]

You can't get any good quality with Bink encoder with such low bitrate. First of all, it's Bink1, a format which is very old. It doesn't even have block removing. And second, if you you original bink for re-encoding, it will make things worse.

Don't try it at home. Don't try it at all. Just don't.

[darkwolves]

Originally Posted by FitGirl

You can't get any good quality with Bink encoder with such low bitrate. First of all, it's Bink1, a format which is very old. It doesn't even have block removing. And second, if you you original bink for re-encoding, it will make things worse.

Don't try it at home. Don't try it at all. Just don't.

they look fine when i do them
but eh to each their own.. i won't do it if it makes the video look too crappy
and if the video is already too crappy for my liking i make it better.