NCH Software

December 6, 2024 by Thor Leave a comment

Recently I came across a piece of software which used dozens of extensions for a single file format.

I find it hard to understand why a software developer would choose to use a new extension for every variation. It's all the same format, but makes #digipres more complicated. #fileformats #goodgrief pic.twitter.com/rz0IpK2i0j
— Tyler Thorsted (@CHLThor) July 16, 2024

This T-Shirt Factory Deluxe files are a bit of an extreme, probably a prank against all of us doing file format identification. If you know who made this decision, I would like to have a chat.

This is not first time I have come across a format which seems to have been used for more than one software title. Awhile back I tried to find more information on a file format used with many tools created by MetaCreations. It was called “Composite File Management System“, and was used with Kai’s Power tools, Bryce3D, Ray Dream, Poser, and others. I did a previous post about the format.

I came across another recently with a similar issue. They are also many different software titles with the same native format.

NCH Software is an Australian software company who produce a massive number of software titles covering many different needs. From Audio Editing to Business charts and from Accounting tools to a 3D model converter, they have it all. Their audio editing software WavePad is quite popular. My initial entry into their software world was for the specialized Dictation/Scribe software which produced a slightly proprietary audio format with the extension DCT. This format does not use the format many of the other titles use.

With the number of different titles, it probably makes sense they use the same file structure to make processing/programming more efficient. They appear to be mostly proprietary binary files.

hexdump -C Wavepad/Untitled2.wpp | head
00000000  6c 73 64 66 01 00 1a 00  00 00 07 00 00 00 00 00  |lsdf............|
00000010  ca 84 20 00 00 00 00 00  e9 03 00 00 a5 84 20 00  |.. ........... .|
00000020  00 00 00 00 d0 07 00 00  99 84 20 00 00 00 00 00  |.......... .....|
00000030  d1 07 06 00 24 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 2f 55 73 65  |....$......./Use|
00000040  72 73 2f 74 79 6c 65 72  2f 44 65 73 6b 74 6f 70  |rs/tyler/Desktop|
00000050  2f 55 6e 74 69 74 6c 65  64 5f 30 2e 77 61 76 00  |/Untitled_0.wav.|
00000060  dc 07 02 00 04 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000070  d2 07 03 00 08 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000080  00 00 00 00 d3 07 03 00  08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000090  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  d4 07 03 00 08 00 00 00  |................|

hexdump -C Crescendo/examples/Grooving.cdo | head
00000000  6c 73 64 66 01 00 05 00  00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00  |lsdf............|
00000010  8a b5 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 10 00 00 65 05 00 00  |............e...|
00000020  00 00 00 00 01 11 04 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000030  00 00 00 41 02 11 02 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |...A............|
00000040  05 00 00 00 03 11 04 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000050  00 00 52 43 04 11 04 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..RC............|
00000060  00 80 94 43 05 11 04 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |...C............|
00000070  00 00 a0 41 06 11 02 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |...A............|
00000080  01 00 00 00 07 11 04 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000090  00 00 00 00 08 11 04 00  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|

hexdump -C Spin3D/bunny.3dp | head
00000000  6c 73 64 66 01 00 20 00  00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00  |lsdf.. .........|
00000010  ec bc 65 00 00 00 00 00  00 10 00 00 e0 bc 65 00  |..e...........e.|
00000020  00 00 00 00 00 12 00 00  38 bc 65 00 00 00 00 00  |........8.e.....|
00000030  01 12 07 00 8c 26 26 00  00 00 00 00 cc d1 27 3f  |.....&&.......'?|
00000040  1c b5 80 3f 3c f4 bd 3d  d9 79 27 3f de af 80 3f  |...?<..=.y'?...?|
00000050  bf 81 a9 3d ad fa 28 3f  10 e7 7d 3f 05 a8 a9 3d  |...=..(?..}?...=|
00000060  ec a4 1a 3f 56 29 49 3f  ab d0 c0 3d 3e 3c 1f 3f  |...?V)I?...=><.?|
00000070  5f ed 4c 3f 5a 48 c0 3d  04 59 1b 3f 48 53 49 3f  |_.L?ZH.=.Y.?HSI?|
00000080  42 e9 ab 3d 74 5d 1c 3f  05 6c 3b 3f f7 03 5e 3d  |B..=t].?.l;?..^=|
00000090  46 d2 1a 3f f6 d4 3e 3f  ef ac 5d 3d 94 db 1a 3f  |F..?..>?..]=...?|

hexdump -C Voxal/Geek.voxal | head
00000000  6c 73 64 66 01 00 0c 00  00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00  |lsdf............|
00000010  ea 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  ec 03 01 00 01 00 00 00  |................|
00000020  00 00 00 00 01 e8 03 00  00 a9 01 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000030  00 00 20 02 00 04 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 13 00 00  |.. .............|
00000040  00 00 10 00 00 39 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00  |.....9..........|
00000050  00 0d 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 20 01 00 01 00 00  |.......... .....|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 01 20  04 00 04 00 00 00 00 00  |....... ........|
00000070  00 00 c3 f5 40 41 02 20  02 00 04 00 00 00 00 00  |....@A. ........|
00000080  00 00 22 00 00 00 00 20  02 00 04 00 00 00 00 00  |..".... ........|
00000090  00 00 0e 00 00 00 00 10  00 00 29 00 00 00 00 00  |..........).....|

hexdump -C PhotoPad/test.ppp | head
00000000  6c 73 64 66 01 00 02 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |lsdf............|
00000010  ee 3c 00 00 00 00 00 00  c9 00 01 00 01 00 00 00  |.<..............|
00000020  00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00  00 d5 3c 00 00 00 00 00  |..........<.....|
00000030  00 02 00 00 00 c9 3c 00  00 00 00 00 00 03 00 06  |......<.........|
00000040  00 0f 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 6f 72 69 67 69 6e 61  |.........origina|
00000050  6c 5f 69 6d 61 67 65 00  01 00 00 00 85 3c 00 00  |l_image......<..|
00000060  00 00 00 00 07 00 07 00  79 3c 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........y<......|
00000070  89 50 4e 47 0d 0a 1a 0a  00 00 00 0d 49 48 44 52  |.PNG........IHDR|
00000080  00 00 04 00 00 00 03 00  08 06 00 00 00 ba ba 15  |................|
00000090  0d 00 00 00 01 73 52 47  42 00 ae ce 1c e9 00 00  |.....sRGB.......|

Above are just a few of the titles which use the same structure. The LSDF string is the first 4 bytes and always the last 4 bytes. The next two bytes, 0100, seem consistent for all samples, but the two bytes after that seem to be unique to the software. So far I have found the following titles use the format.

Software Title	Name	Extension	Pattern
WavePad	WavePad Audio Editor Project File	WPP	6C736466 01001A00
Crescendo	Crescendo Score File	CDO	6C736466 01000500
Spin3D	NCH Software model format	3DP	6C736466 01002000
Voxal	Voxal Voices File	VOXAL	6C736466 01000C00
PhotoPad	PhotoPad Project File	PPP	6C736466 01000200
MixPad	MixPad Project	MPDP	6C736466 01000400
Disketch	Disketch Project	DEPROJ	6C736466 01000700
ClickCharts	ClickCharts Diagram	CCD	6C736466 01000A00
DreamPlan	DreamPlan File	DDP	6C736466 01001300
DrawPad	DrawPad File	DRP	6C736466 01001500

Without downloading and installing their vast library of software it’s hard to know all the different titles which use the format. The rest of the file for each sample seems to be proprietary in a binary format, except a few with a PNG image mixed in.

The simplest sample I could find was a preset file for the Zulu DJ Software which uses the ECF extension. The ECF extension is common with a few of the titles, like effect chains for WavePad and MixPad.

hexdump -C Zulu/Untitled.ecf
00000000  6c 73 64 66 01 00 0c 00  00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00  |lsdf............|
00000010  6b 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 10 00 00 1a 00 00 00  |k...............|
00000020  00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000030  00 01 00 01 00 01 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30  |...............0|
00000040  02 00 04 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 01 00 00 00 00 20  |............... |
00000050  00 00 29 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 10 00 00 0d 00  |..).............|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20  01 00 01 00 00 00 00 00  |....... ........|
00000070  00 00 00 00 20 02 00 04  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.... ...........|
00000080  00 00 01 6c 73 64 66                              |...lsdf|

This header is identical to the header for the VOXAL format, so not sure if the second set of 4 bytes is directly connected to the software title. Or if there purpose is something else.

The question that needs to be answered is how we might represent these formats in PRONOM if needed. We could create a unique signature for each title based on the magic header and footer and the second set of 4 bytes which may indicate the software. Or create a single generic signature to identify the basic format using the magic header and footer and adding all the extensions to the list, which would be lengthy. This would be the easiest and catch all formats related to NCH Software using this file format, but then additional characterization would need to happen to identify the specific software title needed to render the file.

The NCH Software company seems to churn out new software and versions quite frequently and a search for reviews of their software turns up some questionable results. Many might enjoy their software as they are easy to use and are free for home use. I had lots of trouble with a few of them as they wanted to mount network locations and disk images I had used recently, which seems sketchy. I would love to know if anyone uses their software and has any need to preserve these formats. I currently don’t, but found the common use of a file format intriguing. I also found no reference to the magic bytes they use, except for a few TrID entries. Marco always is a step ahead!

RealVideo

November 15, 2024 by Thor 1 Comment

For #WDPD24 and PRONOM Hackathon week this year, I want to find some older formats listed which did not have a signature. There is a list to choose from, but I wanted to find something I hadn’t worked on before. I came across two entries for Real Video:

PUID	Name	Extension
fmt/204	RealVideo Clip	rv
x-fmt/277	Real Video	rv

I was familiar with Real Media and Real Audio, but had yet to come across any RealVideo with the RV extension. I thought it would be easy to find some references and samples, but that was not the case. I assume PRONOM originally added these based on MIME types available.

Real or RealNetworks is/was an Internet media company who jumped on the rapidly growing World Wide Web in 1995 to become a leader in Internet Media Delivery. Their initial offerings mainly focused on audio streaming and they accomplished all of this by providing free players and web browser extensions to make it easy to serve up a website with streaming media everyone could enjoy. Later adding video streaming optimized for the slower dialup and connections of the day. They used codecs based on common technology like H.263 and H.264, but used then to make their own proprietary codecs identified through FourCC codes, RV10-RV60.

So thought it would be easy to find a reference to the RV extension, I quickly discovered it wasn’t. Looking at the Wikipedia page on RealVideo, I found no reference to the RV extension. RV is an abbreviation for RealVideo, right? Well, I ended up finding a reference in the RealAudio page under file extensions. Ok, First clue to the existence of the RV extension. The page references RV as being used for video only files and was used by the flagship encoder (RealProducer).

RealProducer was the tool for creating the streaming audio and video formats that could then be used for your website or streaming platform. The RealProducer software came in a Basic version, which was free, and the Plus or Pro version, which was not free and provided more options. The first version of RealProducer to make video files was version 4. I was able to find a copy of the encoder and installed it under a Windows 95 emulator. To my surprise it only saved to the RealMedia RM file format. This format is well known and identified with PRONOM as x-fmt/190 also documented at the LoC.

This was the same with RealProducer 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10 that I was able to try. All made no mention of the RV extension. I was starting to feel this format didn’t exist or that some decided to use the RV extension on their own. Searches on Google yielded a couple results, mostly from users who had found a few files on their older discs and wanted to migrate them to something newer. I was able to find one example, one user shared, but it had the same header as the RealMedia format. The clue was in the file.

hexdump -C ambush_abb.rv
00000000  2e 52 4d 46 00 00 00 12  00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.RMF............|
00000010  00 07 50 52 4f 50 00 00  00 32 00 00 00 03 6e e8  |..PROP...2....n.|
00000020  00 03 6e e8 00 00 03 e0  00 00 01 b3 00 00 6a 6f  |..n...........jo|
00000030  00 06 80 fa 00 00 08 b5  00 ba 41 73 00 00 03 55  |..........As...U|
00000040  00 03 00 09 43 4f 4e 54  00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00  |....CONT...@....|
00000050  00 00 00 08 28 43 29 20  32 30 30 35 00 26 00 00  |....(C) 2005.&..|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000270  00 09 61 75 64 69 6f 4d  6f 64 65 00 00 00 02 00  |..audioMode.....|
00000280  06 76 6f 69 63 65 00 00  00 00 2d 00 00 0d 43 72  |.voice....-...Cr|
00000290  65 61 74 69 6f 6e 20 44  61 74 65 00 00 00 02 00  |eation Date.....|
000002a0  13 39 2f 32 30 2f 32 30  30 36 20 31 34 3a 30 37  |.9/20/2006 14:07|
000002b0  3a 30 38 00 00 00 00 53  00 00 0c 47 65 6e 65 72  |:08....S...Gener|
000002c0  61 74 65 64 20 42 79 00  00 00 02 00 3a 52 65 61  |ated By.....:Rea|
000002d0  6c 50 72 6f 64 75 63 65  72 28 52 29 20 42 61 73  |lProducer(R) Bas|
000002e0  69 63 20 31 31 2e 30 20  66 6f 72 20 57 69 6e 64  |ic 11.0 for Wind|
000002f0  6f 77 73 2c 20 42 75 69  6c 64 20 31 31 2e 30 2e  |ows, Build 11.0.|
00000300  30 2e 32 30 30 39 00 00  00 00 31 00 00 11 4d 6f  |0.2009....1...Mo|
00000310  64 69 66 69 63 61 74 69  6f 6e 20 44 61 74 65 00  |dification Date.|
00000320  00 00 02 00 13 39 2f 32  30 2f 32 30 30 36 20 31  |.....9/20/2006 1|
00000330  34 3a 30 37 3a 30 38 00  00 00 00 1d 00 00 09 76  |4:07:08........v|
00000340  69 64 65 6f 4d 6f 64 65  00 00 00 02 00 07 6e 6f  |ideoMode......no|
00000350  72 6d 61 6c 00 44 41 54  41 00 ba 3e 1e 00 00 00  |rmal.DATA..>....|

RealProducer Basic 11 for Windows. The Wikipedia article did hint at this by saying “the latest version of RealProducer reverted to using .ra for audio only files and began using .rv for video files with or without audio.” Why would they use the RM extension for so long, then revert to a different extension with a later version? I found more in the User Manual for version 11.

• .rv – RealVideo
    RealProducer uses the .rv file extension if the input is video-only or video-with-audio. You can also select the .rm file extension for video content.
    Tip: Using the .rv file extension helps search engines identify the file as a RealVideo clip.

• .rm – RealAudio or RealVideo
    RealProducer chooses the .rm file extension if it cannot determine the content of the input clip. You can use .rm file extension for any RealAudio or RealVideo clip, except for variable bit-rate clips.

Ok, so a few things to learn from this. One is the RV extension was used as the default for version 11 as they wanted search engines to identify them as a RealVideo clip. Second thing we learned is there is no difference between the two placeholders in PRONOM, one being a RealVideo file and the other being a RealVideo Clip. We don’t need both.

Now, is there any difference between an RV and RM file?

hexdump -C Producer11-01.rv | head
00000000  2e 52 4d 46 00 00 00 12  00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.RMF............|
00000010  00 07 50 52 4f 50 00 00  00 32 00 00 00 03 6e e8  |..PROP...2....n.|
00000020  00 03 6e e8 00 00 03 e0  00 00 01 c7 00 00 01 66  |..n............f|
00000030  00 00 1b 57 00 00 07 41  00 02 91 0a 00 00 03 5e  |...W...A.......^|
00000040  00 03 00 09 43 4f 4e 54  00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00  |....CONT...@....|
00000050  00 00 00 08 28 43 29 20  32 30 30 35 00 26 00 00  |....(C) 2005.&..|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000080  00 00 00 00 4d 44 50 52  00 00 00 70 00 00 00 00  |....MDPR...p....|
00000090  00 02 c2 a4 00 02 c2 a4  00 00 03 e0 00 00 01 9f  |................|

hexdump -C Producer11-01.rm | head
00000000  2e 52 4d 46 00 00 00 12  00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.RMF............|
00000010  00 07 50 52 4f 50 00 00  00 32 00 00 00 03 6e e8  |..PROP...2....n.|
00000020  00 03 6e e8 00 00 03 e0  00 00 01 a4 00 00 01 64  |..n............d|
00000030  00 00 1b 57 00 00 05 a4  00 02 5c 35 00 00 03 5e  |...W......\5...^|
00000040  00 03 00 09 43 4f 4e 54  00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00  |....CONT...@....|
00000050  00 00 00 08 28 43 29 20  32 30 30 35 00 26 00 00  |....(C) 2005.&..|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000080  00 00 00 00 4d 44 50 52  00 00 00 70 00 00 00 00  |....MDPR...p....|
00000090  00 02 c2 a4 00 02 c2 a4  00 00 03 e0 00 00 01 a4  |................|

They both look very similar to me. Aside from a few bytes, they are practically identical. Lets see what MediaInfo has to say.

mediainfo Producer11-01.rv
General
Complete name                            : Producer11-01.rv
Format                                   : RealMedia
File size                                : 164 KiB
Duration                                 : 6 s 999 ms
Overall bit rate                         : 225 kb/s
Frame rate                               : 24.000 FPS
Copyright                                : (C) 2005
FileExtension_Invalid                    : rm rmvb ra

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : RealVideo 4
Codec ID                                 : RV40
Codec ID/Info                            : Based on AVC (H.264), Real Player 9
Duration                                 : 6 s 999 ms
Bit rate                                 : 181 kb/s
Width                                    : 640 pixels
Height                                   : 424 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 3:2
Frame rate                               : 24.000 FPS
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.028
Stream size                              : 155 KiB (94%)

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : Cooker
Codec ID                                 : cook
Codec ID/Info                            : Based on G.722.1, Real Player 6
Duration                                 : 7 s 429 ms
Bit rate                                 : 44.1 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 40.0 KiB (24%)

mediainfo Producer11-01.rm
General
Complete name                            : Producer11-01.rm
Format                                   : RealMedia
File size                                : 151 KiB
Duration                                 : 6 s 999 ms
Overall bit rate                         : 225 kb/s
Frame rate                               : 24.000 FPS
Copyright                                : (C) 2005

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : RealVideo 4
Codec ID                                 : RV40
Codec ID/Info                            : Based on AVC (H.264), Real Player 9
Duration                                 : 6 s 999 ms
Bit rate                                 : 181 kb/s
Width                                    : 640 pixels
Height                                   : 424 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 3:2
Frame rate                               : 24.000 FPS
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.028
Stream size                              : 155 KiB

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : Cooker
Codec ID                                 : cook
Codec ID/Info                            : Based on G.722.1, Real Player 6
Bit rate                                 : 44.1 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits

Other than the RV file having a invalid file extension, they both identify as a RealMedia file and have identical properties. So it seems the RV file is really no different than the RM file. I think the best course of action for PRONOM is to deprecate these two RV PUID’s and just ad RV as an acceptable extension for the RealMedia format.

To add to the evidence, here is the output from ffprobe:

Input #0, rm, from 'Producer11-01.rm':
  Metadata:
    copyright       : (C) 2005
    comment         : 
    ASMRuleBook     : #($Bandwidth >= 0),Stream1Bandwidth = 44100, Stream0Bandwidth = 180900;
    Audiences       : 256k DSL or Cable;
    audioMode       : music
    Creation Date   : 11/12/2024 20:28:55
    Generated By    : RealProducer(R) Plus 11.1 for Windows, Build 11.1.0.2676
    Modification Date: 11/12/2024 20:28:55
    videoMode       : normal
  Duration: 00:00:07.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 176 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Video: rv40 (RV40 / 0x30345652), yuv420p, 640x424, 180 kb/s, 24 fps, 24 tbr, 1k tbn
  Stream #0:1: Audio: cook (cook / 0x6B6F6F63), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 44 kb/s

Input #0, rm, from 'Producer11-01.rv':
  Metadata:
    copyright       : (C) 2005
    comment         : 
    ASMRuleBook     : #($Bandwidth >= 0),Stream1Bandwidth = 44100, Stream0Bandwidth = 180900;
    Audiences       : 256k DSL or Cable;
    audioMode       : music
    Creation Date   : 11/12/2024 20:28:16
    Generated By    : RealProducer(R) Plus 11.1 for Windows, Build 11.1.0.2676
    Modification Date: 11/12/2024 20:28:16
    videoMode       : normal
  Duration: 00:00:07.43, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 181 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Video: rv40 (RV40 / 0x30345652), yuv420p, 640x424, 180 kb/s, 24 fps, 24 tbr, 1k tbn
  Stream #0:1: Audio: cook (cook / 0x6B6F6F63), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 44 kb/s

But wait, there are a couple formats we could add which are related to RealProducer. RealProducer used a few other formats to manage projects and other metadata for streaming. They include:

.RP RealPix Image
.RT RealText
.RPAD RealProducer Audience File
.RPJF RealProducer Job File
.RPSD RealProducer Server Destination
.RMHD RealMediaHD file
.RAM Playlist
.RPM Embedded RAM

File Type	Extension	MIME Type
Ram	.ram	audio/x-pn-realaudio
Embedded Ram	.rpm	audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin
SMIL	.smil and .smi	application/smil
RealAudio	.ra	audio/x-pn-realaudio
RealVideo	.rm	application/x-pn-realmedia
Flash	.swf	application/x-shockwave-flash
RealPix	.rp	image/vnd.rn-realpix
RealText	.rt	text/vnd.rn-realtext

https://web.archive.org/web/20120513203726/http://service.real.com/help/library/guides/production8/htmfiles/server.htm

Don’t get excited, the RealPix Image format really isn’t an image, it is simply an XML file with all the details of an image or group of images. Pretty boring. It was however a big thing in the day, even got a full guide written up for the process. “All information in the file occurs between an opening <imfl> tag and a closing </imfl> tag. This is the only tag that uses an end tag.” This format was the topic of discussion as malicious code could be in the RP file and executed just by having someone load your webpage. IMFL is obviously an acronym, but none of the documents I could find tells me what it stands for, so I did what everyone does now, I asked ChatGPT.

The RealPix format by RealNetworks, which was used for interactive multimedia content, indeed utilized IMFL as its tagged format. IMFL stands for “Interleaved Media File Language.” This markup was particularly designed to handle multimedia presentations, allowing the synchronization of images, audio, and video in a slideshow-style format. It used XML-like syntax where elements like <imfl>, <head>, and <fadein/> defined media objects, transitions, and their timing. Key components included attributes for positioning, color, and animation effects, making RealPix a flexible format for creating multimedia sequences compatible with RealPlayer.

For technical details, the RealPix format closely resembles SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) and supports strict tag closure and case sensitivity. This means all tags and attribute names must be lowercase, and attributes must be in double quotes, as seen in SMIL and RealSystem G2 markup, RealNetworks’ broader multimedia framework.

When I asked for a source, it could not give me one. So not sure if it is the correct answer, but it seems to fit. Here are some samples of RP, RT and SMIL files.

For RealText with the RT extension, we find a similar tagged text. This format is used to provide text presentations to go along with Images, Audio, or Video. The tagged text then describes when and how the text is displayed. This is all done in a player window, therefore the root tag of these RT documents starts and ends with <window>. I guess these could be considered a subtitle format for streaming media.

The SMIL files is interesting, it is known standard, but in many cases, does not have an XML declaration, therefore not identified by current PRONOM. They are used to link everything together. I might suggest a variant of the SMIL format to not have the XML declaration to identify these formats correctly.

<smil>
 <body>
  <par>
   <textstream src=”rtsp://realserver.company.com/mary.rt”/>
   <video src=”rtsp://realserver.company.com/mary.rm”/>
  </par>
 </body>
</smil>

The .RPAD RealProducer Audience File, .RPJF RealProducer Job File, .RPSD RealProducer Server Destination are all XML files for managing some of the configuration found in the RealProducer software.

cat 56k\ Dial-up.rpad
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<audience xmlns="http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.2.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  xsi:schemaLocation="http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.2.0 http://ns.real.com/tools/audience.2.0.xsd">
  <avgBitrate type="uint">34000</avgBitrate>
  <maxBitrate type="uint">68000</maxBitrate>
  <streams>

cat RealProducer11-01.rpjf
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<job xmlns="http://ns.real.com/tools/job.2.0"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://ns.real.com/tools/job.2.0 http://ns.real.com/tools/job.2.0.xsd">
  <enableTwoPass type="bool">true</enableTwoPass>
  <clipInfo>

cat Multicast\ Push\ Server.rpsd
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<destination xsi:type="pushServer" xmlns="http://ns.real.com/tools/server.2.0"   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  xsi:schemaLocation="http://ns.real.com/tools/server.2.0 http://ns.real.com/tools/server.2.0.xsd">
  <pluginName type="string">rn-server-rbs</pluginName>

Those three formats should be easy enough, especially if we look for Namespace urls.

The RAM and RPM formats are simply text files with a URL. You can find some samples here and here.

An RM and RV file are the same format as the RMVB file but just with a variable bitrate. Later on a new format was used to improve the quality of video. This format has the extension RMHD, referring to RealMedia HD. Let’s take a look.

hexdump -C DSC_0009.rmhd | head
00000000  2e 52 4d 50 00 00 00 12  00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.RMP............|
00000010  00 07 50 52 4f 50 00 00  00 36 00 02 00 04 f7 33  |..PROP...6.....3|
00000020  00 04 f7 33 00 00 11 bd  00 00 02 5d 00 00 01 d2  |...3.......]....|
00000030  00 00 1b 2e 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 04 65 68  |..............eh|
00000040  00 00 01 6f 00 02 00 03  43 4f 4e 54 00 00 00 12  |...o....CONT....|
00000050  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 4d 44 50 52 00 00  |..........MDPR..|
00000060  00 76 00 00 00 00 00 03  24 64 00 03 24 64 00 00  |.v......$d..$d..|
00000070  11 bd 00 00 04 2a 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.....*..........|
00000080  1b 2e 0c 56 69 64 65 6f  20 53 74 72 65 61 6d 14  |...Video Stream.|
00000090  76 69 64 65 6f 2f 78 2d  70 6e 2d 72 65 61 6c 76  |video/x-pn-realv|

The format looks very similar, but has the magic header of .RMP instead of .RMF. MediaInfo and FFProbe are unaware of the format. The software mentions a RV11 codec which is confusing as the codecs went from RV10-RV60.

Phew, that was a lot considering the two formats I tried to research came up the same as an existing format. There are probably others I have missed. I did see a reference to an RMX format which seems to be an encrypted RM file. The header is the same so it will identify as a RealMedia file, but with the wrong extension. Let me know if you come across any. I have some samples of the formats mentioned here, plus a proposal of new signatures on my Github repository.

Interactive Quicktime

June 14, 2024 by Thor Leave a comment

One of my favorite legacy formats to explore is any type of multimedia CD-ROM. The 1990’s and early 2000’s were filled with all sorts of multimedia for CD, Web, and Television. It is also one of the most difficult formats to try and preserve for the future. Many CD-ROM’s are filled with executables and/or Macromedia Director media, later having flash content. The operating systems and security needs today make playback almost impossible. For this reason many have built emulation services to mimic the original operation system and software to allow the many historic multimedia CD-ROM’s to once again interact with the user in a way many current systems still struggle with.

Many CD-ROM’s would come as Hybrid disc’s allowing them to be used on a Windows and Macintosh system, sometimes providing two different experiences. Then there were CD-Extra or Enhanced CD‘s as a separate session to an Audio CD which would contain bonus content playable only on a computer.

For fun I took a look back at some of my older Audio CD titles. I came across a couple, one claiming to be a “CD-Extra” and another an “Enhanced CD“. The CD-Extra disc when queried with cd-info claimed to have 12 tracks, with the 12th being a data XA track.

Disc mode is listed as: CD-ROM Mixed
CD-ROM Track List (1 - 12)
  #: MSF       LSN    Type   Green? Copy? Channels Premphasis?
  1: 00:02:00  000000 audio  false  no    2        no
  2: 02:13:66  009891 audio  false  no    2        no
  3: 05:21:28  023953 audio  false  no    2        no
  4: 08:18:19  037219 audio  false  no    2        no
  5: 12:28:37  055987 audio  false  no    2        no
  6: 16:11:58  072733 audio  false  no    2        no
  7: 19:21:56  086981 audio  false  no    2        no
  8: 23:17:49  104674 audio  false  no    2        no
  9: 26:01:17  116942 audio  false  no    2        no
 10: 28:30:02  128102 audio  false  no    2        no
 11: 31:07:70  139945 audio  false  no    2        no
 12: 37:29:46  168571 XA     true   no   
170: 51:35:07  231982 leadout (520 MB raw, 516 MB formatted)
CD Analysis Report
CD-Plus/Extra 
session #2 starts at track 12, LSN: 168571

Mounting the 12th track showed a mix of Macromedia Director (.DIR) files and quite a few Quicktime MOV movies. Playback was not possible on my current computer so I had to resort to using an emulator to experience this bonus content, full of band member photos and biographies.

The other disc I pulled out to explore was a bit different. Using cd-info the disc looked very similar:

Disc mode is listed as: CD-ROM Mixed
CD-ROM Track List (1 - 13)
  #: MSF       LSN    Type   Green? Copy? Channels Premphasis?
  1: 00:02:00  000000 audio  false  no    2        no
  2: 04:20:08  019358 audio  false  no    2        no
  3: 08:04:27  036177 audio  false  no    2        no
  4: 11:15:62  050537 audio  false  no    2        no
  5: 14:54:32  066932 audio  false  no    2        no
  6: 19:57:73  089698 audio  false  no    2        no
  7: 26:12:36  117786 audio  false  no    2        no
  8: 29:51:59  134234 audio  false  no    2        no
  9: 34:44:00  156150 audio  false  no    2        no
 10: 39:36:62  178112 audio  false  no    2        no
 11: 42:06:01  189301 audio  false  no    2        no
 12: 45:42:26  205526 audio  false  no    2        no
 13: 57:10:54  257154 XA     true   no   
170: 72:56:67  328117 leadout (735 MB raw, 730 MB formatted)
CD Analysis Report
CD-Plus/Extra   
session #2 starts at track 13, LSN: 257154

The disc’s, even though were labeled CD-Extra and Enhanced CD, had the same structure and format. The difference was in the type of multimedia used. There was a simple application which launched Quicktime and loaded a single MOV movie. But, this was not your regular Quicktime Movie, this is a highly complex Interactive Quicktime movie.

The Quicktime movie could only be launched from an older operating system using Quicktime 6, and on the Macintosh, only a PPC CPU. The movie would launch with an interactive menu, allowing navigation as you might find on a DVD or Flash website, but all within a single MOV file. When I ran MediaInfo on the MOV file I got back quite a few tracks:

<media ref="/Volumes/VOLCANOECD/ALECD.mov">
<track type="General">
<VideoCount>10</VideoCount>
<AudioCount>1</AudioCount>
<OtherCount>51</OtherCount>
<FileExtension>mov</FileExtension>
<Format>QuickTime</Format>
<Format_Settings>Compressed header</Format_Settings>

Ten video tracks and 51 other tracks. Exploring with Quicktime, I could see the entire list of embedded content:

Quicktime movies, an Audio track, dozens of Flash, Photos, Animations, Sprites, with the possibility of more. These types of Quicktime files had requirements in order to run with Quicktime 6 being the last which could playback all the content correctly. Current versions of Quicktime give a warning on the lack of compatibility.

This Interactive Quicktime movie proudly claims; “Made with LiveStage Pro“, which was an authoring environment for Quicktime made by Totally Hip Software Inc. Started in 1995, but seemed to disappear after 2004 with no new development and by 2014 the website went offline.

If you would like to see a couple of Apple created simple examples see here.

LiveStage Pro was a very powerful authoring tool in its time, another similar tool called Electrifier competed for the interactive Quicktime market. Adobe GoLive also competed, but offered fewer features. The final Quicktime movie exported from LiveStage Pro was the main component, but the software did save a project format with the extension “LSD”. Versions 2 through 4 of LiveStage Pro had a similar header.

hexdump -C LiveStagePro4-s01.lsd | head
00000000  4c 53 41 46 00 00 00 04  00 00 09 16 00 00 00 00  |LSAF............|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 09 0a 73 65 61 6e  |............sean|
00000020  00 00 00 01 00 00 00 03  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18  |................|
00000030  56 53 4e 6e 00 00 00 01  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |VSNn............|
00000040  00 00 00 04 00 00 08 84  4d 50 52 4e 00 00 00 01  |........MPRN....|
00000050  00 00 00 49 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 21 6d 4f 55 54  |...I.......!mOUT|
00000060  00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 55 6e 74 69  |............Unti|
00000070  74 6c 65 64 2e 6d 6f 76  00 00 00 00 18 57 6c 65  |tled.mov.....Wle|
00000080  66 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |f...............|
00000090  00 00 00 00 18 57 74 6f  70 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  |.....Wtop.......|

All the samples from version 2 through 4 have the first four bytes as “LSAF“. It also seems the next four bytes may be version related. Version 1 however has a different header.

hexdump -C contest.lsd | head
00000000  4c 53 50 72 00 00 00 08  00 00 00 00 00 00 02 80  |LSPr............|
00000010  01 e0 00 00 00 00 02 58  00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01  |.......X........|
00000020  00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00  00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000030  00 00 08 53 02 d9 ff c9  04 76 02 97 01 00 44 00  |...S.....v....D.|
00000040  0b 02 fb 03 c9 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  |................|
00000050  00 07 41 63 74 69 6f 6e  73 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..Actions.......|
00000060  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000070  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  05 00 00 00 01 50 49 43  |.............PIC|
00000080  54 ff ff 00 00 c1 ff 03  72 65 64 65 6e 6e 41 79  |T.......redennAy|
00000090  98 05 41 77 78 00 00 01  7a 00 10 00 00 31 fc 30  |..Awx...z....1.0|

Identification of a LiveStage project should be simple enough, but identifying and rendering back a Quicktime movie made by this software takes some work. In fact there are many “Enhanced CD’s” and CD-Extra titles out there with quite a few system requirements. If we are not careful, many of these little gems might get more difficult to experience or lost completely.

If you would like to explore the Quicktime Movie from the Enhanced CD mentioned here, send me a message. You can also take a look at my signature proposal and samples files on my Github for LiveStage.