Decoding unknown audio from NBA 2K12 by Soul at 7:02 AM EDT on August 2, 2012
Hello everyone. I was pointed to your IRC channel, but seeing that nobody was awake there, I decided to post my question here.
I've noticed you primarily occupy yourselves with older consoles, but any help, no matter how small, I would be grateful for.
So I'm looking to decode the audio files from NBA 2K12, the PC version. It's a yearly basketball franchise (if that wasn't obvious), that when first released on PC (2K9 iteration), used linear 8-bit PCM in a raw file with no obvious headers, just one song after the other, and the durations and offsets were probably hard-coded into the EXE, or they just weren't obvious to the people doing the research back then.
Here's their findings: http://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=68166
Since 2K10, the format has changed. The file in question, jukeboxmusic.bin, went from 400MB to about 20~50MB, and the audio quality in-game was obviously deteriorated, so they haven't just hidden the songs elsewhere. I'm guessing that from the nice 48000Hz Stereo PCM, they went to something like 22050Hz Mono.
However, even those settings, using 8-bit linear PCM in Audacity or Adobe Audtion for example, gives me a duration of a few minutes up to half an hour, which is much shorter than the expected 1h20m to 1h30m. So my guess is they've changed their encoding.
Based on the fact that the file is 23876 KB, and the expected duration of the audio, and the fact that I know for a fact the audio quality is pretty shitty, any guesses on what the encoding might be?
I'm guessing it's still something raw based on the AU file format, because of 3 clues: 1) 2-3 AUAUDIO strings in the game's EXE. 2) The use of raw PCM in 2K9. 3) No mention of an audio/sound technology license (like Miles, Fraunhofer, or anything of the sorts) in the copyright notices in the readme, manual or in-game.
Any further information you might need to help me, don't hesitate to ask.