360 HDR/ARK File Structure (NOT DLC!!!!!)

**Drummerguitarist** · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:47 pm Post subject:

I should probably say something about making the OGG files. It is possible to make 4, 5, or 6-channel OGG files. I just did it a couple of minutes ago as an experiment. I'll tell you the instructions so that you can test this out with proper MOGGs, instead of 2-channel ones. This can be all done in Audacity, and isn't as hard as it seems.

What you need to do is:

1. Download Audacity 1.33 Beta and install it, which can be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/beta_windows. Don't worry. You can install this alongside the stable version. I am personally not sure if this'll work in the stable version.

2. Open it up, and go to Edit: Preferences (ctrl-p)

3. Under File Formats, change the When exporting tracks option from Always mix all tracks down to Stereo or Mono channel(s) to Use Advanced Mixing Options. Now hit OK. If you don't do this, you won't be able to get past 2 channels for any of your songs. With advanced mixing, you can make whatever you want as far as channels.

4. Import the song of your preference for this (I don't know what's going on behind your computers), and then highlight it.

5. Hit File: Export Selection, and save it wherever you want, as an OGG file. Hit Save.

6. On the screen of Advanced Mixing Options, move the output channel selector to 4, 5, or 6 channels (depending on the song), then map the left and right channel to channels 1-4, 5, or 6. Hit OK.

7. Once saved, re-name the file as needed to .mogg, with the proper filenames. From that point on, you'll have multi-channel ogg files, in proper formatting, and they'll be ready for import. Do whatever you have to do from that point on, on account of I don't have the tools to do this on my 360 without fear of voiding my warranty.

Hope this helps you guys out a bit. And good luck on trying to find a solution to this. I wish I could help out at this, but the PS2 and N64 are the only systems in the house that I don't take warranties/precautions into consideration for. Plus, I don't even own GHII for the 360, anyway, unfortunately. Just Ps2.

-Dg

**tma** · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 1414 Location: Australia

**Gorby** · Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 171

tma: yes thats me

The reason for me posting on both forums is simply to get more people to see whats going on and hopefully make them curious enough to try help us in the research.

I did some more byte replacing yesturday night but I didnt have time to burn it, will do that today after work.

The new tests that will be performed tonight:

1. replace only a mid with a different original mid file
2. replace only an ogg with a different original ogg file
3. replace only a mid with a custom mid file
4. replace only an ogg with a custom ogg file.
5. replace only a mid with a mid from a ps2 song (mostly because I'm curious what happends).
6. Try out a specific change in the mid that I think may be one part of the problem, well see if I'm totally wrong here or not.
7. create my own 5 channel ogg according to instructions above and replace one song with this ogg and another song with this ogg+mid.

I am pretty sure option 1 and 2 will make me able to play the song and I do hope the rest of the tests will end up nice too. Even if the ogg and mid wouldn't match (case 1 & 2) that would be still awesome and a good indication that this is indeed possible.

**Gorby** · Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 171

Good news, we're halfway done !

I just ran some tests with the new disc I made today...

Test 1: replace only a mid with a different original mid file
Result: Works, mid is changed and it is playable!

Test 2: replace only an ogg with a different original ogg file
Result: Failed, hangs when loading. This shouldn't be any problem so I guess I did some mistake while injecting the mogg. This isn't a problem anyway because of test 7.

Test 3: Made a minor change in a custom mid already injected.
Result: Failed, still hangs when loading.

Test 4: replace only a mid with a mid from a original ps2 song
Result: Works, mid is changed and it is playable!

Test 5: replace only a mid with a custom mid file
Result: Failed, hangs when loading.

Test 6: replace only an ogg with a custom ogg file.
Result: Failed, hangs when loading (this was suspected as the injected ogg only had 2 channels and not 5).

Test 7: create my own 5 channel ogg and inject.
Result: Works! Preview is ok and loops. Played through whole song, it ended as it should, got to score screen and then back to playlist. 100% success replacing with a custom ogg!

To summarize: I have been able to inject a totally custom song (in my case In Flames - Only For The Weak) that previews ok, plays 100% and ends back to playlist when the mid ends without any errors. Also succeeded in replacing a mid with an original mid from the ps2 version (shoutatthedevil.mid).

If I only can get a custom mid to play then custom songs on the 360 is a reality!

I guess next step is to try compare 360/ps2 original mid's with some custom ones and try to see why they aren't working.

**Drummerguitarist** · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject:

**tma** · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 1414 Location: Australia

**Gorby** · Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 171

I agree that it would be really nice if we somehow could find the DTB files as that would allow us to do fun stuff like edit offsets and set songnames shown in the list.

It's late and I need to go sleep but I've done several new injections into the ark file that I will try out tomorrow. I'm really hopeful that the custom mid's will work this time as I found several bytes that needed to be patched in the mid's for it to possibly work. I hope I have found all the neccesary changes but I can't be sure until tomorrow ofc. Wish me luck!

**N4zgu7** · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 6 Location: Aus

Hi! Very interested in your work! I've been trying to figure out a way to run Karaoke Revolution Party on 'ye olde' xbox in unpacked mode (I think I've figured out the rest - edit the dtb's, make custom mid's with included junk, multi-track OGG files, etc) - it is also a multi-part ARK file with a somewhat strange and large hdr file. The guy who wrote the original KRMaker app also had a tool to unpack the Karaoke Revolution Party files, just not to re-pack it. I'm wondering if it would be possible to use that code (it's JAR, but the source is in the file - just open the JAR in winzip & it's all there) with the BAADBAAD... string as a password to expose the HDR properly, or unpack & expose it to then get to the contents? Might be worth a go.

I used Anvil ( a free download) to edit the midi's - may be worth looking at the 'good' or orignial midi's you have managed to get to see what other track info is in it. May have to insert another track or two to lay in timing info. Hope it helps!

**tma** · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 1414 Location: Australia

**tma** · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 1414 Location: Australia

**kevnin** · Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject:

Has anyone had success using extracted files from the DLC packs in a custom ps2 disk? Or by placing the files into the 360 disk?

**Burnination** · Joined: 17 Jul 2007 Posts: 25

Very interesting stuff. Gorby great job. Writing a prog for injecting wouldn't be hard at all. Just a matter of manually getting offsets/size for the songs.

To angerwound: yeah, Im not the greatest assembly person :\ If anyone else wants a try, ask tma or me.

to kevnin: The files are easily extractable using wxPirs once you hook up your xb hd. But this is not the place to describe how to do it.

the problem with the dtb files is the file sizes. But it would be cool to be able to edit all that stuff.

hey gorby, one quick question: what hex editor do you use? because i tried using Hex Workshop, but it crashed when i tried to save the ark file (too big i guess?) of course it was being run in vmware..but it had atleast 1 gig of ram dedicated to it...

edit: I've tried to add a song before but the game crashed due to not enough channels in the ogg file :\

**Gorby** · Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 171

**Finalizer** · Joined: 18 Apr 2007 Posts: 1413

So, in other words, the 360 has finally seen the light of custom songs?

'Grats man, I've got a friend who'll be very happy to see this!

_________________

Oh snap son | Finalizer's Custom charts | Attention Internet: Before you use the word "Awesome", consider using this first.

**Gorby** · Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 171