Understanding the files on the DVD of Arirang Karaoke (hk2 & midi0)

[bigboss97]

There are 2 data directories on the DVD:
hk2 & midi0

In midi0 there are the large files:
ARVNKR.d0[0-3]

The hk2\info.dat looks like a TOC file. English song starts at:


Then followed by Vietnamese:

[bigboss97]

Sample song lists. Chinese still very messy.
I'll post the source codes soon.

lists.zip

[bigboss97]

To do: Reading song ID's
list_arirang.zip

[Pminh]

Just wondering if you have looked at the latest DVD of Arirang karaoke (VOL 31), they have a totally different file/folder structure :



I attempted to use your conversion to extract song lists without any success. The data structure seemed to have changed, too. I can upload the files if you want.

[bigboss97]

Based on the date of your VIDEO_TS, your version could be newer. Of course the date could be wrong.
But it's very hard to understand why a newer version has less structure.

Anyway, let's do some analysis (speculations):
- *.IDX could be some index files from which you can generate song lists.
- Based on the size, MULTAK.* could be containing song (MIDI) information.

HTH
Phuoc Can HUA

[Pminh]

Vol 32 was just released this month. Vol 31 was sometimes in feb-march 08. You are right! Looking at masecos4.idx with a hex editor reveals blocks of data with plain readable english title and some unmarked vietnamese. I "found" an upload of the idx file.  http://www.box.net/shared/d0kidoww0c

I also found the producer website. They have published the complete alphabetical PDF of Vietnamese song list up to the latest vol 32:
http://www.arirang.com.vn/?page=static_pages&view=99&l=2
http://www.arirang.com.vn/image_manager/16/File/list%20nhac%20tong%20hop%20(1-31).pdf

I think the other interesting goal is to work out how to extract/insert midi file from/into the DVD !

[bigboss97]

Pminh wrote:

Vol 32 was just released this month. Vol 31 was sometimes in feb-march 08. You are right! Looking at masecos4.idx with a hex editor reveals blocks of data with plain readable english title and some unmarked vietnamese. I "found" an upload of the idx file.  http://www.box.net/shared/d0kidoww0c

I think the other interesting goal is to work out how to extract/insert midi file from/into the DVD !

I'll have a look in your "found" file.
If you can use hex editor it shouldn't be a problem for you to work out the song list structure. Use my source codes.

Thank you for the song list links. I'll use it as base to work out the song ID's for my song list generator.

I still have no idea about the "concept" of the data files. Currently, I don't have my player around. So, I can't do any patch experiments (see CalElect).

[bigboss97]

Pminh wrote:

Vol 32 was just released this month. Vol 31 was sometimes in feb-march 08.

Different disk structure means incompatibility. If I buy a new disk the old player won't play. That means no new song forever. That's not very nice of the producer.

[bigboss97]

masecos4.idx doesn't look very straight forward. There's no string length between each entry (I checked English only). So, there must be a separate table. It could even be in another file

[bigboss97]

Since we already have trouble in reading the IDX-file I tried to google the MULTAK file. It's funny to see some old posts about the same file but with other player:
http://www.nabble.com/Any-midi-VCD-support-here--How-to-get-the-song-list--td16233595.html
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/softkaraoke/message/2169

Multak could be the manufacturer for several players, see www.multak.com

Before we start analysing the files can you have a look in the files whether you can find any trace (name) of conventional database?

[bigboss97]

Related data found:


Based on that your version shouldn't have:
51279 9 CON SỐ 1 LINH HỒN
which is in the list nhac tong hop (1-31).pdf

[bigboss97]

Song ID= pink, offset= green

If you substract the green number you get the length of the song name.
0xa4 - 0x98 = 12
0xb5 - 0xa4 = 17
0xca - 0xb5 = 21

[Pminh]

Data pattern of Multak.dat

First 150 blocks:

....multak3.3.....ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ..è.Ð.¸. .ˆ.p.X.ÿÿÿÿ..ë"Ó&»*ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ=-%1.5õ8ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿö8Þ<Æ@®Dÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ—E.IÿÿÿÿÿÿLK4Oÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ5O

Is this telling us information about multak firmware and/or the dat file itself?
Following the header is what looks like a TOC. I think this is where the money is! See attached file: header+-+Multak.dat

Following the TOC is 112128 blocks of 00.

The rest of the file contains chunks of data. Each chunk starts with:

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 D6 1F 00 00 4F 4B 00 00 00 00 02 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

4F 4B is a constant "OK". D6 1F is variable, as well as 02 00 01 00 01. I think the OK signifies the begining of a midi song. The variables indicate length? language? id? included mp3 vocal?

Each song always ends with a footer:

Three-block data repeated for a variable number of times (at least 10 on rough calculation) ...... some data in between ...... three-block data (different to before) repeated for a variable number of times

The length of 00 in between songs seems to be arbitrary. I don't know if it is just random redundancies or it could mean something. See sample chunks: block+243664+-+356463.dat

Seeing chunks of data like this suggest that multak.dat is not compressed. At least the entire file isn’t, the individual song may be compressed though.

[bigboss97]

Can you see any English word?
In the other Arirang disk, I could see song title in each block.
You can try to search for typical words like "love", "baby" etc. Try upper- and lowercase and also unicode, i.e. with zero byte in between.

[bigboss97]

list_arirang.zip

[Pminh]

Great work. How about English songs?

[Pminh]

I found these two songs with plain english title:

how+do+you+want+me+to+love+you

silly+love+song

I don't have programming experience with C or Hex editting. But i am willing to help in anyway i can. Please guide me along :D I am a quick learner.

[bigboss97]

They look very promising. Even the lyrics are visible:

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/9/911/how+do+you+want+me+to+love+you_20001547.html

I hope all songs look like this (better than the old Arirang). But I don't understand what are the bytes between the letters. How would a Chinese (dual-byte) song look like?
If there are always some unidentified bytes in between there will be bigger challenge for us to read the MIDI parts.

Pminh wrote:

I found these two songs with plain english title:

[bigboss97]

When I was trying to get the Chinese list my loop simply ran through everything. So, you should find the English list somewhere in the middle and some other languages (Korean, Japanese??). Of course, they are incorrect because I can't convert them to unicode.


list_arirang.zip

[bigboss97]

list_arirang.zip