Bink Container
This page is based on the document 'Description of the Bink File Format' by Mike Melanson at http://multimedia.cx/bink-format.txt.
- Extenstions: bik
- Company: RAD Game Tools
- Samples: http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/game-formats/bink/, countless video games
Bink files are multimedia files used in a variety of video games, both on personal computers platforms and video game consoles. The files act as containers for data compressed with the proprietary Bink video and audio codecs. Bink multimedia files are known to bear the .bik extension.
File Format
This description is known to be incomplete.
All multi-byte numbers are stored in little endian format.
Bink files appear to start with a 56-byte header which is laid out as follows:
bytes 0-2 file signature ('BIK') byte 3 possibly a file version number (0x62, 0x66, 0x67, 0x68, 0x69 b,f,g,h,i respectivly) bytes 4-7 file size not including the first 8 bytes bytes 8-11 number of frames bytes 12-15 largest frame size in bytes bytes 16-19 number of frames again? bytes 20-23 video width bytes 24-27 video height bytes 28-31 video frames per second dividend bytes 32-35 video frames per second divider bytes 36-39 unknown bytes 40-43 audio flag: if 0, header ends; if 1, header continues; bytes 44-45 unknown bytes 46-47 audio channels (1 or 2) bytes 48-49 audio sample rate bytes 50-55 unknown
Following the header is a sample offset table. The number of entries in the table is equal to the number of samples specified in the header. Each entry consists of a 32-bit absolute offset for that sample. There is no length information, so the length of a sample is implicitly the difference between sample offsets. One frame contains both audio and video data (if both are present it the file). Bytes 12-15 (largest frame size) probably exist to provide the playback application with the largest single buffer it will have to allocate.
Exe files
Bink data can be contained in exe files. To find where to start decoding search in the file for one of 4 id's:
'fKIB' 'gKIB' 'hKIB' 'iKIB'
Note that this is BIK value is in machine order (therefore appears backwords for x86 binaries).
Revision b is found in Heroes of Might and Magic 3.