Electronic Arts Formats

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  • Extensions: ASF, CMV, DCT, SND, TGI, TGV, TGQ, WVE, UV, UV2, MAD, VP6
  • Company: Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, the video game publishing empire, and the various constituent development houses under its umbrella, have deployed a number of multimedia formats in its games.

EA multimedia formats are comprised of a series of blocks with the following format:

bytes 0-3    block type FourCC
bytes 4-7    block size (including this 8-byte preamble)
bytes 8..    block payload

It is important to note that there is no consistent byte order for multi-byte numbers. However, order is optimized for target platform, i.e. little-endian for PC/PS/XBOX and big-endian for Mac/Saturn/GameCube.

Chunk Types

Games Using Electronic Arts Multimedia Formats

Name File Ext Video Codec Audio Codec Byte Order
NHL 95 cmv CMV none le
NHL 96 tgv ? ? ?
CyberMage: Darklight Awakening tgv TGV 1SNx/EACS/pcm_s8 le
Need for Speed tgv TGV 1SNx/EACS/pcm_s8 le
Privateer 2: The Darkening tgv TGV SEAD/adpcm_ima_ea_sead le
NBA Live 96 tgv TGV 1SNh/EACS/adpcm_ima_ea_eacs le
Need for Speed 2 dct DCT SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
Need for Speed 2 (Demo) uv TGQ SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
Beasts and Bumpkins m10 - PT/? le
Warcraft II: The Dark Saga (Sega Saturn) tgq TGQ ? be
Superbike 2001 tgq ? ? ?
Crusader: No Remorse (Sega Saturn) tgq TGQ 1SNh/EACS/mulaw be
Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup tgq TQI (not a typo) SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
Wing Commander: Prophecy wve TQI SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
The Sims wve TQI SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
NBA Live 99 mad MAD SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit mad MAD SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
Need for Speed 4: High Stakes mad MAD SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea le
Need for Speed 5: Porsche mad MAD SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea_r1 le
Need for Speed 6: Hot Pursuit 2 mad MAD SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea_r1 le
NBA Live 2003 mad MAD pcm_s16le_planar le
asf none SCHl/PT/mp3 le
FIFA 2004 mad ? ? ?
FIFA 2005 mad MAD SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea_r1, SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea_r3 le
Sim City 4: Rush Hour mad MAD ? ?
The Sims 2 mad MAD ? ?
Need for Speed: Underground (PlayStation 2) mpc MPC SCHl/PT/adpcm_ea_r2 le
FIFA 2007 (PlayStation 2) mpc MPC SCHl/GSTR/adpcm_ea_r3 le
Need for Speed: Underground 2 vp6 VP6 SCHl/GSTR/adpcm_ea_r3 le
Need for Speed: Most Wanted vp6 VP6 SCHl/GSTR/adpcm_ea_r3 le
Need for Speed: Carbon vp6 VP6 SCHl/GSTR/adpcm_ea_r3 le
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth vp6 VP6 ? ?
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II vp6 VP6 ? ?
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II - The Rise of the Witch-King vp6 VP6 ? ?
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars vp6/snd VP6 SCHl/GSTR/adpcm_ea_r3 le
Need for Speed: Pro Street vp6 VP6 SHEN/GSTR/ealayer3 le
Red Alert 3 vp6/snd VP6 SCHl/GSTR/adpcm_ea_r3 le

In addition to FMV, the EA audio chunk types are frequently used throughout Electronic Arts games for music tracks, audio effects and speech. Older titles use the .ASF file extension for individual music tracks, whereas newer titles store multiple audio sequentially within the one file (hence rational for the ending chunk types) and use a variety of file extensions.