Sofdec

From Sega Retro

Sofdec.svg

CRI Sofdec, formerly known as MPEG Sofdec, is a video container format developed by CRI Middleware and initially released in 1996.

CRI Sofdec is essentially a wrapper for MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video, with ADX-encoded audio. Close ties with CRI meant CRI ADX was widely used across late Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast titles, and with the Dreamcast's native support for MPEG, it is perhaps unsuprising that Sofdec was also widely used during this period as a means to link the two technologies. The majority of Dreamcast titles which stream full motion video use CRI Sofdec, while only a small handful of Saturn games do.

Sega continued to use the format after adopting its multi-platform strategy in 2001, however today the technology is considered obsolete, with CRI themselves having since launched successors in CRI ADX 2 and CRI Sofdec 2.

CRI Sofdec videos have the file extension .sfd.

Games which utilise CRI Sofdec

Saturn

Dreamcast

PlayStation 2

Nintendo GameCube

Xbox

Windows PC

References