SSBB Bin file viewer

The SSBB Bin file viewer is a simple viewing converting application for screenshots taken with Smash Brothers Brawl and stored to SD card. The actual cracking work on the bin files was done by GTCoder, all I (Link) did was porting his code and writing a graphical user interface for easy use.

This documentation is intended to show you the absolute basics of the program, there isn't much to be demonstated anyway - I assume you know how to get screenshots done in Brawl and you have a cardreader for your PC and all of that ready!

Contents of this documentation

Basic use

Once you open the application convert.exe you will be greated by the following simple interface:

To open your first screenshot select File->Open (you can also drag & drop it into the window from Windows Explorer, select Rightclick->Open File or click on in the toolbar)! In the appearing browse dialog navigate to your screenshots - if you browse to them on an SD card, Smash Bros saves screenshots to private\wii\app\RSBJ\al - once reached your folder feel free to select a file of choice, they all end with the extension .bin . Once opened, it should appear in the main window:



Now once the file is opened, the best thing to do with it is to store it on your harddisk in a reguar computer format - after all you probably want to share them via forums, IMs, e-mails or whatever. To do this, simply select File->Save (again you're also free to use Rightclick->Save File (automatic mode) or the button in the toolbar). If you do so, the program auto-selects which save mode should apply for the image you used - there are differences between 4:3 (normal screen or full screen) and 16:9 (widescreen), I will explain these later for those of you interested!

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Converting multiple files at once

Most of the time you probably do not want to convert single pictures but many at once! This is why the Batch mode exists - to use it select Tools->Batch conversion (alternative: click on in the toolbar). The following window will appear:

Using Add files or Add directory you can add multiple files into the list showing on the left of the screen. Please note: if you enable Include subdirectories together with Add directory please note that the following process might take a long time - also note using Add directory all files found will be added to the list, not just those with the extension .bin .
If you want to remove files from the list, simply select them with your mouse and do a Right-click->Clear selected - doing Right-click->Clear all will clear the whole list!

You can additionally select the output directory for your files (should be auto-set the first time you add files to the list). The output format settings can normally be left the way they are - if you're interested in tweaking here, please read the technical chapter - the differences between 4:3 and 16:9 output will be explained there. Then you can also select the output picture quality (normally this setting only applies to 16:9 pictures if you do not change this setting). In the end you can decide whether the program may overwrite existing files (if it may not, it will choose another output filename if it would have to overwrite a file).

Clicking on OK will start the conversion!

Now all those files are converted.

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Technical details and the resulting settings

Unfortunately SSBB internally always stores files as encrypted 640x480 (4:3) JPEG files - regardless whether you play in widescreen mode or in full screen. This means for us: when you simply decrypt a 16:9 screenshot it will look stretched vertically. The program however can detect whether a screenshot should be in widescreen or fullscreen format. Fullscreen screenshots are normally directly stored as JPEG files while for widescreen screenshots the screenshots will normally be resized to either 640x360 or 853x480. However, you can influence that behaviour:

All settings are stored to an INI file - no data is stored in your Windows registry - to uninstall the program just delete it!

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Special thanks

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