Post by wcwpowersite on Jan 17, 2008 2:22:50 GMT -5
Let me start by saying that I haven't watched wrestling in many years but after I stopped I stayed a fan of two things, the Fire Pro Wrestling series and Wrestlecrap because good video games and good comedy are always just that, good video games and good comedy.
I'd like to share with you, the community, some info on what I presume is a bit of a rare item and one that may very well be locked away forever. This is absolute wrestlecrap and it's a real shame that I can't show you guys because I'm really not sure how many of you would have ever been able to see it. If you google WCW Cybermatches right now you'll get 3 results and zero if you do a search in these forums. If anyone knows about this and could correct me on what I'm saying, please come forward. I am working on a very shady memory and very very little resources I could find on the net.
In around the 1999 era, a company known as United Internet Technologies came up with a new idea for how people would get their content on the internet. I won't link to the site they had because the one I tried now boast such features as "Granny Cam". The idea was to send people content CD-Roms via snail mail every so often. Once you installed their software, you'd go to a special site where you'd watch videos of whatever subject that would be in, for the time, good quality and that would load up instantly. It would load up instantly because it was on your CD-Rom drive. I know, how did this idea not pick up?
Well apparently WCW, or at least A Time-Warner Company, saw some real potential in the idea and made some kind of deal to get their wrestlers in on this sweet internet by CD-Rom action. So born was the WCW Powersite CD that I came in possession of. Why me? To do this day I do not know. I got one in the mail one day, none of my friends who were into wrestling got one, I don't know if anyone else on the planet ever did, it was addressed to me and to my knowledge I never signed up for anything. For all I know, one copy exist.
So what was the content on the disk and why does this qualify as Wrestlecrap? Well there was the least interesting WCW Hardware section that advertised crap like T-Shirts and what have you. There was the WCW Stars section that had mini-bio movies, think of those WCW Nitro for the Playstation videos and that's the general idea. Finally there was the WCW Cybermatches.
One video I remember was of Mike Tenay and some other guy talking about the concept of the Cybermatches, which were exclusive matches you could only watch via this website/CD. Cybermatches were fought in the deadly Cyberdome. "Bone Jarring Matches Direct from Cyberspace in an arena you won't believe until you see it for yourself" as the inside sleeve explains. What really was the Cyberdome? Wrestling mat on a blue screen stage. Mike Tenay didn't say that, I'm telling you that. They had a WCW ring on a blue screen stage and they then animated a 3D arena around it that was very sleek, futuristic and was very accurately empty seated.
It gets better, around the outside of the ring and I am not making this up, were dangerous obstacles. I'm doing my best to remember but I'm thinking the dangers changed in different matches and among them were Fiery Pits and pop up spikes (think Mortal Kombat the first movie, last fight). Yes, these were 3D animated with the rest of the arena and yes the wrestlers were supposed to sell the idea that they were really there. I'll say it again, there were deadly spikes popping up and down surrounding the ring.
And who fought in these Cybermatches? Well there were 3 matches on this disk and my mind has all but suppressed them so I don't remember everyone but I do remember 2, Erik Watts and Kenny Koas. I think their match was against each other and if that's the two I CAN remember, just imagine who else must have been in these.
Now I'm sure you're wondering, what happens if they fall outside the ring? Do the 3D animated spikes and fire pits kill them? Are they animated dying? Well I don't know because I specifically remember that not one of the wrestlers ever fell out of the ring. They couldn't fall out the ring. . . that would mean actually doing something with these spikes and since those spikes weren't there but supposed to be there, you were guaranteed that no one was ever going to fall out of the ring in any of these matches. Beautiful, isn't it?
In fact, Kenny Koas is the only one that ever ended up on the outside apron, he was holding on to the ropes and gave a look into the general area of the floor and did his best "uh oh, spikes!" face and then simply rolled back into the ring. No other acknowledgments that these matches were in anyway "cyber" was ever made by the "talent" in the ring. Of course, "Mike Tenay" reminded us plenty while "commentating".
The inside sleeve says that there will be new Matches twice a month being sent out via the CDs. I kind of doubt this panned out because this first CD alone is pretty rare.
Unfortunately, this crap may be lost forever. I only found this CD again recently, assuming it had been tossed in the garbage years ago and I was reluctant to even put it into my new computer, afraid of what may happen. I finally gathered the courage to check it out and made some discoveries while tampering around and finding just one website with information on how this worked.
The video files are MPEG-1 but they are encoded in a .PAV format. This is done so no other player can play these files. The website, in this case wcw.com/powersite has files with the same names except in .ULI format. With the installed software, the .ULI (small file) loads up and finds the corresponding .PAV file (large video file) in your CD-Rom and plays it.
Try that link today and where do you end up? WWE.com of course. So I tried going to Archive.org and finding the old ULI files from their cached wcw.com/powersite. I was able to recover at least 1 but clicking on it in my webbrowser didn't seem to do anything, so I downloaded it to my computer. I found the ULI player I installed and directly loaded up the .EXE and it asked for a ULI file. I chose the one I had and it found the movie file on my disk but then another snag happened. In what you normally didn't see, I don't think, using the normal site a little window popped up saying the ULI file was connecting to a server to verify a password. The password couldn't be seen and I probably don't have to tell you, whatever server it was trying to find is long gone. It's all like a stone age DRM.
So I tried loading the .PAV files directly into WMP and that just caused a crash. I tried some more thorough players and with 2 of the best I knew, ones that could play anything I've ever thrown at them, I was able to load up about one corrupted frame of each video before the video would freeze or the program would crash.
Since this .PAV encoding wasn't exactly wide spread there isn't really a high demand for any code crackers to make me a program where I can turn these files back into .mpeg. I myself do not have the capability of making such a conversion tool and with the only known copy of this disk, I'm afraid there's no way I'll be able to show you guys these ridiculous, 100% wrestlecrap matches.
If you guys have any questions on things I might not have made clear or anything I might be able to show or tell you, please ask. I might be able to get a scan of the CD and sleeve if anyone is really interested.
I'd like to share with you, the community, some info on what I presume is a bit of a rare item and one that may very well be locked away forever. This is absolute wrestlecrap and it's a real shame that I can't show you guys because I'm really not sure how many of you would have ever been able to see it. If you google WCW Cybermatches right now you'll get 3 results and zero if you do a search in these forums. If anyone knows about this and could correct me on what I'm saying, please come forward. I am working on a very shady memory and very very little resources I could find on the net.
In around the 1999 era, a company known as United Internet Technologies came up with a new idea for how people would get their content on the internet. I won't link to the site they had because the one I tried now boast such features as "Granny Cam". The idea was to send people content CD-Roms via snail mail every so often. Once you installed their software, you'd go to a special site where you'd watch videos of whatever subject that would be in, for the time, good quality and that would load up instantly. It would load up instantly because it was on your CD-Rom drive. I know, how did this idea not pick up?
Well apparently WCW, or at least A Time-Warner Company, saw some real potential in the idea and made some kind of deal to get their wrestlers in on this sweet internet by CD-Rom action. So born was the WCW Powersite CD that I came in possession of. Why me? To do this day I do not know. I got one in the mail one day, none of my friends who were into wrestling got one, I don't know if anyone else on the planet ever did, it was addressed to me and to my knowledge I never signed up for anything. For all I know, one copy exist.
So what was the content on the disk and why does this qualify as Wrestlecrap? Well there was the least interesting WCW Hardware section that advertised crap like T-Shirts and what have you. There was the WCW Stars section that had mini-bio movies, think of those WCW Nitro for the Playstation videos and that's the general idea. Finally there was the WCW Cybermatches.
One video I remember was of Mike Tenay and some other guy talking about the concept of the Cybermatches, which were exclusive matches you could only watch via this website/CD. Cybermatches were fought in the deadly Cyberdome. "Bone Jarring Matches Direct from Cyberspace in an arena you won't believe until you see it for yourself" as the inside sleeve explains. What really was the Cyberdome? Wrestling mat on a blue screen stage. Mike Tenay didn't say that, I'm telling you that. They had a WCW ring on a blue screen stage and they then animated a 3D arena around it that was very sleek, futuristic and was very accurately empty seated.
It gets better, around the outside of the ring and I am not making this up, were dangerous obstacles. I'm doing my best to remember but I'm thinking the dangers changed in different matches and among them were Fiery Pits and pop up spikes (think Mortal Kombat the first movie, last fight). Yes, these were 3D animated with the rest of the arena and yes the wrestlers were supposed to sell the idea that they were really there. I'll say it again, there were deadly spikes popping up and down surrounding the ring.
And who fought in these Cybermatches? Well there were 3 matches on this disk and my mind has all but suppressed them so I don't remember everyone but I do remember 2, Erik Watts and Kenny Koas. I think their match was against each other and if that's the two I CAN remember, just imagine who else must have been in these.
Now I'm sure you're wondering, what happens if they fall outside the ring? Do the 3D animated spikes and fire pits kill them? Are they animated dying? Well I don't know because I specifically remember that not one of the wrestlers ever fell out of the ring. They couldn't fall out the ring. . . that would mean actually doing something with these spikes and since those spikes weren't there but supposed to be there, you were guaranteed that no one was ever going to fall out of the ring in any of these matches. Beautiful, isn't it?
In fact, Kenny Koas is the only one that ever ended up on the outside apron, he was holding on to the ropes and gave a look into the general area of the floor and did his best "uh oh, spikes!" face and then simply rolled back into the ring. No other acknowledgments that these matches were in anyway "cyber" was ever made by the "talent" in the ring. Of course, "Mike Tenay" reminded us plenty while "commentating".
The inside sleeve says that there will be new Matches twice a month being sent out via the CDs. I kind of doubt this panned out because this first CD alone is pretty rare.
Unfortunately, this crap may be lost forever. I only found this CD again recently, assuming it had been tossed in the garbage years ago and I was reluctant to even put it into my new computer, afraid of what may happen. I finally gathered the courage to check it out and made some discoveries while tampering around and finding just one website with information on how this worked.
The video files are MPEG-1 but they are encoded in a .PAV format. This is done so no other player can play these files. The website, in this case wcw.com/powersite has files with the same names except in .ULI format. With the installed software, the .ULI (small file) loads up and finds the corresponding .PAV file (large video file) in your CD-Rom and plays it.
Try that link today and where do you end up? WWE.com of course. So I tried going to Archive.org and finding the old ULI files from their cached wcw.com/powersite. I was able to recover at least 1 but clicking on it in my webbrowser didn't seem to do anything, so I downloaded it to my computer. I found the ULI player I installed and directly loaded up the .EXE and it asked for a ULI file. I chose the one I had and it found the movie file on my disk but then another snag happened. In what you normally didn't see, I don't think, using the normal site a little window popped up saying the ULI file was connecting to a server to verify a password. The password couldn't be seen and I probably don't have to tell you, whatever server it was trying to find is long gone. It's all like a stone age DRM.
So I tried loading the .PAV files directly into WMP and that just caused a crash. I tried some more thorough players and with 2 of the best I knew, ones that could play anything I've ever thrown at them, I was able to load up about one corrupted frame of each video before the video would freeze or the program would crash.
Since this .PAV encoding wasn't exactly wide spread there isn't really a high demand for any code crackers to make me a program where I can turn these files back into .mpeg. I myself do not have the capability of making such a conversion tool and with the only known copy of this disk, I'm afraid there's no way I'll be able to show you guys these ridiculous, 100% wrestlecrap matches.
If you guys have any questions on things I might not have made clear or anything I might be able to show or tell you, please ask. I might be able to get a scan of the CD and sleeve if anyone is really interested.
