The new portal sounds are SSTV!

[mspinney203]

This video went viral on Vilnius

[heavyhammer31]

where exactly do these sound files appear? do they appear in-game or are they just hidden in the game files?

[BerlinDavid]

I use RX-SSTV its freeeeeeeee

[HurricaneSondra]

yes, the program if it is an sstv program, will intercept the tones as pixals. it then "draws" out the image as if it were sent from something like an ipod touch camera. really neat mode of communication.

[TheCarsten1000]

how do you get it so clear when i do it i cant see the aperture laboratories so how do you do it

[maradona108]

in wich folder can i find the sounds?

[DjsamNo1]

so can you do photos to sound?

[TRPWiz]

Sounds like my Spectrum, how it loads images from a tape :)

[TheChickenrun3]

did u slick sync and lick happy face? u should

[sonic10158]

where can I download the sound files?

[tbw88ph9]

where did you find them in the portal files?(steam)

[UberKyoPyro]

in the download which one should I click on

[iEugene1994]

Robot36 sucks !

[SupahSonic7734]

Can someone tell me how to decode wav files with this?

[ddrmaxman]

*buys Portal 2 at midnight special release* "OMG! OMG! OMG!!! This is going to be flippin awesome! =D

Day 1: *beats game* Freaking. . . amaaaaaazzzzing"

Day 2: *finds rattman's final transmition* This game went from awesome, to freaky. . .

[bben95]

what is portal? I was just searching for sstv

[goggles86]

@bben95

Portal is a small video-game which got a HUGE following.

An update to it after its release included a "side-mission" (called an achievement) where you collect radios and in a certain spot, the radio gives off a signal, which the fans have pieced together to create a SSTV.

It's merely a cool feature added to the game by the developers.

[miguelk12]

Could you do a tutorial vid to get this setup? :P Please? *Bows down*

[VaygrX]

Damn, this is the most creepy thing that i've seen on a game O_O

[gytukas100]

Thumbs up if in chamber 01 you found the transmission then incinerated the radio and you got a fright.

[Raiden738]

I've downloaded the software...but I can't find out how to use it. Please help.

[DoomTay]

The original sounds were WAVs. How did you convert them to MMVs with no distortion and all that?

[AWWWWTF]

That's so amazing yet so fucking annoying.

[DontLetMeFail]

doing it myself :D

[WiiMan43920]

Aww... the Bullitin Board System Numbers are scratched out... I'd call it too if I could! :'(

[lotlat]

oh god...

[teeelo]

People like you ARE AWESOME.

UP's to you and valve for your ingenuity.

[MrChocobro]

DELICIOUS XCHAT

[Savage413]

thats so creepy

[SplEagles]

kinda creepy

[1234PivotAnimator]

mine only appears some random things,whats going on?

[martinsa0182]

that is sooo weird, and mystifying

[DirtyRodent]

interessingly, i can extract the picture from the youtube video itself, and looks almost the same, lol.

[gregofeight]

@InvaderZimus I have quite a few open. I normally have +20 tabs open in chrome, and several apps running. Chrome, steam, Putty, Gtalk, windows live messenger, and windows live mail.

[BeezBugs]

mistery solved @ steam forums, its a BBS client which gives a bunch of ascii art, which later was released in a magazine.

[NatPJ1]

Is that second picture a phone number? You should try to call it...I cant read it on this video, can you?

[LLawliet435]

the second one looks like a phone number

[1nazchan]

incredible, you cracked it! :D

[HighFPS]

amazing

[any343]

aperture science. we creep you out because we can

[NaujAKAJuan]

Maybe it's part of a code for Portal 2. Many of the images seem to share C,B,8, and 2.

[hiddenbutt]

umm yeah. how do i open a file. i tried to get a certain sound but it wouldnt show up.

[stormsirens2]

I found a program called Multipsk and it has SSTV (its a ham radio signal recorder) but all I get is messy color static :/

[gmod92]

Where is the sounds in your portal folder?

[deathcloud33]

@gmod92 You have to get them from 'portal content.gcf' using gcfscape.

[VgBerg]

Can you encode with this program too?

[SargonAnkro]

@VgBerg of course.

[Hanoch1]

those 6 0 and 8 on the keyboard.. Maybe the new portal game will be released on aug 6th?

[Dolphin3007]

Can you codify a image whit this?

lol, i love when VALVe does things like this.

[MonoOak]

Uh, this is going to sound stupid and all, but how do you use MMSSTV?

Right now I only want to use RX to decode the portal sounds myself, but there is no information on how to load the sounds respectively... there are also no tutorials on the web.

Is it like, you have to turn on stereomix and play off whatever you want to decode and change a whole bunch of input and output settings and asdfasdfasdfsendsignalstodying­pilotsasdfasdf...

Any help would be appreciated.

[Enderdragon91]

In your forum post you mentioned a bbs, could you like us?

[Rcrby525]

Portal 2 has been in development since december of 2007, which explains these updates.

[ChibiBanana1]

I got sstv, but I have no clue how to use it to scan those images :( A little help?

[Piedoom0]

ahhh bbs= bullitin board system. Valve recently released the username and password to one of the bbs website-things. In the update, letters were underlined... I think it was rattmann or somthing of the sort. After "logging" in you see pictures- saying portal will be co-op.

[crazymcfobo]

As always, Valve has a very.... Interesting marketing technique.

[TheFXGuy]

that is beast.

How does that work? Each tone represents a pixel's color and that program interprets it?

[gregofeight]

@TheFXGuy Basically yes. It's also similar to how old school OTA TV works, the difference being that your TV uses the light spectrum, rather than audio, and it also has a lot more bandwidth.

[Poodleinacan]

haha, that's pretty ingenius from the portal team.

[Nattacus]

Oh, valve. that's pretty hardcore

[thenukeknowsall]

This could mean portal 2 is coming out soon!

[killer1one11]

@thenukeknowsall everyone knows that, its been confirmed you know...

[jgmurua]

algunas imagenes tienen letras marcadas o teclas de un teclado, en total son 32 imagenes que indican letras se encuentran numeradas, pero desordenadas, al ordenarlas obtenemos una frase de 32 caracteres : 4459c6cac8c203b8()28b>cc63068d­4fd alguien sabe que significa esto ?

[8B6EB8]

do you have a vaio?

[gregofeight]

Yeah, Sony VAIO VGN-NW250F

[8B6EB8]

@gregofeight cool, i have a VGN-NW21MF

[wesmckay]

Sounds like the sound got overdriven or had some RF get into it. Great idea, though!

[PwNeDoScAr]

IIs anyone else having trouble getting the forum page to open?

Side note, YouTube decided to redesign itself while I was logging in to type this, and now I can' see what I'm typing. Just friggin' great.

[xboy105]

@SiPlusPLKV well has anyone cracked these codes yet and/or deciphered their meaning?

[WideWiseGuy]

I tried this yesterday and now I found this video. It was awesome :P

[DoomTay]

How exactly did you do this? I'm trying to get it to work with htat same program, but no luck

[KazCrazy1]

You're my hero

[akacopman]

hmm... Mabye some code to the borialis?

if not some kind of password or test chamber?

[ELIUFIGUEROAROCKS]

What is this please explain?..

[TehhCake]

No one really KNOWS dumbass! Or else it would be explained!!!!

[BlobSquad]

They're snapshots and art from Portal 2. The two robots holding hands are the robots for multiplayer in Portal 2.

[cazyforlegos]

how much do you wanna bet those numbers and letters are in direct correlation to portal 2's test chamber map identity and will have something to do with the test chamber these are found in.

[riku2211]

@cazyforlegos anything, because the numbers are a code, which is translated or something into a BBS code. not sure of the details, go on facepunch, tons of details there.

[cazyforlegos]

i was talking about the images. there are a bunch of codes like c3c6 and so on. they look like the map file names in my opinion

[riku2211]

@cazyforlegos yeah, thats what i was talking about ;D

[paulinleicester]

Being both a Radio HAM and someone who actualy uses SSTV on an almost daily basis with my friends over VHF it is so awesom to see this in one of my favorite games!

[MrZoider]

gives me the creeps

[POPCORN454545]

u know what???..this is EXACTLY how a fax machine works, EXCAAAAACTLY

[gameraxg23]

rly? haha

[POPCORN454545]

well yeah..it sends out electrical tones through the phone line and the fax turns those electrical tones into coulers, witch are printed onto teh paper

[jacobk243]

Its mixing portal and half life togeather maybe freeman or alyx will be using the portal gun or going through the test

[ps2gether]

Apature Science is mentioned in one the the Half Life 2 games

[kroutonjr]

its mentioned in episode2 near the end when eli is telling u u must make it to the borialis it shows on that monitor or whatever.

[Shintaka9009]

I wonder what it must have felt like to first find this. To start... uhm... 'decoding' the sound and seeing that image appear.

Must have felt like you'd found Atlantis or something. :D

[Anarasha]

@Shintaka9009 There really wasn't a "first one" to find this out as it was a joint effort in a thread about the patch. Some of these image sounds also translated as morse code.

[kinetik44]

@Shintaka9009

probably the discovery of the person's life considering what there is left to discover in the world

[gregofeight]

@Shintaka9009 Nah, more like I'm a nerd who doesn't get out enough, ahem, at all. :)

[BohemoanHarlequin]

I have a theory that this might in some way relate to the video Alyx found from Judith at the end of HL Episode 2. Wasn't Judith looking for an aperture science ship?

~Rob

[BohemoanHarlequin]

Sorry, it was episode one, not two. And at the end of epsisode two, Gordon and alyx were going to set out to find the ship, the Borealis (I looked up the name), so maybe this heralds the release of episode 3?

~Rob

[Waluigi101]

Agreed. I was thinking this was for HL 3, perhaps a secret in the game you can unlock using these hints. If not that, Portal 2. I'd be glad either way.

[boboon07]

@BohemoanHarlequin Yeah The Borealis

[Chabs232]

Alienz! ALIENZ! RUN FOR YOUR LIFES

That thing is just awsomeness pure. They have suck creativity... I mean... You can't beat the meat...

Hard stuff hard stuff bro.

-TheDoomSayer.

[Emnu931]

Maybe the letters are a code

[gregofeight]

As I said in the forum post (link in description): "some numbers are circled, and when put together, they're a number for a BBS in Seattle. If you log in, you can see several portal related items there."

[Emnu931]

Huh? STep by step please

[UntouchedShadovv]

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!

[MeTheOneth]

Valve is made of genius.

[Yeroc357]

reminds me of the good old 1-18-08 days

[n00bie51]

lol I saw Tyke

[VaultTec007]

Sounds like the noise HAARP makes when sending up it's IRI. Could possibly hint to the weather control chapter that was supposed to be in the HL2 beta? Could it be used in Episode Three? Cannot wait for GDC now.

[gregofeight]

I've re-transcribed all the images, they are a bit clearer now. Please join the forum and post any news/theories you have about Portal 2. :)

[ddenns]

That is so freaking cool.

[smitti9]

My mind is BLOWN.

[AlexPwnzNubz]

How did you get yours so clear? Mine came out all green and staticy. I could kind of see an image, but now as clear as yours. How did you do it?

[gregofeight]

It depends on the quality of the sound that your microphone is receiving. I achieved those images by holding up my zune earbuds to the microphone port on my laptop, which gave acceptable audio quality. However, I would recommend hooking up your sound out to line in port to get the best image quality.

[AlexPwnzNubz]

Thank you!

Stereo mix did the job just fine.

[HeroForge]

Not even necessary; I'm using the "what you hear" setting, which means that it's interpreting whatever sounds the system generates, without using a mic. So for all intents, it's reading the sound without distortion. Are there any settings in the program you tweaked, or am I just S.O.L.?

[gregofeight]

Nope, I ran it at it's default settings. You might want to try playing the sounds at different volumes though, it could be that your playing it too loud or soft for the program.

[legice]

loved valve,knew they were the best...and god dammit,...they did it again!

ROCK ON VALVE!

[HeroForge]

I've tried this myself, using the same software, and the images I get are extremely grainy and hard to read. How'd you get them to come through so clearly?

[gregofeight]

It depends on the quality of the sound that your microphone is receiving. I achieved those images by holding up my zune earbuds to the microphone port on my laptop, which gave acceptable audio quality. However, I would recommend hooking up your sound out to line in port to get the best image quality.

[outoforder2day]

Amateur Radio FTW!

[TheKido34]

Valve ... That's just AWESOME !

[hoza41]

lmao!

[LMNTX]

Goddamn it, Valve

I love you.

[mrstrawberryusagi]

yeah... SCARY COOL!!!

[wari65]

VALVE IS SCARY!!!

[AugustoMoura88]

That's sort of... scary.

[canviskiller]

awesome i got stero mix going and the pictures are going out perfect.

thanks for telling me about that had to google it to get it to turn on!

[canviskiller]

can you please tell me how to make it so MMSSTV picks up sound coming from windows media player?

[gregofeight]

I was able to do it by just using earbuds, and putting one of them next to my microphone. If your computer has a "WAVEMIX" or "Stereo Mix" mic, you can also do it that way (basically, that's a loopback, any sound your computer plays will be heard on the microphone input.

[canviskiller]

what i mean greg is where in mmsstv do i go to set where its recording sound at?

[gregofeight]

Ah, well it should pick up the sounds from whatever input device Windows is using, at least that's how it worked for me.

[canviskiller]

ah alright well ill just say f it and hook up my mic lol thanks for the help.

[tobascodagama]

The equation on the notepad is a modified version of one of Maxwell's Laws.

One of the other images seems to also have the 6,8,0 motif in it, too.

[omgomgomgd]

OH SNAP WE JUST GOT TROLLED. GG VALVE.

[alebak]

Man, I didnt know about this Portal update stuff. What are we looking at? ARG about the sequel?

How long has this been going on?

[nembutals]

The surprise update went out just a couple hours ago. Everyone's been jumping on this on the Steam forums.

[Modularized]

just today

[TheHardonCollider]

How come mine won't register my sound card's input?

[blastedt]

I wish. It's machine code!

[CvShadow0]

It's a machine code.

[Daedalus117]

I want XCOM sounds for my steam :O

[Fai27]

you are a god amongst men

[supermot34]

Sure is XCOM menu sound in here