Portal 2: Chamber 17 SSTV signal decoded

Those bursts of sound in the Rat man's den are actually SSTV signals that can be decoded into images using SSTV decoding softwares such as this:
http://users.belgacom.net/hamradio/rxsstv.htm

This is from the Rat man's den in test chamber 17, with the developer commentary on, you'll find a chat bubble that only plays this sound, well here it is, decoded.

link to another decoded signal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPDS7r_mv7U

Slide 1:
Portal 2 Announcement ARG (Alternate Reality Game, google it, there's lots of them which are awesome)
- Created by people working on Portal 2
- Intended for enthusiastic superfans
- Budget of less than $100
- Portal updated to include radios, brod-
casting mysterious SSTV images
- Certain images contained pieces of an
MD5 hash of a phone number
- Phone number lead to an old-fashioned BBS
-Estimated time to 'solve': 7 hours
- Actual time to solve: 7 hours 16 minutes

Slide 2:
Portal 2 SSTV Images
- Analogue format used in HAM radio
- Watching video of ISS SSTV soft-
ware running sound from laptop speakers
unexpectedly picked up by microphone
- Peculiar squeking and beeping degrades
in visually interesting ways
- Photos of Valve whiteboards, equipment
and anything science-related lying around
- Finding radios in Portal made for fun meta-game everyone could join in

Slide 3:
Aperture Laboratories BBS
- Single analogue phone line in a designer's kitchen (phone
systems in Valve office too modern)
- Old PC running Linux attached to a 2400 bps modem
from 1987 via USB to serial adaptor)
- ngetty to handle calls, custom PHP script looping through
plot fragments and home-made ANSI-art conversions of
Portal 2 artwork
- Transmitted about 20 MB of data *garbled text*
- phoneline constantly engaged!
- Several spare modems in case one died - none did
- SSH backdoor for updates and monitoring (possible to watch exactly what people were seeing as they dialed in)
- Combined might of internets is terrifying

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• portal
• easter
• egg
• RX-SSTV
• decoded
• rat
• man's
• den

[eparesa]

"*garbled text* to hande calls, custom PHP script looping through

plot fragments and home-made ANSI-art conversions of

Portal 2 artwork"

What I'm reading the "garbled text" part as looks like ngetty, which is indeed a real program that "starts login sessions on virtual console terminals, on demand" (taken from the ngetty website)

Other than that and your "handle" typo, I don't really have much to comment on except that my ears feel really bad now

[waze3174]

@eparesa Noted, thank you.

[snarkbaited]

how do i decode stuff? please respond !!!!

[waze3174]

@snarkbaited Okay, here's a simple step by step guide on how to decode SSTV signals:

Step 1: READ THE DESCRIPTION.

Step 2: ???

Step 3: PROFIT!

[Mii2626]

hey waze whrere you said "grabled text, about 20 mb of data, garbled text" actually read "transmitted about 20 MB of data"

i dont know what was in the small letters

[waze3174]

@Mii2626 Noted, thank you.

[SantaFebuff]

@SnakesGames It's a TV signal. lol

[user24779]

Who's the BBS?

[isuckatstarcraft96]

Too long didn't read

[poodoo138]

This is so fucking cool.

[SnakesGames]

These sounds are fucking up my tv!

[Blueysky1]

LOL! I'm laughing. Is that just a note on the video game!?! They put that there to see if people would do something to see what it means and it turns out to be just some credits! XD OMG I love you creators of Portal.

[Pingufragger1]

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW MY EARS

[serisdovakhin]

@RecycledClock lower your volume next time

[TeamCreeperBomb]

its fine, i didn't need m ears anyway.

[admiralsftershockrex]

Budget if less than $100, either they are that smart or they have the Chineese doing programming as well an manufacturing the aperature equipment ( no racism intended)