# Which movie plays where — the boot intro, the attract loop, the new-game intro

**Status:** ✅ `CONFIRMED`. The bindings are **decoded** from the movie manifest,
and the attract movie is independently **measured** from captured frames. One
part — whether playback is skippable — is 🟡 and the corpus contradicts itself
about it; that is written down rather than resolved by assertion.

Answers [MISSION Q9](../port/MISSION.md), and contributes to Q6.

## The manifest names the boot-side slots — decoded

The movie manifest (`dat/tables.pak` entry `0x5b983a08`, schema `0x067025b9`,
[`movie_manifest.rs`](../../crates/sylpheed-formats/src/movie_manifest.rs)) is an
array of slots whose **key is the semantic role**, with a parallel array of value
records in the same order. Its first eight slots are the whole boot-side flow:

| slot key | movie | also bound |
|---|---|---|
| `LOGO1` … `LOGO4` | `logo1.wmv` … `logo4.wmv` | — |
| **`ADVERTISE_MOVIE`** | **`ADV.wmv`** | `VOICE_ADV` |
| `STAFF_ROLL` | `SYLPH_HD720p_8M-CBR_2ch.wmv` | subtitle table |
| **`MS00A`** | **`S00A.wmv`** | `SUBTITLE_S00A`, `VOICE_S00A`, a `pwterop_s01a.prt` overlay |
| `MS01A` | `S01A.wmv` | `SUBTITLE_S01A`, `VOICE_S01A` |

The alignment is not in doubt here even though the manifest has valueless slots
elsewhere: `logo1..4` zip 1:1 onto `LOGO1..4`, and `MS00A`→`S00A.wmv`,
`MS01A`→`S01A.wmv` are the manifest's own anchor rule.

**The `logo1`–`logo4` slots are bound to `.wmv` files that are not on the disc** —
already established, and the reason the developer splash is a screen, not a video.

## ✅ The boot intro and the attract movie are the same asset

There is **no separate boot-intro slot**. `ADV.wmv` is bound to
`ADVERTISE_MOVIE` — it *is* the advertise movie, and the boot simply plays it
first. For the port that means one video, not two.

### Measured independently, from captured frames

Frames captured 5 s apart during an attract cycle were matched against five
candidate movies by frame signature (32×18 normalised grayscale, movie frames
cropped to the 675 of 720 rows the game surface shows, 1 fps sampling).
`tools/re-capture/frame_match.py`; full table in
[`data/attract-frame-match.txt`](data/attract-frame-match.txt).

**15 of 19 attract frames matched `ADV.wmv`, and the matched timestamps advance
monotonically at the sampling rate** — 39, 45, 56, 62, 75, 80, 85, 92, 102, 108,
113, 119, 131, 137 s — ending at 137 s, which is `ADV.wmv`'s full length, after
which the title returned. That is not a similarity score, it is a playhead.

**The control was run first and behaves the same way.** Frames captured during
the *boot* movie — known to be `ADV.wmv` — matched `ADV` at 116, 121, 129, 134 s.
Its failure mode is worth stating: on near-black frames the correlation collapses
(one control frame scored 0.000, another tied `S13A` 0.984 against `ADV` 0.926).
Those are exactly the 4 attract frames that did not match. **A dark frame carries
no signature; it is not evidence for the runner-up.**

### 🔴 This corrects an earlier claim of mine

Two iterations ago I recorded the attract movie as "≈85 s, so probably not
`ADV.wmv`'s 137 s". That was wrong, and the mistake was arithmetic on an
unobserved start: my sampling began when the movie was already **39 s in**, so
what I timed was the *tail* of it, not the whole thing.

## ✅ The new-game intro is `S00A.wmv`

Slot `MS00A` — the prologue story intro, 93.87 s, with its own subtitle table,
`VOICE_S00A`, and a text overlay. Decoded from the manifest, **not** measured:
Ⓐ on `NEW GAME` hangs the emulator
([`menu-navigation-semantics.md`](menu-navigation-semantics.md)), so this
binding has not been watched happening.

## 🟡 Skippable — the corpus contradicts itself, and I did not settle it

* [`canary-scripted-input-traps.md`](canary-scripted-input-traps.md) states
  plainly that "Ⓐ during a movie skips the movie, every time".
* But `boot_menu.sh` / `skip_intro.sh` as they stand **deliberately do not tap
  during a movie**, logging `movie … -> waiting it out (tapping breaks the
  title)`, and the same document records run G: 88 Ⓐ presses through the boot
  left a permanent black screen.

Both cannot be the whole story. **The test**: boot, tap Ⓐ exactly once well
inside the movie, and record whether the title arrives early. One boot, and it
was not run this iteration.

## ✅ What ends the attract movie

Nothing intervenes: it **plays to its end**. The last matched frame is `ADV` at
137 s — the file's full duration — and the title is back on the next sample. So
the attract cycle is: title, idle ~8–10 s, fade to black, `ADV.wmv` in full, back
to the title (which redraws `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON`).

## What this contributes to Q6

The manifest is **data the game reads** to sequence the boot side: the slot keys
are in play order and the key *is* the role. That is not the whole driver — it
says what plays, not what decides to advance — but it is the first file-side
piece of Q6's second half, and it means the boot-side asset order does not have
to be authored.