It took a long time but finally I can decode the first frame of Bink2 video (just KB2g flavour though but it’s a start).
At least the initial observations were correct: Bink2 codes data in 32×32 macroblocks, two codebooks for AC zero runs, one codebook for motion vector components, simple codes with unary prefix for the rest.
If you wonder why it took so long—that’s because I’m lazy and spend an hour or less a day on it. Also while the codec is simple in design it’s a bit complicated in implementation. While previous version related on format sub-version to decide which feature to use, Bink2 uses frame flags to decide which feature to use. For instance, flag 0x1000 signals that there are two bit arrays coded that tell when to read an additional flag during CBP decoding that tells which one of two codebooks should be used during AC decoding later. And flag 0x2000 essentially tells to use different bitstream decoding (like motion vectors decoding or block type decoding). Or the fact that it employs DC and MV prediction that usually has four cases (top-left macroblock, top block, left block, some block inside) plus WMV1-like handling of DC prediction in inter-frames (i.e. it calculated DC for inter blocks and uses them for prediction). And of course DC prediction for inter blocks works a bit different. Plus it tries to track internal state by packing all flags into 32-bit word and updating it for each block (two bits are for signalling top row, one—for macroblock being the leftmost one, some bits are copied from frame flags etc etc). So there’s a lot of nuances to take care of.
And that’s not counting the fact that current Bink2 player can’t decode versions prior to KB2g at all. Since I have some KB2f samples along with an old Bink player that can handle them, I guess I’ll support them eventually.