.mmi (mixed media image) support

[Proletar666]

https://www.gametechwiki.com/w/index.php/Pioneer_LaserActive

NEC PC Engine add-on and Sega Genesis add-on for this Pioneer LaserActive laserdisc home media player let one play games on LaserDiscs, a combined digital-analog disc format. Digital in-game graphics is rendered by console hardware of these add-ons on top of analog video. Here's the description:

https://techdocs.exodusemulator.com/Console/PioneerLaserActive/Laserdisc.html

The technical side of archiving process has finally been dealt with and now is considered polished enough:

https://techdocs.exodusemulator.com/Console/PioneerLaserActive/Archiving.html

The "Mixed media image" was developed for dumping these discs, this format combines digital content and captured raw uncompressed analog video signal into a single .mmi file (hence why huge sizes up to ~40GB per disc side), several games have already been dumped.

Currently, the author is adding support for Mega LD games in emulator Ares also on GitHub, but NEC LD-ROM² is 100% identical, the same dumping techniques apply, and its support planned as well.
edit: And GPGX may add it, see ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX#603.

I ask to add support for this format to BizHawk for both Sega Mega Drive and PC Engine emulation.

[Spikestuff]

Here's the issue to this request...
Does any emulator that Hawk supports actually has LaserDisk support (LaserActive) in upstream?

We know that a fork of ares actually has support for Mega LD, but Hawk doesn't have ares' Genesis: #4253
Well, we know that ares actually has support of the Mega LD, but Hawk doesn't have ares' Genesis: #4253
But ares is not Genesis Plus GX (or PicoDrive for that matter), and I haven't heard anything about upstream support there.

As for the PC Engine side, same issue.
Also technically if I'm not mistaken no example has been showcased with a PC Engine LaserActive title.

[YoshiRulz]

I was reading the Wikipedia article for this the other day, and my understanding is that it had exclusive games, on top of being able to play either MD or TG-16 games. I'm not sure if this is implemented in ares as a separate "core" or part of the MD/TG-16 core, but either way would mean porting a new core.

[CasualPokePlayer]

For supporting for the format (.mmi) itself, the core wouldn't be mattering, as such would be implemented in the C# under BizHawk's DiscSystem. Of course such wouldn't be useful if the cores don't support this accessory.