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    Take and Scrape Your Own Videos

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Ideas and Development
    videosscraperruncommandemulationstatio
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    • herb_fargusH
      herb_fargus administrators @meleu
      last edited by herb_fargus

      @meleu Necropost AHOY!

      • With the advent of raspbian stretch and subsequently ffmpeg integrated in the repos

      • the runcommand onmenu functions integrated

      • and Retroarch compiled with ffmpeg support:

      I think I'm ready to give this another go. The integration is all pretty much handled as far as no more need for source compilations, now the trick is just configuring the onstart/onmenu scripts and optimal settings for ffmpeg to capture native res gameplay without degrading performance.

      Runcommand OnMenu Options

      As far as onstart/omenu scripts go, a few options:

      • OnMenu that just launches the default config to the default video path with the saved video file being named after the rom.
      • OnMenu that creates a videos folder for the system being launched, uses the default config, and saves the video in the created videos folder named after the rom.
      • OnMenu with dialog options to select the saved video path and video config/container (mkv, mp4 etc), and maybe options to name based on rom, date, rom+date, etc.

      Runcommand OnMenu

      Per the docs, create a script called recordvideo.sh in `

      opt/retropie/configs/all/runcommand-menu/`
      

      With the contents todo incomplete!

      recordvideos.sh

      #!/usr/bin/env bash
      
      system="$1"
      emulator="$2"
      rompath="$3"
      launch="$4"
      rom_file="${rompath##*/}"
      rom="${rom_file%.*}"
      mediadir="$HOME/RetroPie/roms/$system/images"
      videofile="$mediadir/$rom-video.mkv"
      
      
      # Create videos folder in system's rom folder
      if [[ ! -d "$mediadir" ]]; then
          mkdir -p "$mediadir"
          dialog --msgbox "$mediadir created!" 20 60 >/dev/tty
      fi
      
      # Launch to record gameplay on RetroArch Systems.
      if [[ "$launch" =~ retroarch ]]; then
      eval "$launch" "--record '$videofile'" 
      exit 1
          else
          dialog --msgbox "Video recording is not supported for this system" 20 60 >/dev/tty
      fi
      

      if you want to force ~30 second limits for your videos you can substitute the following code:

      eval "$launch" "--record '$videofile'" & sleep 33
      killall retroarch
      exit 1
      

      Configs

      The default path for recorded videos is:

      /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/records/
      

      If you add a custom config for ffmpeg the default path is:

      /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/records_config/
      

      Examples:

      default.cfg:

      vcodec = libx264rgb
      pix_fmt = bgr24
      acodec = flac
      format = matroska
      video_qp = 0
      

      optimised.cfg:

      format = matroska
      threads = 3
      vcodec = libx264rgb
      video_preset = ultrafast
      video_tune = animation
      pix_fmt = bgr24
      video_qp = 0
      acodec = flac
      

      mp4.cfg:

      vcodec = libx264rgb
      pix_fmt = bgr24
      acodec = aac
      format = mp4
      video_qp = 0
      

      twitch.cfg:

      vcodec = libx264
      acodec = libmp3lame
      pix_fmt = yuv420p
      scale_factor = 2
      threads = 3
      video_crf = 25
      video_preset = superfast
      video_tune = animation
      audio_global_quality = 75
      sample_rate = 44100
      format = flv
      

      If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/

      Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

      ClydeC V 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 6
      • ClydeC
        Clyde @herb_fargus
        last edited by

        Hello @herb_fargus, I'm thinking about streaming my Retropie's screen to my Kubuntu desktop PC that's connected to my video projector, so that an audience of guests could watch the games. Can you kindly give me some hints how to set that up?

        herb_fargusH 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • herb_fargusH
          herb_fargus administrators @Clyde
          last edited by

          @clyde haven't the foggiest. Could try the twitch thing, or there is some experimental streaming thing that doesn't use a vnc server. Can't remember what it is, never tried it myself though I imagine there would be some latency

          If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/

          Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

          ClydeC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ClydeC
            Clyde @herb_fargus
            last edited by Clyde

            @herb_fargus Well, thanks anyway. I may look further into it when I have the time and leisure, since it isn't urgent at the moment. Latency wouldn't be a big issue as long as it's not more than a few seconds, since the audience wouldn't play but just watch. edit: On the players' side, there should be as little lag as possible, of course.

            herb_fargusH 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • herb_fargusH
              herb_fargus administrators @Clyde
              last edited by

              @clyde I started a post specific to the whole streaming thing and I think I came up\with a viable software solution, the uv4l raspidisp driver / webrtc server enables you to stream video with not a terrible latency that can be accessed from any web browser on the same network. Audio may be a bit of a trick to sort but I've tested it and it functions.

              Further discussion on this thread if interested.

              If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/

              Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

              ClydeC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • ClydeC
                Clyde @herb_fargus
                last edited by

                @herb_fargus Wow, that's great. I'll check it out.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • V
                  Valente @herb_fargus
                  last edited by

                  Great post. Unfortunately, I'm having an issue with the recording function on the RetroPie while recording gameplay. When launching an NES game, the emulator is really slow.

                  Has anyone encountered this problem?

                  Thanks,

                  Valente

                  V 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • V
                    Valente @Valente
                    last edited by Valente

                    Just to follow up, I noticed a YouTube video of a user also complaining about lag when using ffmpeg. Even with my Raspberry Pi 3B+, the lag makes NES games unplayable.

                    I've tried using other core emulators and recording settings to no avail. Let me know if anyone has any positive experiences with RetroPie and recording.

                    Thanks,

                    @Valente

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • herb_fargusH
                      herb_fargus administrators
                      last edited by herb_fargus

                      More necroposting,

                      There have been some changes with RetroArch with the video recording where in theory we should be able to use a hotkey to start/stop recordings. The latest Raspbian also has ffmpeg with hardware decoding so I wonder if that could help with some of the performance issues people have been having. though video recording is encoding a video so that may not help if it only has hardware acceleration for decoding.

                      If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/

                      Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • C
                        corezon
                        last edited by corezon

                        @herb_fargus I found that relying on sleep to properly time a 30 second video was getting mixed results so I modified your script a little to crop the video afterward for a more uniform recording length.

                        It requires that you install ffmpeg beforehand though.

                        #!/usr/bin/env bash
                        
                        system="$1"
                        emulator="$2"
                        rompath="$3"
                        launch="$4"
                        rom_file="${rompath##*/}"
                        rom="${rom_file%.*}"
                        mediadir="$HOME/RetroPie/roms/$system/images"
                        tmpfile="/tmp/$rom-video.mkv"
                        videofile="$mediadir/$rom-video.mkv"
                        
                        
                        # Create videos folder in system's rom folder
                        if [[ ! -d "$mediadir" ]]; then
                            mkdir -p "$mediadir"
                            dialog --msgbox "$mediadir created!" 20 60 >/dev/tty
                        fi
                        
                        # Launch to record gameplay on RetroArch Systems.
                        if [[ "$launch" =~ retroarch ]]; then
                        eval "$launch" "--record \"$tmpfile\"" & sleep 120
                        
                        killall retroarch 
                        
                        # Crop video to 30 seconds
                        eval "ffmpeg -y -t 30" "-i \"$tmpfile\"" "-acodec copy \"$videofile\"" &
                        
                        exit 1
                            else
                            dialog --msgbox "Video recording is not supported for this system" 20 60 >/dev/tty
                        fi
                        
                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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