Video Preview in EmulationStation

ebtalk

I have all the videos downloaded and they match my game names. Is there any quick way to include the videos in my gamelist.xml file without having to do each one manually?

Nismo

@ebtalk I have a quick way to do it but on windows, so you need to copy your gamelist.xml to windows and do the process there.

Also it only works on windows 7,8 or 10.

ebtalk

@Nismo yes. I extracted the game list to a text file and put it into an excel spreadsheet.

I used a concatenation formula on excel to wrap it with the video tags.

I've been pasting them one by one into the xml file but there has to be a quicker way.

herb_fargus

@ebtalk I just created a column with each tag as the header, then saved it as a CSV, then used a CSV to XML converter to generate the gamelist XML. Still a tad manual but a quick way to hack it together.

Nismo

@ebtalk On windows create a new text document.

Paste this code:

$doc = [xml] (Get-Content -raw gamelist.xml)

foreach ($gameEl in $doc.DocumentElement.game) { 
  # Use -replace to extract the filename without extension from the 
  # path contained in the <path> element.
  $gameName = $gameEl.path -replace '^.*/([^.]+)\..*$', '$1'
  # Append elements 'video' and 'marquee', but only if they don't already
  # exist.
  if ($null -eq $gameEl.video) {
    $gameEl.AppendChild($doc.CreateElement('video')).InnerText = "./Videos/${gameName}.mp4"
  }
  if ($null -eq $gameEl.marquee) {
    $gameEl.AppendChild($doc.CreateElement('marquee')).InnerText = "./Marquees/${gameName}.png"
  }
}

$writer = [System.IO.StreamWriter] "newFile.xml"
$doc.Save($writer)
$writer.Close()

This will work for all systems if you have videos and marquees folders inside your roms folder, for example:
rom/snes/videos and roms/snes/marquees

or

roms/megadrive/videos and roms/megadrive/marquees

Or you can change the paths to fit your path for videos and marquees:

"~/.emulationstation/roms/snes/Videos/${gameName}.mp4"

"~/.emulationstation/roms/snes/Marquees/${gameName}.png"

Save the document.

Rename the extension from .txt to .ps1 for example "addvideo&marquees.ps1"

Now you only need to place it inside a folder containing your gamelist.xml. (Create a backup of your gamelist.xml)

Then click right mouse button on addvideo&marquees.ps1 and exec with powershell.

A new file "newFile.xml" will be created with the tags.

Just rename it to gamelist.xml.

It takes the name from the <path> tag from your gamelist.xml, so then you need a program like fatmatch to match your videos and marquees with your rom name.

Keep in mind than this will create video and marquees tags for all games in your gamelist, even if the videos or marquees doesn't exist.

Also keep in mind that i have all my marquees in png format, so if you use some jpg files you will need a batch image converter or something similar...

Known issue: One thing it does is cuts off remaining characters after a point.

For instance. If the file name is Zany Golf (USA, Europe) (v1.1).zip

The mp4 name will come back Zany Golf (USA, Europe) (v1.mp4

Hope this helps. Regards.

Edit: I created a new theme here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/6589/easy-way-to-add-video-and-marquees-tags-in-your-gamelist-for-video-support

ebtalk

@Nismo Life.....Saver.

This is going to save me so much time. It does change your game name if you messed with that information but that takes way less time to clean up. Thanks so much.

Nismo

@ebtalk I'm glad to help.

Keep in mind that i have all my marquees in png format, so if you use some jpg files you will need a batch image converter or something similar...

Rion

@Nismo Universal XML Scraper has rudimentary support for this. Look here in this thread.

Nismo

@Rion The problem i have with universal xml scraper is that doesn't find all my roms, but it's nice to have more alternatives.

Would be nice if you can choose the gameDB instead of ScreenScraper or choose preferred order for servers.

Also ScreenScraper has a lot of descriptions in french even if you choose english language.

hansolo77

I'm a little crazy when it comes to building my Retro systems. I feel like I need to have EVERYTHING I can get. So to that end, I currently have 32 systems on my RetroPie. Are there any plans to update the default Carbon theme to allow videos? If not, can somebody recommend a theme that will work with a lot of systems, without getting that "White Screen of Death"?

ebtalk

@hansolo77 look at the Pixel thread. That is working for me and is being updated as well

hansolo77

Yeah, but I'm not a fan of the pixelation. :)

Nismo

@hansolo77 I think there is any theme free of "white screen of death".

I have read that even simple default theme has that.

And yes, pixel and metapixel themes have amazing amount of systems.

hansolo77

I'm using the Carbon theme, which is the default, and it hasn't hit me with the White Screen. But when I tried using a few of the others, as soon as ES finished loading, all I had was the White Screen, so I can't use them.

Nismo

@hansolo77 As far I know, simple theme is default theme for emulationstation...

lilbud

@Nismo carbon is the default theme, due to it being light on memory usage.

robertybob

@lilbud

Maybe he's referring to the Windows standalone Emulationstation as opposed to the RetroPie fork? In which case, he'd be correct.

Rookervik

@hansolo77 Once I get me an SD card with the latest Retropie build on it, I will finish the big Pixel update, and then add video to the official Carbon Theme. So long as Video support is included in the Retropie branch of ES. If not, then I can't even test it to see if it works. I won't release a default theme without actually testing it on the Pi.

jdrassa

@Rookervik I submitted a pull request this morning to add video support to the Carbon theme.

Rookervik

@jdrassa Ooh, so I might not have to do it myself. That would be nice if it all works out. :D