Help testing: Random Video Screensaver on Main Branch

[pjft]

@meleu Hm.

I actually don't, yet.

A few questions, if I may:

• Do the videos still play, or do you observe any problem? Or are you just getting warnings, but all is good?
• Does it happen on all videos? On the screensaver only, or on the gamelists? Was it not happening before? An easy way to test it is to open ES, go to a gamelist, see if a couple of videos render, and then exit. See if there are those logs. With the current and the old one. Then try the same with loading ES and just playing the screensaver (press "Select" on the System View screen). Exit and see if you have those logs.

I've seen nothing concrete around that - some suggestions that it could be due to old versions of VLC, FFMPEG or LIBAV, or even the video formats, but I'd like to take this step by step.

Ideally it'd be great to have you separately load the same videos using VLC on the terminal, and seeing if you get the same messages. First without any options, and then with the "--subtitle" option pointing to a non-existing file. And then pointing to an existing subtitle file.

Just to narrow it down.

Thank you very much and sorry for the trouble!

[meleu]

@pjft said in Help testing: Random Video Screensaver on Main Branch:

• Do the videos still play, or do you observe any problem? Or are you just getting warnings, but all is good?

All is fine, I only observed the messages after exiting emulationstation. I invoked it from commandline, then those messages were right above the prompt.

• Does it happen on all videos?

I'm afraid it doesn't happen on all videos. I'll repeat the tests, wait a moment...

[pjft]

@meleu Wonderful. So, screensaver works, did you recompile the latest build? Does it render well in the highest quality? And when you select the option to show the game name, does it work well as well?

Great.

Just want to check whether, for those same videos, it also happens on the command line - which would mean it's a VLC thingie. You wouldn't per chance know if it happened before either?

I just pushed an update to my branch to see if it helps with that message - if you have the patience to reupdate and recompile, let me know.

Thank you very much - have a great Sunday! Also, it must be quite late for you :|

[meleu]

@pjft sorry man. Those messages is something related to the file. It happens with the official RetroPie ES and when I launch vlc from command line too. I'm afraid it has nothing to do with your changes.

Like this:

[prompt]$ vlc ~/RetroPie/roms/mastersystem/snap/Alex\ Kidd\ in\ Miracle\ World\ \(USA\,\ Europe\).mp4 
VLC media player 2.1.6 Rincewind (revision 2.1.6-0-gea01d28)
[0x1810118] main libvlc: Executando o VLC com a interface padrão. Use 'cvlc' para usar o VLC sem interface.
"sni-qt/11515" WARN  04:10:39.875 void StatusNotifierItemFactory::connectToSnw() Invalid interface to SNW_SERVICE 
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object size does not accept value "0"
[0x7f7230001248] main vout display error: Failed to resize display

Now a quote from a friend:

"A false positive is better than a bug to fix."

Oh, by the way, I saw that sentence from Leiradel, the guy who implemented RetroAchievements in RetroArch. He moved from Rio and is living in Lisbon currently.

[meleu]

I will give more attention to the screensaver now...

@pjft said in Help testing: Random Video Screensaver on Main Branch:

Also, it must be quite late for you

I'm still deciding if it's too late or too early. :-)

My youngest is sick and now he is awake watching Pocoyo. The good news of the Sunday is that he is recovering... :)

Cheers!

[pjft]

@meleu Not a bother - good to hear that it's not a bug on my end then. Thank you very much for your time! And indeed, Leiradel had it right ;)

So sorry to hear that your youngest is sick - hope he gets better soon :/ Thankfully mine haven't been that bad, health wise, in the recent months. The 3-y/o one is now on antibiotic, but so have my wife and I been in the past few weeks, so it must be something that's going around, can't blame him.

Hope he recovers soon! :)

If he likes buses and such, I can also strongly recommend "Tayo the Little Bus", and "Pororo the Little Penguin" - mine like those as well, in addition to Pocoyo. You can find them on YouTube!

[meleu]

@pjft tested here. Everything seems to be fine. Here is a screenshot to let you see how the name is displayed:

One thing that worth to mention: while the video is playing and I press right-arrow key, the screen goes back to ES and then fade to black and then starts the next random video. Not a big problem for me, though.

[pjft]

@meleu thanks for both reports!

A question: can you go to the video settings and set video quality to highest (default should be native) and medium and see how the performance goes? It won't affect the video quality per se but the game name should be better defined.

Also, well spotted. Pressing right should move to a next video, and pressing X (PlayStation controller) or Start should launch the game being displayed.

That being said, you're right: with VLC there is a long fade out animation that won't look right. I will fix that so that the transition is smoother.

Thank you!

[meleu]

@pjft said in Help testing: Random Video Screensaver on Main Branch:

A question: can you go to the video settings and set video quality to highest (default should be native) and medium and see how the performance goes? It won't affect the video quality per se but the game name should be better defined.

I changed to highest and then the game name isn't displayed:

Changed back to Native and the game name is displayed as that After Burner screenshot.

[pjft]

@meleu Hm. Thanks for testing.

I just pushed a build that should perform better in changing between videos when you push "right" - please test if it works as intended.

What about "Medium" quality, does that work well for the captions?

I'm stumped about the "Highest" quality not rendering captions - does that happen for all videos?

Thank you good sir! Hope your little one feels better.

[pjft]

Actually, I just added a few more options there. If you could test them out and see which work with the game name, which don't, and if the video runs smoothly, that'd be perfect.

Thank you!

[Hex]

@pjft. Just tested it and its working well. Also I think native should mean native resolution of screen/FB and not video.

Edit: On linux

[pjft]

@Hex Thanks. Could you test the captions across all resolutions, as well as video performance?

How about "Display" and "Video"? Or what should we name it? I'd want to keep the names small, so open to suggestions at this stage.

Thanks for testing it out!

[Hex]

@pjft Captions work as expected Highest : 1080p, High : 720p

Yes those are good suggestions.

[pjft]

@Hex thank you.

Just to confirm, then: if captions work as intended on highest and if the video doesn't stutter on highest (if it performs well) then I may even just remove the option altogether, or just leave two options: high and low (one being the full display resolution and the other the video one, upscaled, for weaker devices).

Let me know.

[Hex]

I am testing on Linux. I dont have my pi3 with me. I dont think there would be any stuttering on VLC even on 2k resolution.

[pjft]

@Hex Thanks! Not a bother, I'm just looking for the Linux experience with VLC. The Pi uses OMX Player anyway, so that I can test.

If it works well on the highest resolution with and without captions, I may even just remove the option altogether and default to highest anyway.

[meleu]

@pjft IMHO an option for a weaker hardware (even x86) is always welcome.

[pjft]

@meleu Sounds good. I think that's probably wise. But I'll leave it with just two options then - "fast" and "HQ".

[pjft]

Ok, so a final update.

I've just updated the rebased branch with:

• Only two options for VLC screensaver quality (only visible in non-Pi devices): "high" and "fast". Default is "high".
• Added "stretch" option to VLC screensaver as well (so it can keep video proportions). It's "off" by default.
• Option name stays "Random Video" at the moment.

Would appreciate one final round of testing on Linux and the Pi, just to confirm I'm not missing anything.

Thank you!