Video Screensaver in Emulation Station

Dominus

@fieldofcows Does this still work with 4.2, and is it the same way to setup?

Dominus

Any news on this??

SuperFromND

Is there any way to set it to ONLY use a specific video file, instead of having to use one from a gamelist?

pjft

@SuperCatFooz Not in the current implementation, no.

SuperFromND

@pjft Aw, man. I was thinking of making a ton of dummy "system" folders and linking to a video file to try and trick the random video selector to picking out the video as a screensaver.

pjft

@SuperCatFooz do you currently have videos in your gamelist, though? I thought you had videos, but still wanted to use a specific one for the screensaver. From your last comment it seems you may not have videos and just wanted to add one or two for the screensaver, is that it?

Let me know and I'll get back to you tomorrow after looking at the code.

SuperFromND

@pjft Yeah, apart from my boot splash I have no videos because my curent favorite theme (Pixel-Metadata) doesn't really support them yet.

pjft

@SuperCatFooz got it.

In that case definitely try to create a dummy ROM or system with a video in the metadata.

See how it goes. I know it counts the number of video tags it finds to determine how many videos to randomize over.

I don't have the code at the moment though (on my phone) so I'm not fully sure how the iteration goes afterwards, but it should work in principle.

Let me know.

The key thing is for that system to have a gamelist with a game with the video tag.

Also, be mindful of the player you're using and the video resolution. I'm partial to OMX Player, so see if that is selected for the screensaver:)

SuperFromND

@pjft Yeah, unfortunately it didn't seem to work. :(

pjft

@SuperCatFooz even though I had some hope, I can't say I'm surprised :)

How many videos did you use, out of curiosity?

Also, I do those systems show up in EmulationStation? Could you check whether that video actually plays in the gamelist view, just to check whether the tag is actually correct? You may need to use a theme that supports video for the test, if yours doesn't.

Let me know.

SuperFromND

@pjft I tried making a new folder in EmulationStation's gamelist folder simply titled "dummy", then proceeded to have the gamelist be filled with 1024 entries of the same dummy ROM file (which for me, was /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/dummy/dummyfile.test) with the video attached. It didn't pick the video file that was attached, so I'm assuming it only scans for systems that are actually attached to a listed system in es_systems.cfg.

However, I did find a solution: By adding the video line to RetroPie's gamelist.xml and forcing ES to show detailed view only, I did manage to get the video to show only as a screensaver, while also preventing any kind of visible "dummy" entry.

pjft

@SuperCatFooz correct. The video needs to be associated with a gamelist that's loaded in EmulationStation.

Glad you sorted that one out!

Are you using OMX Player? All good?

I'd disable screensaver controls in order to prevent attempting to launch it by mistake by pressing start from the screensaver:)

SuperFromND

@pjft Yeah, I'm all good. :)

lilbud

@pjft Is there a way to change the length that the video plays?

Like, I have a 3 minute video, is there a way for the whole video to play? Cause it stops after 30sec and repeats

pjft

@lilbud that sounds like a fair request. I can add it to my never ending list of things to tweak and fix, and I'll see how hard it is.

pjft

@lilbud I was looking at the code, and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be that trivial to get the info on when the video actually finishes at the moment.

The simplest I could do is to allow for a slider to customize the time at which the video moves on to the next one, so that It's not only 30 secs.

I know it's not ideal, but would that be a reasonable compromise?

mattrixk

@pjft I have no stake in this as I don't use the setting, but this came to mind:

customize the time at which the video moves on to the next one

What would happen if you set it to (eg) 60 seconds, but the video was only 40 seconds? Would something break, or would it just reach the end of the 40 second video and move onto the next one?

I'm guessing you've already thought about this /figured it out, but I wanted to bring it up in case you hadn't.

pjft

@mattrixk no, it's a good point.

At the moment, precisely because videos come in different lengths and such (and the goal was to showcase the different games in the system) it will play a random video for 30 secs and then move on to the next.

If it's longer it gets truncated. If it's smaller it loops, restarting until it gets to 30 secs of total play time.

It's not that it's impossible to make it detect the end of the video (I hate thinking anything is impossible from a technical standpoint, when we live at an age where we have self driving cars) but it certainly isn't trivial with the current architecture and video players, and truth be told the return vs the effort to make it work like that with the rewrites it would require doesn't seem to be worth it for me at this stage.

That's the honest answer in the short term :)

mattrixk

@pjft I figured you would have already found a solution, and the looping is a good one.

pjft

@mattrixk To his credit, this was the way @fieldofcows implemented it :) I had no say in it, but it certainly is a one-size-fits-all approach that works great for what it was designed for.

I'll keep this request on my to-do list, but in the short term the most I could commit to (i.e. a solution that I know that works) would be the slider to control the video swap time.