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    Video Screensaver in Emulation Station

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Ideas and Development
    emulationstationvideoscreensaver
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    • pjftP
      pjft @lilbud
      last edited by

      @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.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • pjftP
        pjft @lilbud
        last edited by

        @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?

        mattrixkM lilbudL fellegF 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • mattrixkM
          mattrixk @pjft
          last edited by

          @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.

          My ES themes: MetaPixel | Spare | Io | Indent

          pjftP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • pjftP
            pjft @mattrixk
            last edited by

            @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 :)

            mattrixkM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • mattrixkM
              mattrixk @pjft
              last edited by

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

              My ES themes: MetaPixel | Spare | Io | Indent

              pjftP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • pjftP
                pjft @mattrixk
                last edited by

                @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.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • lilbudL
                  lilbud @pjft
                  last edited by

                  @pjft I think that would be best.

                  Also, you said you updated you virtual systems branch with a fix for the bug I found, but when I go to the page, it says the last change was like 2 weeks ago.

                  Creator of the Radiocade: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/6077/radiocade

                  Backlog: http://backloggery.com/lilbud

                  pjftP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • pjftP
                    pjft @lilbud
                    last edited by

                    @lilbud I suspect that's just an artifact of GitHub dates as I squash all the changes back to a single commit. Unless you're looking at the wrong branch.

                    This is the latest one:

                    https://github.com/pjft/EmulationStation/commit/d80560e0c5e7c7028ad8fc9ad4a9df3df2c1411a

                    Should be up to date.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DRBD
                      DRB @SuperFromND
                      last edited by

                      @supercatfooz said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                      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.

                      I also only want the video files for the screensaver only (not in the menu screen for each game). When I added the option for the screensaver and added the path to the video files my theme was compromised and didn't display properly.

                      @supercatfooz Can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'RetroPie's gamelist.xml? There is a gamelist.xml for each emulator so it sounds like you may be referring to a 'generic' gamelist.xml file?

                      Also, has there been resolution to the video stretching to fill the entire screen. That still seems to be an issue on my end.

                      Thanks

                      pjftP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • pjftP
                        pjft @DRB
                        last edited by

                        @drb stretching in the screensaver, you mean? There's an option for that in the screensaver menu.

                        DRBD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • DRBD
                          DRB @pjft
                          last edited by

                          @pjft said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                          @drb stretching in the screensaver, you mean? There's an option for that in the screensaver menu.

                          @pjft, Where is the screensaver menu you speak of? I've looked all over and cannot find that.

                          SuperFromNDS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • SuperFromNDS
                            SuperFromND @DRB
                            last edited by

                            @drb said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                            @supercatfooz Can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'RetroPie's gamelist.xml? There is a gamelist.xml for each emulator so it sounds like you may be referring to a 'generic' gamelist.xml file?
                            Thanks

                            I mean \opt\configs\all\emulationstation\gamelists\retropie\gamelist.xml.

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                            DRBD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • DRBD
                              DRB @SuperFromND
                              last edited by

                              @supercatfooz said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                              @drb said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                              @supercatfooz Can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'RetroPie's gamelist.xml? There is a gamelist.xml for each emulator so it sounds like you may be referring to a 'generic' gamelist.xml file?
                              Thanks

                              I mean \opt\configs\all\emulationstation\gamelists\retropie\gamelist.xml.

                              @supercatfooz thanks, but what 'video line' do I enter and where does it go? These appear to be the items in the RetroPie menu and I don't see anything there for video.

                              SuperFromNDS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • SuperFromNDS
                                SuperFromND @DRB
                                last edited by

                                @drb There isn't one by default. You have to add a video line manually. This post for a video screensaver I made explains in more detail, but basically just add this line to any of the "game" entries:

                                <video>(insert path to video file here)</video>
                                

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                                DRBD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • DRBD
                                  DRB @SuperFromND
                                  last edited by

                                  Thanks for all the help guys. My bad; I was working with another version of ES. I thought I was on the right version, but was not. Back to configuring now.

                                  Thanks again

                                  DRBD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • DRBD
                                    DRB @DRB
                                    last edited by

                                    I do have another question. Does this method only allow for 1 video file for the screensaver or can I use multiple videos at random? I entered separate lines of code for a few videos, but they didn't seem to take.

                                    SuperFromNDS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • SuperFromNDS
                                      SuperFromND @DRB
                                      last edited by SuperFromND

                                      @drb I believe this allows for multiple videos by applying different videos to each entry, but keep in mind you can only have 1 video per entry. (so for example, two video tags can't be on the "RetroPie Setup" game entry)

                                      Also, if you add videos to any other system, then it will probably use those videos on top of the dedicated screensaver videos.

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                                      • DRBD
                                        DRB @SuperFromND
                                        last edited by

                                        @supercatfooz said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                                        @drb I believe this allows for multiple videos by applying different videos to each entry, but keep in mind you can only have 1 video per entry. (so for example, two video tags can't be on the "RetroPie Setup" game entry)

                                        Also, if you add videos to any other system, then it will probably use those videos on top of the dedicated screensaver videos.

                                        @supercatfooz thanks again for the response; that makes sense.

                                        I did a bit more testing last night and found an interesting anomaly. When I initially followed your instructions and added the first video code (<video> [path]/video1.avi</video>) and re-booted, the code is no longer visible but that video still plays as a screen saver. Any thoughts on how or why?

                                        SuperFromNDS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                        • SuperFromNDS
                                          SuperFromND @DRB
                                          last edited by

                                          @drb Huh, strange. Well, if it works, it can't be much of a big deal right?

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                                          • fellegF
                                            felleg @pjft
                                            last edited by

                                            @pjft said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

                                            @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?

                                            Any update on that? I loved this idea.

                                            pjftP 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
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