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    Video Screensaver in Emulation Station

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Ideas and Development
    emulationstationvideoscreensaver
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    • 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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • 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
                                      • pjftP
                                        pjft @felleg
                                        last edited by

                                        @felleg Not for the moment. Having fun with other fun things.

                                        But it's not forgotten.

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

                                          @felleg @lilbud

                                          I've submitted a PR for that:

                                          https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/pull/196

                                          If/when it gets merged, we'll have a slider for controlling the video length. Not optimal, but hopefully better.

                                          One thing: in the latest ES build, if you have power savings enabled, the videos won't swap -- this should also fix it.

                                          Best.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                          • GraphicsgodG
                                            Graphicsgod @fieldofcows
                                            last edited by

                                            @fieldofcows

                                            Oh wow this is kinda what I've been wanting in Emulation Station!!!

                                            If I'm not on the "current build," how do I add this to an older ver. of ES?!?!

                                            The build I'm on (and loving BTW), breaks if I update ES to a newer ver. Is this possible to just insert the code and download the files to just make this work?? My build doesn't use video snaps, just pictures of the box art. Which is fine, don't need fancy videos of the games playing. But I do want a screen saver showing videos of the games or just a custom video as a screen saver!!

                                            Any help would be most appreciated!! I'm not a coder, so if someone walks me through where to go and insert the text and what to type in DOS to get the files, I can do it!

                                            Or is this something that isn't being worked on any further?

                                            Thank you for any assistance with this!

                                            Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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