Help testing: Random Video Screensaver on Main Branch

[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!

[meleu]

@pjft I'll try to break test it tonight. ;-)

[Hex]

@pjft same here. Will report back in the evening

[pjft]

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

@pjft I'll try to break test it tonight. ;-)

Why don't you even... -

Thank you both. :)

It's end of day here, so I'll adjust anything missing or messed up tomorrow.

Thanks!

[pjft]

Just updated the branch one final time. Had forgotten one line after merging with the OMX audio changes.

@Hex One small comment: the forced audio init/deinit on every OMX Player instance causes a slight but noticeable delay.

I notice that if I remove the init/deinit code that it works just fine on my end (I'm using "both"), and from my testing it only failed to show any video when using the ALSA:HW:1:0 option, so I'm assuming that it is only necessary if the actual option is this one? Would that be a correct assumption? Or maybe the other ALSA option also needs to be catered for? Or maybe it depends on the ES audio settings as well, and any conflicts between those and OMX ones?

Anyway, my recommendation would probably be to only use the init/deinit instructions explicitly only when we actually need to force it to use the same device, as it causes a slight slowdown when changing/loading videos, but also cuts short the navigation sounds if the theme has them, especially when scrolling quickly (i.e. keeping down/up pressed).

If you tell me that it's only with the ALSA ones (or better, even only with the ALSA:1,0 one) I'm happy to add the conditional statement on my PR, so it only runs that code when it is actually needed.

Alternatively, if it'll be a bit more complicated, you can probably submit a separate PR for that, it's not a big deal but it's one we should perhaps tweak if possible.

Let me know.

Thanks for all the work here as well!

[Hex]

@pjft I will need to test it. Can I let you know later in the day?

[pjft]

@Hex Sure, please. If you want to look into that on your own time as well, and then submit a PR it's perfectly fine - just wanted to mention it in case you would be able to provide an answer off the top of your head, given that you were the one who researched all of that.

It's not urgent nor is it a big deal - in fact, it's right now in the main branch. It's just a small - but noticeable for those who had been using OMX Player - delay in loading the videos and navigating, so while it will be needed for those cases where you do have an external sound card and are competing for the ALSA driver, I'd rather not have it for all the other cases where it's not needed, just that. :)

In fact, we could probably be sneaky about it and just de-init the ES audio completely when:

• the user navigates opens the gamelist, if it is a VideoGameList; and
• if the user is running OMXPlayer and
• the user has the ALSA:HW:1,0 selected (or whatever conflicting options there'll be)

given that, truth be told, if they're on the gamelist and it has videos, it will likely be permanently running OMXPlayer anyway and the audio channel will need to be allocated to it, if it's conflicting.

That would probably save a bit of CPU time in de-initing and re-initing on every single new video being shown.

Obviously you'd need to make sure that you'd re-init the audio when you leave the gamelist (either to the system view, or to a gamelist view that's not a Video one).

Just a thought.

EDIT: as I said, it's end of day for me, so do take your time. I'm in GMT+1 time zone, and tomorrow is a work day.

Thanks!

[meleu]

@pjft My notes about the tests I did this evening (RetroPie on Linux Mint x86).

1. The default option isn't displayed on the menu in the first run (the 2 overlapping triangles look like the star of David :P )

Suggestion, if you're going to provide just 2 options, I suggest to use a boolean ON/OFF option (just like the other options in the VIDEO PLAYER SETTINGS). It could be named SCREENSAVER HIGH RESOLUTION.

2. When running with SCREENSAVER RESOLUTION: FAST and STRETCH VIDEO ON SCREENSAVER [OFF], the video overlaps the theme and part of the theme keeps being displayed at borders:

Also, I noticed that the captions with the name of the game are displayed only for ~5 seconds. The Double Dragon screenshot above has no captions because it was taken after those 5 sec.

3. When running with SCREENSAVER RESOLUTION: FAST option and STRETCH VIDEO ON SCREENSAVER [OFF], the video stretches and again, captions for ~5 seconds.

4. When running with SCREENSAVER RESOLUTION: HIGH there's no difference if STRETCH VIDEO ON SCREENSAVER is ON or OFF and there are no captions at all. IMHO there's no difference between these three modes: RESOLUTION: FAST/STRETCH [ON] and RESOLUTION: HIGH/STRETCH [ON/OFF] (except the captions absence when RESOLUTION: HIGH).

[Hex]

@pjft for the background showing ES you can have a paramter like -b for omx. i dont know for vlc.

You need to edit settings.cpp and set a default for the one with star

[pjft]

@Hex @meleu

Thank you very much for the testing! This is helpful.

The black background is actually my fault - when I added the non-stretch option for VLC and tested it here it works because I do have the black background code running, but it's only being used on the Pi :)

The star in the options is caused because, since I removed most of the options (and renamed them!) you had a now-invalid value in the settings file ("fast" and "high" were new - you probably had "native" or "highest" there). This will not happen on release, as there is effectively a default being set, but only if you don't have a value in your settings file. :) Thanks for catching that though!

As for your missing captions on highest resolution, I do have to say that completely bums me out :( First, then, I will likely have to set the default to "fast" then, and/or rename the options to something more reassuring.

Out of curiosity, though, what is your screen's resolution?

Also, great catch on the "Resolution high" forcing the video to stretch. I will fix that!

Thanks!

[pjft]

@meleu

Thanks for the feedback, and a few more things I forgot to answer.

So I just blind-coded the following:

• I added a ON/OFF option for the captions resolution, and called it something like "USE COMPATIBLE LOW RESOLUTION FOR CAPTIONS". It's set to "ON" by default. People can turn it off but will be aware that, if things don't work, they should revert it back to ON.
• The captions will only render for the first 8 seconds, and the last 4 seconds of the video. This is deliberate so you can have the full video on the screen, but can still know the name of the game at the beginning or the end of the video (like a music video clip from the 80s/90s).
• I also think I fixed the stretch/non-stretch for High resolution (now "OFF" for compatibility in captions). However, as I said, this was a blind coding exercise - the most I got to was confirming it compiled, but I'm not near my Pi. :(

If anyone does have the chance to test it, it'd be great.

Pending questions/answers:

• @meleu : what's your screen resolution? Would like to provide one last shot at fixing the captions at high resolution for you.
• @Hex : if/when you do know the options for ALSA disabling/enabling do let me know if they're just a single condition, and I can add it on my end.

Thanks!

[Hex]

@pjft You can add a conditional statement with string compare to check if it starts with alsa and only then disable and enable it.

[pjft]

@Hex sounds good. Both ALSA options then? And are those the only conflicts to expect? I know you added some more audio options, so just want to make sure that's all that's needed.

Thanks!

[meleu]

@pjft my laptop resolution: 1920x1080.

More notes I would like to make:

• As my video snaps are all low quality, I can't see any difference in video quality between the two resolution options. Does it have difference on your end?

• Maybe SHOW GAME AND SYSTEM NAME ON SCREENSAVER can be simplified to SHOW GAME INFO ON SCREENSAVER.

• I would like to see the game info all the time. I don't think users will wait screensaver to watch the videos as a video clip and wait until it ends... My use case for this feature is: a BBQ in my home and the arcade turned on all the time. When there's no one playing, the screensaver is showing some game's video snaps. When a passerby walks through the arcade machine and enjoys what he's seeing, he'll like to know the name of the game (and probably play).

• Since it's a screensaver, I think the "stretch video" should be on all the time (no black bars on the sides).

Out of curiosity: why don't you create a virtual machine and install Linux?