Take and Scrape Your Own Videos

herb_fargus

@meleu It's that time again.

So now that video support has been added to ES and sselph's scraper, I figured we might want to give some people an option to take their own videos. I have my own capture card but I know they can be expensive and if we can create our own videos with the pi natively, why not?

I was thinking this could be a companion of sorts to our take and scrape our own screenshots thing, except for videos.

I haven't gotten all the pieces figured out yet which is why I'm asking for your help. This is largely based on the guide from @RetroResolution but I thought we could optimise it a bit more.

Guide for Reference:

https://retroresolution.com/2016/07/06/recording-live-gameplay-in-retropies-retroarch-emulators-natively-on-the-raspberry-pi/

So to summarise:

Compile FFMPEG for the pi (with the lovely script our friend supplied) ~45 min on a pi3
Compile RetroArch with FFMPEG enabled ~5-10 min on a pi3
Create system specific configs in emulators.cfg for launching retroarch with video recording support. We are basically adding two perametres, --record which defines where the file is saved to (and we should be able to name it based on the rom name or system name) and the --recordconfig which points to a config we create that has the optimal settings for ffmpeg

Obviously I want to automate as much as possible and I believe we can accomplish this primarily through runcommand onstart scripts.

There should probably also be a setting for where the video is saved to as it can be on the sd card or on an external usb though the external usb is preferable as it leads to better performance and is less likely to bork your pi if it runs out of space.

Here's my thinking. It seems there are so many codecs and conversion tools for taking high quality videos down to low quality videos (really since when has the snes ever been 1080p?), but that compression yields terrible results imo whereas I think if we just record the gameplay at the often lower native resolution of the console, the pixels will be crystal clear but they won't be demanding on the resources of the pi.

I have tested the guide listed above and I was able to successfully record in game gameplay with pretty decent results. let me know what you think. If we get really ambitious we could also look into a live streaming option like twitch.

meleu

@herb_fargus
challenge_accepted

AlexMurphy

@herb_fargus This all sounds great. Especially recording at the native resolution. Leave it up to people how they mess with the files' end result.

herb_fargus

also just as a note, of course the first thing I would pick would be annoying. There seems to be a bit of a heated debate as to what is defined as "native resolution" eg: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/2837 but I suppose we'll just leave that up to the user and/or code maintainers for each core.

AlexMurphy

@herb_fargus There's no such thing, as you know. The PC Engine has 3 "native" resolutions, I believe. There is not even a standard aspect ratio. A lot of consoles had 8:5 AR expecting stuff to be hidden behind the bezel. You'll never please everyone.

meleu

@herb_fargus I started that guide and then got distracted by real life issues... But I remember that my first idea for improvement was to store the compiled ffmpeg in a github repo. One for each version of pi (or maybe one for pi1/zero and other for pi2/3). I'm not sure if it has some legal problem, but it sure would be valuable.

herb_fargus

@meleu it is possible ffmpeg will be in the stretch repositories, which should simplify the process a bit. I don't know the legalities of distribution but I vaguely remember ffmpeg being more restrictive

herb_fargus

Ok. quick update. I am basing my approach off of method one on the take and scrape your own screenshots guide. This is all assuming that people have ffmpeg compiled and retroarch with ffmpeg support compiled as well. The idea is to have an onstart script that will create all the video configs, runcommand configs, and folders for scraping. To lay out my basic idea:

Create a videos folder in each rom folder so that it is portable ie when you transfer your roms your scraped data and videos go with you /home/pi/retropie/roms/<system>/videos I've added functions so the video file will be named based on the rom name (I also have a date variable that can be added if one is creating multiple videos)
Create the ffmpeg config /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/videos/config.cfg uses iniset so its simple enough to modify any of the fields if you want to change codec configs
Have a function based on https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/helpers.sh#L1125-L1181 that will generate recording configs for each core to be launched from the runcommand menu, though I wonder if it might be possible to see if there is some mechanism for starting/stopping recordings with a hotkey

Once all the configs are generated by the script, again like the screenshot guide, we can then use sselph's scraper to add the video tags in our xml to match the newly created movies.

Here's the preliminary script, guaranteed to be filled with bugs as its incomplete but I'd be happy to get any input for improvements.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

system="$1"
rompath="$3"
usbdir="/media/usb/RetroPie/roms/$system/videos"
sddir="$HOME/RetroPie/roms/$system/videos"
configdir="/opt/retropie/configs"
vidconfigdir="$configdir/all/retroarch/videos" 

rom_file="${rompath##*/}"
rom="${rom_file%.*}"
date="$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S)"
video="$rom.mkv"

# Create videos folder in each respective rom folder
#mkdir -p "$usbdir"
if [[! -d "$sddir" ]]; then
    mkdir -p "$sddir"
fi

# Create video config file for ffmpeg $vidconfigdir/config.cfg

source "/opt/retropie/lib/inifuncs.sh"

if [[ ! -f "$vidconfigdir/config.cfg" ]]; then
 iniConfig " = " "\"" "$vidconfigdir/config.cfg"
    iniSet "format" "matroska"
    iniSet "threads" "3"
    iniSet "vcodec" "libx264rgb"
    iniSet "video_preset" "ultrafast"
    iniSet "video_tune" "animation"
    iniSet "pix_fmt" "bgr24"
    iniSet "video_qp" "0"
    iniSet "acodec" "flac"
fi

#if lr- copy lr and append video prefix to copied lr- and then append --record AND --recordconfig after .so, still needs tweaking
if ! grep -q "recordconfig" "$configdir/$system/emulators.cfg"; then
    sed -i -e '/^lr-/ p' -e '/^lr/s=^=video-=' -e 's@.so@.so --record '$usbdir/"$video"' --recordconfig '$vidconfigdir/config.cfg'@g' "$configdir/$system/emulators.cfg"
fi

###This is currently not complete, but this will add the correct launch perameters to retroarch
# Create lines in emulators.cfg for the emulator you are using to enable video recording with --record and --recordconfig:
#if [[ "$id" == lr-* && "$cmd" != "$emudir/retroarch/bin/retroarch"* ]]; then
#    cmd="$emudir/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L $cmd --record $usbdir/$system/$video --recordconfig $configdir/config.cfg --config $md_conf_root/$system/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"
#fi

#--record $usbdir/$system/$video
#--recordconfig $configdir/config.cfg

I thought I would have options for and sd card directory or a usb directory but tbh if people have mounted their usb correctly the path should be the same...

The main issues I see right now is it hates spaces in the --record filepath and possibly parentheses too. I also need to find a mechanism so that the rom name is dynamically changed each time a new game is loaded up.

Sselphs scraper

essentially same process as before with images:

cd /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes
/opt/retropie/supplementary/scraper/scraper -video_dir=videos -video_path=videos -video_suffix="" -add_not_found=true -download_images=false

meleu

@herb_fargus I will have a chance to dive into it from Jun-14 on. I hope you don't lose momentum until then. :-)
I'm sure we'll get it working!

herb_fargus

sounds good. I just have to figure out the emulators.cfg, then it should hopefully be functional, then we can focus on optimisations. I don't imagine this will be something for the average user though

herb_fargus

Well I'm a noob. My method of going about this is all wrong and incredibly overengineered. I'm going to give it a break for a bit so fresh eyes can look at it.

I'm thinking the correct way to go about it would be to have a launch perameter in runcommand like we do for netplay or verbose logging except have it be for running a core with recording enabled.

I imagine that once Raspbian updates to stretch with ffmpeg in the repository, this could be something included in retropie by default and much of my script would then be redundant (hopefully!)

I was able to get sselphs scraper to scrape the videos correctly, but now the trouble is encoding it with a compatible codec that will play in emulationstation. Baby steps!

felleg

[created my own thread to ask for help about scraping videos]

meleu

@felleg please open another topic with your issue. It's unrelated to this topic (scrape user created video).

N.A.R.E.K.96

this will be great especially for making youtube videos

meleu

@herb_fargus said in Take and Scrape Your Own Videos:

I'm thinking the correct way to go about it would be to have a launch perameter in runcommand like we do for netplay or verbose logging except have it be for running a core with recording enabled.

Since the recording is not an official feature, I think it wouldn't be a good way to go. But I've got an idea: what about a runcommand-onmenu.sh?

A script to be launched only if user invoke runcommand menu and choose the option to launch it. I'll try to submit a PR and let you guys review the code. I can think other use cases for such feature...

herb_fargus

@meleu it may not be official now but if/when we update to stretch and ffmpeg is in the repos rather than requiring a source install then yes it may actually be viable to include by default but in the interim yes onmenu is a good solution (which I was unaware of) I await your solution

meleu

@herb_fargus said in Take and Scrape Your Own Videos:

onmenu is a good solution (which I was unaware of)

runcommand-onmenu.sh feature doesn't exist yet. I'll try to submit a PR for runcommand.sh implementing this later today.

herb_fargus

@meleu how would the on menu be any different than onstart unless there is some mechanism for modifying the dialog menu for runcommand?

Or are you saying it's an option in the runcommand menu to run a script?

meleu

@herb_fargus runcommand-onmenu.sh would be a script to be launched only if user invoke runcommand menu and choose the option to launch it. runcommand-onstart.sh is always executed before the game is launched.

edit
by the way, I've submitted the PR and tagged you there: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/pull/2009

herb_fargus

@meleu Necropost AHOY!

With the advent of raspbian stretch and subsequently ffmpeg integrated in the repos
the runcommand onmenu functions integrated
and Retroarch compiled with ffmpeg support:

I think I'm ready to give this another go. The integration is all pretty much handled as far as no more need for source compilations, now the trick is just configuring the onstart/onmenu scripts and optimal settings for ffmpeg to capture native res gameplay without degrading performance.

Runcommand OnMenu Options

As far as onstart/omenu scripts go, a few options:

OnMenu that just launches the default config to the default video path with the saved video file being named after the rom.
OnMenu that creates a videos folder for the system being launched, uses the default config, and saves the video in the created videos folder named after the rom.
OnMenu with dialog options to select the saved video path and video config/container (mkv, mp4 etc), and maybe options to name based on rom, date, rom+date, etc.

Runcommand OnMenu

Per the docs, create a script called recordvideo.sh in `

opt/retropie/configs/all/runcommand-menu/`

With the contents todo incomplete!

recordvideos.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

system="$1"
emulator="$2"
rompath="$3"
launch="$4"
rom_file="${rompath##*/}"
rom="${rom_file%.*}"
mediadir="$HOME/RetroPie/roms/$system/images"
videofile="$mediadir/$rom-video.mkv"


# Create videos folder in system's rom folder
if [[ ! -d "$mediadir" ]]; then
    mkdir -p "$mediadir"
    dialog --msgbox "$mediadir created!" 20 60 >/dev/tty
fi

# Launch to record gameplay on RetroArch Systems.
if [[ "$launch" =~ retroarch ]]; then
eval "$launch" "--record '$videofile'" 
exit 1
    else
    dialog --msgbox "Video recording is not supported for this system" 20 60 >/dev/tty
fi

if you want to force ~30 second limits for your videos you can substitute the following code:

eval "$launch" "--record '$videofile'" & sleep 33
killall retroarch
exit 1

Configs

The default path for recorded videos is:

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/records/

If you add a custom config for ffmpeg the default path is:

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/records_config/

Examples:

default.cfg:

vcodec = libx264rgb
pix_fmt = bgr24
acodec = flac
format = matroska
video_qp = 0

optimised.cfg:

format = matroska
threads = 3
vcodec = libx264rgb
video_preset = ultrafast
video_tune = animation
pix_fmt = bgr24
video_qp = 0
acodec = flac

mp4.cfg:

vcodec = libx264rgb
pix_fmt = bgr24
acodec = aac
format = mp4
video_qp = 0

twitch.cfg:

vcodec = libx264
acodec = libmp3lame
pix_fmt = yuv420p
scale_factor = 2
threads = 3
video_crf = 25
video_preset = superfast
video_tune = animation
audio_global_quality = 75
sample_rate = 44100
format = flv