[SOLVED] - Video Snaps not Playing

Clyde

@hyuma Thanks for the information. Yuv444 is a known problem for OMX player. There are at least two scripts to fix that for multiple videos, one by myself and one from @hiulit.

But @wiggy808's videos are already in yuv420p (at least the Ace of Aces video is), so alas, it's not that issue. I'm curious if re-encoding his/her videos will change anything.

Let's stay tuned. :)

Hyuma

Wow, good job with the script, @Clyde! I still have 2 mp4 that doesn't work also in yuv420p and i can't understand why... Here you can find the media information of video:

https://paste.ofcode.org/JfKAGPpCB7EJg7vtYkC7Az

if you can tell me why this video doens't work you will be very helpful for me! thanks

Clyde

@hyuma Thanks for the compliment. My script isn't nearly as sophisticated as @hiulit's, but it does its job in the spirit of the Unix Philosophy #1, "make each program do one thing well". 😊

Alas, I can't say much about your media information, as I know next to nothing about video internals. But maybe someone else here can.

That said, did you compare the media data of the non-working videos to that of the working videos? That may give away some clues.

Hyuma

yes I've compared and the only difference comes from VBR against CBR... but the videos working as screensaver... only in preview they doesn't work...

mitu

@hyuma Check if

You're using omxplayer for video previews, should be an Emulationstation setting.
The theme you're using has video preview support and the Gamelist View Style is set to video in the Emulationstation UI Settings.

wiggy808

Just got in gang, thanks for the replies, I'm going to test now and post in a few minutes the results.

Hyuma

@mitu yes i have both, but as I said video preview works but not all preview are working and i'm trying to understand why..

mitu

@hyuma What theme are you using ? If you play the video from the CLi with omxplayer <video_file> do you get any errors or the playback is ok ?

Hyuma

@mitu I tested various theme also with basic theme i had the problem, now I'll try that command to see which error i get. ;)

Hyuma

@mitu running from terminal

omxplayer input.mp4

Video codec omx-h264 width 480 height 360 profile 100 fps 29.970030
Audio codec aac channels 2 samplerate 44100 bitspersample 16
Subtitle count: 0, state: off, index: 1, delay: 0
V:PortSettingsChanged: 480x360@29.97 interlace:0 deinterlace:0 anaglyph:0 par:1.12 display:0 layer:0 alpha:255 aspectMode:0

I got no error

wiggy808

Here's the update.

First tried changing the OMX hardware acceleration ("Other Settings">"Use OMX Player (HW Accelerated)"), same result on or off, video snap preview doesn't play.

Second attempt was the re-encoding. File size doubled, so something changed, result was the same however, snap video didn't play.

Third attempt was based on @mitu suggestion to play on CLI using omxplayer command. Both the original (_orig.mp4) and the new (ffmpeg converted) files played. Here are the outputs:

pi@retropie:~/RetroPie/roms/mastersystem/snap $ omxplayer Ace\ of\ Aces\ \(Europe\).mp4
Video codec omx-mpeg4 width 320 height 240 profile -99 fps 30.000000
Audio codec aac channels 2 samplerate 48000 bitspersample 16
Subtitle count: 0, state: off, index: 1, delay: 0
V:PortSettingsChanged: 320x240@30.00 interlace:0 deinterlace:0 anaglyph:0 par:1.00 display:0 layer:0 alpha:255 aspectMode:0
have a nice day ;)
pi@retropie:~/RetroPie/roms/mastersystem/snap $ omxplayer Ace\ of\ Aces\ \(Europe\)_orig.mp4
Video codec omx-h264 width 320 height 240 profile 100 fps 30.000000
Audio codec aac channels 2 samplerate 48000 bitspersample 16
Subtitle count: 0, state: off, index: 1, delay: 0
V:PortSettingsChanged: 320x240@30.00 interlace:0 deinterlace:0 anaglyph:0 par:1.00 display:0 layer:0 alpha:255 aspectMode:0
have a nice day ;)
pi@retropie:~/RetroPie/roms/mastersystem/snap $

Side note, I did have to use @Hyuma command ffmpeg as the avconv alias wasn't there. It seemed to work fine.

So still kinda scratching my head, gamelist.xml file looks correct to me, file is there, encoding seems okay, plays from CLI with omxplayer...This is very odd and I hope we can figure this out.

let me know what else we can try.

Hyuma

@wiggy808 do you use chat like irc or discord? we can talk there if you want to

wiggy808

Yes, I'm on discord, how do I message you my name without posting it here, lol

wiggy808

@Hyuma I guess its not that big of a deal. My discord name is same as it is here, wiggy808

Hyuma

@wiggy808 i need also the numbers after the "#" in nickname

wiggy808

This post is deleted!

Clyde

@wiggy808 @Hyuma As a word of advice, it may be suboptimal to move your discussion to a private chat, because others can't follow and thus, can't provide any additional counsel.

That said, it would be nice if you'd provide us with any insights in the matter, no matter if success or failure, since both can be educational.

wiggy808

@clyde I agree! It was more as an easier way to test somethings in a live manner. It was just today that we figured it out after some testing.

It was DEFINITELY a scraper / gamelist.xml issue!

It appears that the gamelist.xml file in the /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/mastersystem was causing some issues as it conflicted with the one in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mastersystem. I deleted the one in .emulationstation and began to manually edit the one in RetroPie (Ace of Aces rom and snap file names didn't match, that was another issue caused by either the scraper or something else that I had done).

However, after making changes and rebooting, the gamelist.xml in the RetroPie directory reverted back to the original syntax it had before I made the changes. So we decided to shut down ES, edit the file, then start ES back up. This worked and the changes are persistent and the previews began to show!

Couple questions:

How did the gamelist.xml file in the .emulationstation directory get created?
Why did the gamelist.xml file in the RetroPie directory revert to the original syntax? Is shutting down ES the only / best way to change that file?
What is the best / recommended way to produce a gamelist.xml file?

mitu

@wiggy808 said in Video Snaps not Playing:

How did the gamelist.xml file in the .emulationstation directory get created?

This is where it's created by default, so it was probably created the first time you copied the ROMs in mastersystem folder and restarted Emulationstation.

Why did the gamelist.xml file in the RetroPie directory revert to the original syntax? Is shutting down ES the only / best way to change that file?

Because that's how things work - Emulationstation generates a gamelist.xml file if there are ROMs in the folder and no previous gamelist.xml file was found. The file is written by Emulationstation when it restarts/stops, so any external modifications to the file while Emulationstation is running are more likely to be overwritten.
Note that if there is a gamelist.xml file in the ROMs folder, Emulationstation will not create a new gamelist.xml file in ~/.emulationstation, but it will use that file for further edits/changes.

What is the best / recommended way to produce a gamelist.xml file?

Use a scraper - either the built-in Emulationstation scraper or another scraper which understands and produces the Emulationstation gamelist.xml format.

wiggy808

@mitu Going to put this as resolved, thanks for the explanation as well!

I don't seem to have that option...help, lol