Scraper video black after scraping update

Menion

Hi all
Today I updated my arcade rom set and update the scraping information, as usual with Steven Selph's scraper.
Well, I tried with ArcadeItalia and ScreenScraper source and I think there is something wrong with the video. They play black with VLC and just won't start with omxplayer, even if launched from the console. In Windows they play black with Windows Media Player and fin with VLC 3.
It does not seem a problem with the emulationstation metadata, but with the video themselves, the strange thing is that my old scraper video, taken with the same scraper and from the same source some months ago, worked
Also inspecting them with ffprobe report that they are "just" normal mp4 video

mitu

@Menion This comes up again and again - it's because omxplayer doesn't like the video codec variant for the video. Here are some scripts to fix this.

Menion

But then why the video is black also with VLC that should support it (and worked with my previous scraper video)?

mitu

@Menion Can you run ffmpeg -i <video_file_name> and provide the output for one of those videos ? Just to check what codec is used in the video.

Menion

@mitu

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'goldnaxe-video.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    title           : Golden Axe (set 6, US) (8751 317-123A) [MAME]
    artist          : Progetto VideoSnaps by motoschifo & AntoPISA [gameplay by adolfo69]
    encoder         : Lavf54.20.4
    comment         : Created with: Mame version 0.162,
                    : Played by: adolfo69,
                    : Game name: goldnaxe - Golden Axe (set 6, US) (8751 317-123A),
                    : Date game played: 21 giugno 2015,
                    : Date video creation: 4 novembre 2015,
                    : Type: shortplay single-screen,
                    : Manufacturer: Sega,
                    : Display resolution: 320x224px,
                    : Link for info: http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/?mame=goldnaxe,
                    : Copyright (C) - All rights reserved - Tutti i marchi e loghi appartengono ai rispettivi proprietari
    genre           : MAME video preview (shortplay)
  Duration: 00:01:09.36, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 435 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High 4:4:4 Predictive) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv444p, 320x224 [SAR 14:15 DAR 4:3], 257 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 2997 tbn, 59.94 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 172 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
menion@Menionubuntu:/media/storage/das1/emulation/roms/arcade/images$

They are H264 4:4:4, so would give problem with omxplayer but VLC should be able to reproduce, right?

mitu

@Menion said in Scraper video black after scraping update:

They are H264 4:4:4, so would give problem with omxplayer but VLC should be able to reproduce, right?

Yes, I wonder if it's not the recent VLC update that broke this. I don't have a Pi at hand, but I'll test later to see if it's the RPI patch that breaks this or the actual VLC update (3.0.6).

Menion

@mitu now that I think about this, I updated core just before update the rom set (because of the new FB alpha!)

mitu

@Menion It's the OS packages that I was talking about, not the RetroPie's package - but when you update the script will ask you if you want to also upgrade the OS packages. I assume you said yes, so the vlc package might also have been updated.

Menion

Yes I have updated also OS and I remember that also VLC and ffmpeg libraries got updated

mitu

I tested on my PI and it's clearly not working after the update. The 3.0.6 update for VLC doesn't seem to work for Mpeg4 videos, either with or without the RPF patch (that inverted the colors at the end of last year). I'm not sure if it's the ffmpeg libraries or the vlc part that broke, so far downgrading vlc doesn't have any result. I'll see if the ffmpeg downgrade might produce something.

Menion

Is it possible that VLC goes for OMX acceleration when deconding via FFMPEG? This because yuv420 mp4s work with VLC

mitu

@Menion So you have some videos that work with vlc (the YUV 420p) ? omxplayer is using the ffmpeg libraries, I think vlc does not.

Menion

@mitu Yes, all my yuv420p videos work with VLC after the update (scraper of sms, snes, etc... are in 420p)
And yes, it seems that recent RPi VLCs are now built with OMX acceleration, see this news
I think there is a way to launch VLC with SW decoder, but it would require modification in EmulationStation.
Meanwhile I started a thread in ArcadeItalia to report the issue and see if they are willing to re-encode the preview video in yuv420p

mitu

@Menion said in Scraper video black after scraping update:

@mitu Yes, all my yuv420p videos work with VLC after the update (scraper of sms, snes, etc... are in 420p)

Thanks for confirming this.

And yes, it seems that recent RPi VLCs are now built with OMX acceleration, see this news

I know, that patch broke the rendering from Emulationstation when the new MMAL decoder is used - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/20256/. The bug was reported, but the resolution is still not in the released vlc, and now it's not playing at all.

I think there is a way to launch VLC with SW decoder, but it would require modification in EmulationStation.

Emulationstation doesn't call vlc directly, it uses libvlc, though it might be possible to pass along some parameters to choose the decoder.

Meanwhile I started a thread in ArcadeItalia to report the issue and see if they are willing to re-encode the preview video in yuv420p

I think those videos are captured directly from MAME, but if they're willing to re-encode them it would be great. Thank you for lending a helping hand.

Menion

@mitu

I think those videos are captured directly from MAME, but if they're willing to re-encode them it would be great. Thank you for lending a helping hand.

You are welcome! One of the admin just replied that they are aware of the issue, the videos are already re-encoded and as soon as they will find a proper host where put them, they will become available

Menion

Hi all
I have modified the @hiulit script here so it can run on a generic host with VAAPI hardware encoding