How can I point Emulation Station video clip references to where the clips are stored (and used by Attract Mode)?

VegasDude

Hi There,

Is there an ES file I can update that will point all references for video clips to the folder in which they are stored? Attract Mode has access to them. And I can see where I can set the path in ES for each game. But where can I set that path for each platform? Is there a global ES config file that holds the paths for each platform?

I have:
Raspberry Pie 3B+
ES v2.7.6RP
RP 4.6

Impman66

In Emulation station I normally press Select when I have a game highlighted, then click on Edit Metadata. go down to video and enter the path where I know the video is stored, along with the name of the rom itself. Usually for individual games it will be in a Media or image folder for that system. Usually the path will be something like;

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/media/videos/dkong3-video.mp4

The above is an example of a Donkey Kong 3 video snap. Note the video name MUST match the name of the rom.

If you have WinSCP installed you can link to your pi with a PC (you must be out of Emulationstation) and navigate to the relevant folder.
Depending on the scraper used will determine if the files are stored in the media or images folder of the system rom.
Just copying a video clip to the folder wont work though the gamelist has to be told to look for that clip.
That is why in Emulationstation editing the metadata pathway, will put in the info needed.
I get some snaps that haven't been scraped, put them in the systems (arcade, nes, snes), media or images folder using WinSCP, and then in EmulationStation just type in the path for the clip needed, as in the example above.

VegasDude

Thank you for your response. Yes, I know how to manually edit the path for each game through ES. I was just wondering if there was a config file that could be updated to provide a global path for all games. But it doesn't sound like it?

mitu

Actually there is a configuration to make EmulationStation look automatically for media (video/boxart/marquee) - it's called 'Enable Local Art', in the Other settings.
When enabled, EmulationStation it will look for images/<game>-image.png, images/<game>-video.mp4 and images/<game>-marquee.png (.jpg work also) and use the found media instead of looking in the gamelist.xml.

Impman66

@mitu said in How can I point Emulation Station video clip references to where the clips are stored (and used by Attract Mode)?:

Actually there is a configuration to make EmulationStation look automatically for media (video/boxart/marquee) - it's called 'Enable Local Art', in the Other settings.
When enabled, EmulationStation it will look for images/<game>-image.png, images/<game>-video.mp4 and images/<game>-marquee.png (.jpg work also) and use the found media instead of looking in the gamelist.xml.

Nice one mitu, this will save me quite a bit of time, as I am spending a lot more time on the retropie, than before, due to lockdown and furlouh. Sorry Vegasdude, didn't realise you knew about the paths and that, I probably read too much in your question. Never mind Mitu has given us both a good solution :-)