Easy Method, Small Size Videos (no audio)

[Kreecher]

Hey, just want to share a method I've found to create videos for ES that can't be found using scraping, are easier to create than having to download and edit a large mp4 clip, and/or are resultant videos are smaller than typical scraped or otherwise converted videos.

Downside is no audio; but since I use background music with my front end, I don't want video audio to clash with music anyway.

I've used a similar trick before; but found this to be the fastest and easiest:

1. I search the game for which I need a video on YouTube, and look through the list of videos for one with a preview (most of the time there is; but sometimes you have to scroll down to find one OR to find the one that best fits your taste). These previews are .webp files, which are animated images like gifs. As such, they're always only a few seconds worth of clip from the game. For me, that's all that I want (for my own aesthetic) as a short, looping video preview.
2. I right-click the video/image, and download to my computer. Since this has been an ongoing project, I usually just overwrite the existing mqdefault_6s.webmp created from my previous download.
3. Then I upload webmp file to an online GIF to MP4 converter, and convert it to video format (as you can assume, to MP4 format). BOOM! DONE! Ready to SCP to the appropriate roms folder. (This also works with regular gif images as well, if you choose to use an image search engine like Google.)
4. Once converted, I download the mp4 and rename it to match name of rom, same as any image file, and using WinSCP upload it to the appropriate ROMS images folder.
5. Using WinSCP, I open the games.xml file for that emulator (in the roms folder) and add the line <video>./images/romname-video.mp4</video>.
6. save games.xml, restart Emulationstaion, and video will play (assuming your theme allows for videos)

Once you do a few, it gets easier. "wash, rinse, repeat"

This link to Batman - Rise of Sin Tzu (GBA) gif is an example of what looped video will look like once converted. Once converted to mp4 video, size of this particular gif reduces to 111k. This is a GIF found using a search engine. The WEBMP files I usually use right-click/save from YouTube previews are usually smaller to begin with and result in smaller mp4 converted files as well.

(Added bonus: I don't think there is anything borderline illegal or unethical converting "unofficial" preview gifs or webmp images to mp4s. Maybe someone with more copyright knowledge can confirm that)

sample loop video of Batman - Rise of Sin Tzu GBA still in gif format, before converting to mp4: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/80572280820402727/