Video Screensaver in Emulation Station

fieldofcows

@CourierSS Thanks for testing this and I'm glad it seems to work ok. In summary, you have seen these issues/suggestions:

It would be nice to be able to turn off sound. i guess this could be simply achieved with two screensaver entries - "Random Video" and "Random Video (no sound)"
Raspbery Pi gets hotter - this is to be expected. Is it a problem? I might mean that people need to ensure their builds include enough ventilation. VLC used for the video preview is not (as far as I am aware) using the hardware codec. I'm not sure if it's possible to use it but maybe if we can the CPU will run a little cooler. It's worth investigating.
Only videos from systems supported by current theme are used. I'll look into this
Video 'tearing'. This might be down to how the video is rendered to the screen. I'll have a look
Show the game title as an overlay on the video

Have I missed anything?

Thanks again for testing.

Zigurana

@fieldofcows: I like!
I've been thinking about a better screensaver, but never got my head wrapped around how I should do it.

I'd like it to work as an attract mode functionality, luring people at a party into playing by showcasing random games.
So, it will not really act as a proper screensaver, which returns you to where-ever you left. Rather it will actually change the selection to where the screensaver left it, so you can play that game (that got your attention in the first place) directly.

To that extend I had already implemented a 'gotoRandomGame()' that just jumps to a random game in a random system. I think to combine that with your work on video-support, and now a nicely separated screensaver component, we might be very close!

CourierSS

@fieldofcows

That sounds about right. For number 2, it was just a note for those who are like me and leave their Raspberry Pi running all the time. I usually don't turn it off, or forget to, so I figure it would be useful information for others to know. I think the temperature is fine as well. I also realized that the video snaps I've seen show the game title at the end, so doing some sort of overlay with the system and game title while the screensaver is showing wouldn't be needed.

I'm going to try a reinstalling RetroPie in a bit and seeing if there are any differences with my results.

fieldofcows

@CourierSS said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

doing some sort of overlay with the system and game title while the screensaver is showing wouldn't be needed

Oh, I forgot about that one. I've edited my previous post and added a number 5 :) I had planned to do this at some point anyway - one of my gripes about my current bartop (not using retropie) is that the video screensaver doesn't tell you what game it is showing.

CourierSS

@fieldofcows

I made a mistake with number 3. I was loading up wonderswan/color videos but forgot that the core for it wasn't installed by default so naturally it wouldn't play. After loading up the core, it worked fine, even if the theme didn't support it.

I reinstalled RetroPie, but I still see the tearing/artifacts showing up on the videos with the video being stretched beyond its original aspect ratio to fit my 16:9 screen.

Also, I noticed a couple more things. While in one of the systems with a video preview playing, the screensaver will activate and both sounds from the video preview and screensaver will play at the same time. When playing the screensavers, it seems to repeatedly play three videos even though I have loaded up about 10-12 videos. If I stop the screensaver then let it run, it picks three videos to replay again.

robertybob

If a video is less than 30 seconds in length, will it loop?

fieldofcows

@robertybob said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

If a video is less than 30 seconds in length, will it loop?

Yes

lilbud

I think this would be amazing with these screensavers

http://benjaminmayo.co.uk/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-screensavers#b3-1

**Scannigan**

@CourierSS did you work around the overlapping sound with screen saver and vid preview playing at the same time?

DigitalSynergy

@fieldofcows I followed the instructions, however I just get a black screen when the screensaver kicks on. How do I add videos of the games / where do I get them. Also, can I use any video I want? in step 6. it says "assuming you have some <video> tags in your gamelists." can you elaborate further on this?

momaw27

@fieldofcows I'm really digging your work on ES regarding videos!

Thanks for all your expertise in making ES my favorite front end to date... and I've used a LOT!!!

I'd like to add my request to above post.

Something I have always wanted in a screensaver for video games is the ability to go directly to the game the screen saver is showing. One of my favorite things to do is just to sit and watch the different games as they go by, but if one strikes my fancy I'd like to be able to immediately start it up... as opposed to navigating to it.

Is this possible?

Thanks again!

momaw27

mattrixk

@momaw27 an addition (or alternative) to this could be displaying the game name and system over the video so you know which video is playing?

Dominus

I'm on Retropie 4.1.14 right now, and this post is 2 months old. Do I still need to do all the steps above? Specifically the ones about installing a new emulationstation?

fieldofcows

@Dominus I'm afraid so. I've been busy fixing the WSOD and looking at video rendering temperature issues over getting this ready for a PR.

I might just try to squeeze the screensaver in along with the OMX video preview PR though seeing as both changes are currently being tested, albeit independently.

I've got a couple of things I want to include with the screensaver before it's finished though based on suggestions by others:

Add an option to disable the sound when the screensaver is playing
Display the system and game name on the video

I would like to consider the automatic jump to the game being shown in the video but it requires a bit more thought because I don't think we want to do that every time. Maybe when a certain button is pressed? I think that will come later though.

Dominus

@fieldofcows Yeah I like the system and name of the game. How Attract Mode does theres. Would they be the logos, or just text? I say go with the logos! haha

fieldofcows

@Dominus Ooh. Maybe. I haven't seen theirs. Can you point me to a screenshot?

Dominus

@fieldofcows Hmm I can't seem to find one at the moment. I have to put in another microsd that has it on it, and I'll see if I can take some pictures. It's nice, because it has the logo the system, and I think the game's logo too? I can't entirely remember, but would be nice to have both. They also have a 4 screen split with 4 videos of different systems/games playing at the same time, looks really nice!

Dominus

I did all the stuff mentioned above and it works, but I can't seem to exit Emulation Station and get to the command line properly anymore. It just seems to hang there with the flashing underscore.

**Scannigan**

@fieldofcows stellar work my friend!! Just out of curiosity, I know you're working on the fix for the WSOD, which I've been using with no really issues other than the "start" "select" etc buttons and the bottom of the screen that are part of the ES interface seem to flicker on button presses. I'm not 100% how this PR thing works, so when you've finished screensaver, the video renderer and the WSOD, will that all go into one release, as they're all separate now aren't they?

fieldofcows

@__Scannigan__ WSOD is now fixed and available from the setup script by building the latest version of ES.

The rule is generally "1 new feature : one PR" so I think I'll finish the fix for OMXPlayer rendering, get that merged then quickly follow it with the screensaver. The screensaver needs a little bit more feature development anyway based on suggestions.