Video Screensaver in Emulation Station

SuperFromND

@pjft I tried making a new folder in EmulationStation's gamelist folder simply titled "dummy", then proceeded to have the gamelist be filled with 1024 entries of the same dummy ROM file (which for me, was /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/dummy/dummyfile.test) with the video attached. It didn't pick the video file that was attached, so I'm assuming it only scans for systems that are actually attached to a listed system in es_systems.cfg.

However, I did find a solution: By adding the video line to RetroPie's gamelist.xml and forcing ES to show detailed view only, I did manage to get the video to show only as a screensaver, while also preventing any kind of visible "dummy" entry.

pjft

@SuperCatFooz correct. The video needs to be associated with a gamelist that's loaded in EmulationStation.

Glad you sorted that one out!

Are you using OMX Player? All good?

I'd disable screensaver controls in order to prevent attempting to launch it by mistake by pressing start from the screensaver:)

SuperFromND

@pjft Yeah, I'm all good. :)

lilbud

@pjft Is there a way to change the length that the video plays?

Like, I have a 3 minute video, is there a way for the whole video to play? Cause it stops after 30sec and repeats

pjft

@lilbud that sounds like a fair request. I can add it to my never ending list of things to tweak and fix, and I'll see how hard it is.

pjft

@lilbud I was looking at the code, and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be that trivial to get the info on when the video actually finishes at the moment.

The simplest I could do is to allow for a slider to customize the time at which the video moves on to the next one, so that It's not only 30 secs.

I know it's not ideal, but would that be a reasonable compromise?

mattrixk

@pjft I have no stake in this as I don't use the setting, but this came to mind:

customize the time at which the video moves on to the next one

What would happen if you set it to (eg) 60 seconds, but the video was only 40 seconds? Would something break, or would it just reach the end of the 40 second video and move onto the next one?

I'm guessing you've already thought about this /figured it out, but I wanted to bring it up in case you hadn't.

pjft

@mattrixk no, it's a good point.

At the moment, precisely because videos come in different lengths and such (and the goal was to showcase the different games in the system) it will play a random video for 30 secs and then move on to the next.

If it's longer it gets truncated. If it's smaller it loops, restarting until it gets to 30 secs of total play time.

It's not that it's impossible to make it detect the end of the video (I hate thinking anything is impossible from a technical standpoint, when we live at an age where we have self driving cars) but it certainly isn't trivial with the current architecture and video players, and truth be told the return vs the effort to make it work like that with the rewrites it would require doesn't seem to be worth it for me at this stage.

That's the honest answer in the short term :)

mattrixk

@pjft I figured you would have already found a solution, and the looping is a good one.

pjft

@mattrixk To his credit, this was the way @fieldofcows implemented it :) I had no say in it, but it certainly is a one-size-fits-all approach that works great for what it was designed for.

I'll keep this request on my to-do list, but in the short term the most I could commit to (i.e. a solution that I know that works) would be the slider to control the video swap time.

lilbud

@pjft I think that would be best.

Also, you said you updated you virtual systems branch with a fix for the bug I found, but when I go to the page, it says the last change was like 2 weeks ago.

pjft

@lilbud I suspect that's just an artifact of GitHub dates as I squash all the changes back to a single commit. Unless you're looking at the wrong branch.

This is the latest one:

https://github.com/pjft/EmulationStation/commit/d80560e0c5e7c7028ad8fc9ad4a9df3df2c1411a

Should be up to date.

DRB

@supercatfooz said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

However, I did find a solution: By adding the video line to RetroPie's gamelist.xml and forcing ES to show detailed view only, I did manage to get the video to show only as a screensaver, while also preventing any kind of visible "dummy" entry.

I also only want the video files for the screensaver only (not in the menu screen for each game). When I added the option for the screensaver and added the path to the video files my theme was compromised and didn't display properly.

@supercatfooz Can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'RetroPie's gamelist.xml? There is a gamelist.xml for each emulator so it sounds like you may be referring to a 'generic' gamelist.xml file?

Also, has there been resolution to the video stretching to fill the entire screen. That still seems to be an issue on my end.

Thanks

pjft

@drb stretching in the screensaver, you mean? There's an option for that in the screensaver menu.

DRB

@pjft said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@drb stretching in the screensaver, you mean? There's an option for that in the screensaver menu.

@pjft, Where is the screensaver menu you speak of? I've looked all over and cannot find that.

SuperFromND

@drb said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@supercatfooz Can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'RetroPie's gamelist.xml? There is a gamelist.xml for each emulator so it sounds like you may be referring to a 'generic' gamelist.xml file?
Thanks

I mean \opt\configs\all\emulationstation\gamelists\retropie\gamelist.xml.

DRB

@supercatfooz said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@drb said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@supercatfooz Can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'RetroPie's gamelist.xml? There is a gamelist.xml for each emulator so it sounds like you may be referring to a 'generic' gamelist.xml file?
Thanks

I mean \opt\configs\all\emulationstation\gamelists\retropie\gamelist.xml.

@supercatfooz thanks, but what 'video line' do I enter and where does it go? These appear to be the items in the RetroPie menu and I don't see anything there for video.

SuperFromND

@drb There isn't one by default. You have to add a video line manually. This post for a video screensaver I made explains in more detail, but basically just add this line to any of the "game" entries:

<video>(insert path to video file here)</video>

DRB

Thanks for all the help guys. My bad; I was working with another version of ES. I thought I was on the right version, but was not. Back to configuring now.

Thanks again

DRB

I do have another question. Does this method only allow for 1 video file for the screensaver or can I use multiple videos at random? I entered separate lines of code for a few videos, but they didn't seem to take.