Video Screensaver in Emulation Station

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.

SuperFromND

@drb I believe this allows for multiple videos by applying different videos to each entry, but keep in mind you can only have 1 video per entry. (so for example, two video tags can't be on the "RetroPie Setup" game entry)

Also, if you add videos to any other system, then it will probably use those videos on top of the dedicated screensaver videos.

DRB

@supercatfooz said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@drb I believe this allows for multiple videos by applying different videos to each entry, but keep in mind you can only have 1 video per entry. (so for example, two video tags can't be on the "RetroPie Setup" game entry)

Also, if you add videos to any other system, then it will probably use those videos on top of the dedicated screensaver videos.

@supercatfooz thanks again for the response; that makes sense.

I did a bit more testing last night and found an interesting anomaly. When I initially followed your instructions and added the first video code (<video> [path]/video1.avi</video>) and re-booted, the code is no longer visible but that video still plays as a screen saver. Any thoughts on how or why?

SuperFromND

@drb Huh, strange. Well, if it works, it can't be much of a big deal right?

felleg

@pjft said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@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?

Any update on that? I loved this idea.

pjft

@felleg Not for the moment. Having fun with other fun things.

But it's not forgotten.

pjft

@felleg @lilbud

I've submitted a PR for that:

https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/pull/196

If/when it gets merged, we'll have a slider for controlling the video length. Not optimal, but hopefully better.

One thing: in the latest ES build, if you have power savings enabled, the videos won't swap -- this should also fix it.

Best.

Graphicsgod

@fieldofcows

Oh wow this is kinda what I've been wanting in Emulation Station!!!

If I'm not on the "current build," how do I add this to an older ver. of ES?!?!

The build I'm on (and loving BTW), breaks if I update ES to a newer ver. Is this possible to just insert the code and download the files to just make this work?? My build doesn't use video snaps, just pictures of the box art. Which is fine, don't need fancy videos of the games playing. But I do want a screen saver showing videos of the games or just a custom video as a screen saver!!

Any help would be most appreciated!! I'm not a coder, so if someone walks me through where to go and insert the text and what to type in DOS to get the files, I can do it!

Or is this something that isn't being worked on any further?

Thank you for any assistance with this!

Zigurana

@graphicsgod said in Video Screensaver in Emulation Station:

@fieldofcows
The build I'm on (and loving BTW), breaks if I update ES to a newer ver.

Can you please elaborate on this? You should be able to update EmulationStation without things breaking.

Is this possible to just insert the code and download the files to just make this work??

No, not without coding.

hyp36rmax

Love the screensaver option. Random is great and all. But would like to request an option to select custom video files to play as screensavers?

Cooloring

If i set Show game info on i get a black screen . How i fix that ?

pjft

@Cooloring if on a pi 3, disable overscan on /boot/config.txt.

If on a pi 4, doesn't work with omxplayer because of different video handling. Use VLC for screensaver.

You may choose to use VLC for screensaver on the pi 3 as well, but performance isn't great.