Please test: Using OMXPlayer as video renderer

fieldofcows

I'm after some more people to try another one of my test builds on RPi 2/3.

A while ago I published a very early test build that replaced the VLC video rendering of video previews with OMXPlayer to see if it would fix RPi overheating issues. I've now had a chance to work on this a bit more and pleased to announce that it's ready for a bug hunt.

This new build should have fixed all issues in my early alpha build when using OMXPlayer as the video preview player on raspberry pi. If you build from source on other platforms (Linux, Windows) it is compiled-out as OMX player is not available on these platforms.

On Raspberry PI the player can be switched between VLC and OMX using this option in es_settings.cfg:

<bool name="VideoOmxPlayer" value="true" />

Setting the above to false makes ES use VLC as it does in the current version of ES. The default is 'true'.

When using OMXPlayer as the video player it is not possible to render anything on top of the video (like the raster lines in the oldroom theme). This is a limitation currently of this rendering method and unlikely to be fixed. Switching to VLC re-enables overlay on top of video.

Also, I'm not sure if every video format that VLC supports is supported by OMXPlayer. You may have to convert some files.

The binary is RPi 2/3 only at the moment. The binary will not work on RPi1 but building from source might just work.

Get it here:
https://github.com/fieldofcows/EmulationStation/releases/tag/v0.3-RPi-6

Thanks in advance :)

Instructions:

Either download a fresh copy of retropie from https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/releases/download/4.1/retropie-4.1-rpi2_rpi3.img.gz and install it on an SD card or use a pre-configured (and backed up) configuration.
Connect the raspberry pi to the network
Boot the raspberry pi and exit ES back to the terminal
Download or copy the new ES build https://github.com/fieldofcows/EmulationStation/releases/download/v0.3-RPi-6/emulationstation into the home directory, e.g.

wget https://github.com/fieldofcows/EmulationStation/releases/download/v0.3-RPi-6/emulationstation

Make executable and replace the original ES

chmod +x emulationstation
sudo cp emulationstation /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/

Install your ROMS and configuration including <video> tags and a video supported theme
Restart

Nismo

Amazing work. would be nice a buid for testing on windows ;D

It's a shame that the overlays doesn't work, because my theme use a lot of them, not only for scanlines, also use borders for the screen in a lot of systems, and effects like shadows on the screen or green screen on gameboy.

Anyway, when I finally open the thread for the theme i'll upload optimized videos so the people can use VLC without temp problems.

The problem is that I need to redo all my already converted videos I was preparing to open the theme thread, and i'll loose a lot of hours of reencoding videos, just because most of them are at 640x480, and after read some video test, I think it's better to downscale a bit to 480x360 for better temps.

On the other side, a new version of the oldroom theme is coming with a lot of new systems.

I'm wondering if when you finish all this work and metadata improvements could be problems to compile a version for windows...

Thanks for your work mate, and don't forget to keep the ball rolling... XD

MWGemini

@fieldofcows Great work! I won't have time to give this a thorough testing until the day after tomorrow, but expect a full report from me somewhere in the next 36 to 48 hours.

fieldofcows

@Nismo said in Please test: Using OMXPlayer as video renderer:

Amazing work. wpuld be nice a buid for testing on windows ;D

@Nismo - don't worry the Windows version is unaffected by this. This is RPi only.

On the Raspberry Pi you now have the option, through es_settings.cfg, to choose whether to use VLC or OMX as the video renderer. With VLC it works exactly as before and all your theming tricks still work. With OMX the RPi (hopefully) runs cooler but the overlays do not work.

If this version is built for Windows or Linux then you do not get the option. It will always render using VLC and the theming tricks still work.

Nismo

@fieldofcows Omg, you never miss anything, always have everything under control... XD.

pjft

Will look into this soon, hopefully by Thursday evening as my wife and kids are sick at the moment, so I'm manning the ship on my own, for better and for worse :)

Thanks for putting this together. Out of curiosity, what's your angle on the ES menus, then? Do you stop video playback so that it doesn't overlay on top of the menus? Sounds like a potential reasonable solution.

Also, does this build still keep the random video screensaver, or is it a completely different branch?

Thanks!

fieldofcows

Haha! I've found the first bug myself. If you go into the settings menu from the system screen then close it again you sometimes get a video overlaid on top of the system screen.

Nismo

@fieldofcows I would like very much to help test your work.
I'm sorry I can not be of help.

MWGemini

@fieldofcows I know I promised a full report, but work has been crazy this week, so I haven't had as much free time as I expected. I did however do some basic tests, and it appears that the temperature issue is resolved with the OMX player (as per my previous posts in the other thread). I'll keep looking for strange behavior and try to get a more detailed list of what videos play and what don't, as far as resolutions and framerates go. One other bug, and I believe this is an OMX issue, is that when exiting ES after having played a video, the terminal does not display input, and you must type "reset" to free it. I haven't tested this with the latest patch, but it was there previously and I just wanted to make another note of it.

Nismo

@MWGemini I already started to upload media packs on this thread: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/8019/oldroom-theme-w-i-p-media-packs

I'm encoding the videos at 480 max width resolution and 25fps. Can you download some of them and test with VLC renderer? since my theme has a lot of overlays and need VLC renderer to fully work.

I hope the temps will be ok now with that values and vlc renderer...

MWGemini

@Nismo The VLC player is the one that has the temperature problems. The new version uses OMX. I'll try to set aside some time to test your packs, but it might not be until the middle of next week, as I have to help a friend move this weekend.

Nismo

@MWGemini As far i know, in the new version you can select what video renderer to use (VLC or OMX) inside es_settings.cfg.

@fieldofcows said in Please test: Using OMXPlayer as video renderer:

On Raspberry PI the player can be switched between VLC and OMX using this option in es_settings.cfg:
<bool name="VideoOmxPlayer" value="true" />
Setting the above to false makes ES use VLC as it does in the current version of ES. The default is 'true'.

When using OMXPlayer as the video player it is not possible to render anything on top of the video (like the raster lines in the oldroom theme). This is a limitation currently of this rendering method and unlikely to be fixed. Switching to VLC re-enables overlay on top of video.

Also, I'm not sure if every video format that VLC supports is supported by OMXPlayer. You may have to convert some files.

The binary is RPi 2/3 only at the moment. The binary will not work on RPi1 but building from source might just work.

Get it here:
https://github.com/fieldofcows/EmulationStation/releases/tag/v0.3-RPi-6

Like @fieldofcows said here, people who want to use overlays the must stay with VLC video renderer.

I was reading a few comments about temperatures and different resolutions and fps, and I think with that videos the temps will be ok, but I can't test by myself.

I think people with themes wich requires overlays would be very happy with they can play my videos with not so high temps, they are highly optimized.

Thanks for your help testing, and don't worry, take your time.

fieldofcows

I'm not entirely happy that we've one player that supports overlays and another that does not so I've been trying to find a way to either get the OMX player to support overlays or use some other way of bringing the CPU/GPU usage down.

Unfortunately my RPi3 died (not from overheating due to videos I hope :D ) so I'm not making much progress at the moment...

pjft

@fieldofcows Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that :(

I still like the option being left to the player, as some themes (maybe most) will not require overlays (carbon, etc), and the start/select menus can still be mitigated by just stopping the movie when triggered as a workaround.

Anyway, thanks for the great work!

Nismo

@pjft There are not too much themes with overlays because video support it's vey new, but i'm sure themers will use that feature soon. There are almost 3 themes that uses overlays right now: oldroom theme, CRT theme, and oldTV theme. As well pixel theme with video support and carbon theme with video support displays wheels on top of video (only a bit).

@fieldofcows I'm sorry so much to hear that, unfortunately I have no job now, and can't contribute with money, but if you open a paypal account maybe some people want to donate to buy a new one for you.

I'm uploading optimized videos for better temps in oldroom theme thread. If you buy a new one, please use my videos for better temps.

Regards.

fieldofcows

@Nismo said in Please test: Using OMXPlayer as video renderer:

I'm sorry so much to hear that, unfortunately I have no job now, and can't contribute with money, but if you open a paypal account maybe some people want to donate to buy a new one for you.

I think it's my own fault. It was sitting on my desk happily running and I needed some room so I shoved everything backwards and I'm guessing something shorted out. I should really put it in a case.

I do have another but it's sitting in here.

I might have to dig it out before I order another.

Nismo

@fieldofcows Beautiful mini bartop, I like so much. I think you should use a cover for the speakers.

Yes it's useful to have the rpi inside a case, for things like this, and other things. Anyway I suggest to you the donate thing, maybe you can open a thread for that in "help and support" forum.

I hope this issue don't stop you from still making your amazing work.

I have a question for you because yesterday I was having problems with another emulator because the double backslash, but I think it's better to send to you an email to speak about that. Maybe in the near furture, i'm very busy with the theme and media packs right now.

Regards mate.

pjft

@fieldofcows On omxplayer and layers, found these two items which may be helpful:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25866&p=242453

and

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=109557

on setting the OMX display layer, which may help. I don't know how you're calling omxplayer, but there's also a layer option in the command line.

http://elinux.org/Omxplayer

Kodi does allow the user to render a GUI on top of the video (for video control), so it should be doable, technically. I wonder if you can just bump the video completely to the background, and just render a transparent section on the theme on the area where the video is meant to be displayed.

My 2 cents.

Thanks!

fieldofcows

@pjft Yes, thanks for that. I'm already setting the omxplayer layer to ensure it renders along with SDL. The problem is we need to render some items behind the video and some in front and we're not in control when each frame is rendered. This means that we need to use two layers in our SDL rendering.

Unfortunately the SDL we are using does not allow you to play with the rendering layers. It's hardcoded at 10000.

pjft

@fieldofcows oh, got it. You have no control over the individual layers of the theme in order to add the video in the middle, is that it?

So, here's a suggestion which was what I tried to describe earlier - I'm unsure how feasible it is, so I wonder if it's doable:

move the video to the background
when rendering the theme on top of it, force a fully transparent area to be rendered on the video area, creating effectively a "hole" in the theme's background. You may need to process the background image on load to turn it into a transparent background with that area unfilled.

Conceptually/hopefully that could work without too much overhead? Once again, if it's feasible.

Apologies if it's something you already tried or that you know won't work. I'm just trying to think of the problem differently, even though I lack all the context of the implementation here.

Thanks for looking into this! Have a great weekend.