CriticalCid

Yeah, H265 is a huge improvement over H264. I’ve tested a few themes and in the most cases the file size was a third smaller with it.

Yes, you can turn off your PC with a gamepad in the BigBox main menu.

Like I said it’s just a MS Paint mockup on how I wanted to create this theme. But now that Jason plans to add this as a standard view there’s no need for me to learn XAML and to do it myself. Now I can use the time which I would’ve needed for learning that stuff to record and edit the actual HS themes. So if you have wishes for it you should tell them @Jason like I did in the post you’ve quoted :)

Big news guys! I’ve managed to get a new and even better workflow for recording themes. That means that the bridging errors should be almost completely gone and that I render the videos with the H265 codec as .mp4 files now. Because I won’t have to manually fix a lot of bridging errors anymore I will be able to record and finish new themes a lot faster! Additional to all the new themes which are coming I will also re-record and replace the themes that are currently online so that every theme will be created with my new processing settings. So stay tuned, huge updates are coming! @Supreme: It’s not an official feature yet but according to Jason it will be soon. For now it’s more testing and not intended to be used with your normal LaunchBox setup. But if you still want to use the theme videos right now you can grab my theme for it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_6XLOBnGwlUT2F3MXVhaDFoQ00/view The theme videos go into “\LaunchBox\Video\Arcade\” And here’s a video from Jason on how you handle custom BigBox themes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkNHRvdl2jU

Oh my, that looks absolutely gorgeous. Awesome idea! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRxcSNaVCPA

I have recorded new themes (now 289 videos) and because I don’t want to derail this thread furthermore I’ve opened a new one: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/images-and-videos/the-hyperspin-theme-recording-thread Please post any questions and discussions about this topic only in this thread from now. Also I have found out that almost every theme has an info file with the credits in it. Now I can give everyone the credit he/she deserves. It's quite a long list of names but everybody should be mentioned if we want to do this right :) @alexis524 Platform videos should be added soon. I hope jason doesn't forget to add platform video themes as well. @Jason I read in the YouTube comments that you want to tweak the video theme view. That’s why I want to show you my ideas I have for it: The image is just edited with my fabulous MS Paint skills, not an actual view I’ve built. As you can see I would suggest splitting the left side of the view into a wheels and a game details section (maybe make it optional for all the hardliners who only want to see the art). My little test view also looked pretty rough so I think that a small frame to separate the 3 elements would look a lot cleaner and more unified. Also something to think about: It would be necessary to have a video tier system for this particular view. I would suggest something like this: 1. Video theme 2. Gameplay video 3. Screenshot – Gameplay etc. But this should only take account on the video theme view. The others standard views shouldn’t play the video themes at all.

Update - added by Jason Carr 2016-06-30: Unfortunately the leaders of the Hyperspin community have requested that we stop distributing these recorded Hyperspin themes. They have no problem with us creating them but they'd rather that they be distributed via the Hyperspin forums. We're allowed to upload them there one by one, but downloading the complete package would require a premium subscription to Hyperspin. It's up to @CriticalCid if he wants to upload them there or not. Unfortunately, we can no longer distribute the recorded themes ourselves. Update - added by CriticalCid 2016-06-30: I thought a lot about it and it was a really hard decision but I’m sorry to tell you all that I won't upload any of my themes. You heard Jason. I can’t share my videos in the way I would have wanted it without pissing some people off and that’s why I’ve decided to not share it at all. I don’t like it either but I’m not willing to unintentionally advertise a paid premium service of a competing FrontEnd from which I won't see any penny of it myself and something that should be free anyway. So please just accept my decision and don't argue with me about it.

The problem I had when I first tried to record the themes was that every program I tried gave me false colors after I rendered the videos. Especially green was a lot darker than in the source file. So after a lot of testing and researching I ended up with VirtualDub and some codecs which don’t screw up the colors. My current workflow: - I sort the gameplay videos through duration time and throw every video which has the same length into HyperSpin. I do this because I have built a very small AHK script which switches the themes automatically for me in HS and to get the best result with this method the videos need to have a unified length so that I can adjust the script exactly for them. - I switch my desktop resolution to 1024x768 (the native resolution of HS and its themes) and record the videos with Fraps in locked 60fps (very important because VirtualDub only works frames and not with duration time) and let my AHK script do the work. When I think I have enough I stop the recording, switch my desktop resolution to normal and stop the script. - Because every theme has the same length (more or less) I can batch split the video with VirtualDub into the different themes. - After the split I use the tool “DubJob” to batch add all the videos with my processing settings into VirtualDub and let it render the videos. - I do a quick check on every finished theme if it has tearing issues or remaining bridging errors (happens sometimes because HS always drops various frames when switching the themes). If it has tearing I will delete it and put the theme .zip file to a separate folder because there’s nothing I can currently do about. If it only has bridging error I edit and render the source file manually. - Now I have to rename the video files to its MAME ROMnames and I’m done :). My processing settings in VirtualDub: VideoCodec: x264vfw I played around and tested a lot with these settings to find a good ratio between video quality and file size. That’s what I finally came up with: When I used a constant bitrate in my tests I had the problem that simple themes wasted too much unneeded disk space and the huge themes with a lot of moving images looked really pixelated. And 30+ MB for every theme wasn’t an acceptable solution for me. AudioCodec: AC-3 ACM Codec @ 160kbit/s, 48000 HZ, Stereo Filter: - Alias format @ Rec. 601 and no changes on the component range [for keeping the original colors) - FadeFX [for FadeIn and FadeOut]. Because of the individual frame drops when HS switches its themes I set the first and last 40 frames always to pitch black to hide bridging erros. Then I fade in/out the following/previous 60 frames to have a smooth transition.

AFAIK the platforms will only show up in the left menu if they have at least one game in it. You have to import games for the platform first or just edit a game you already have imported to your new platform.

I hear you buddy, but there’s no need to have two FE’s installed and setting both of them up if you can have the ultimate and simple All-In-One solution! :) LaunchBox and BigBox are just so flexible that it takes literally only one button press to change the view from the flashy arcade HS style to the clean and tidy standard BigBox HTPC look. And yeah, it’s just only my little project. I do REALLY hope that some people will come up and create some completely different and pretty themes like Kodi has with all of its Skins.

Awesome news guys! Just got mail from Sub-Zero and he allowed me to record and offer all of his themes. He said that all his work is free to be used and enjoyed no matter what FE :) The real problem is now that we can of course officially use all of Sub-Zero’s 300+ high quality themes but a lot of the themes I already have recorded are themes which come through the HyperSync app. So there’s unfortunately no way to tell who the original creator of a theme is without spending a lot of time researching. Similar to the problem that no one knows where the artwork originally came from in the LB DB. My suggestion would be to just offer all themes and play with open cards. If anyone sees his theme and wants to be credited for it or even remove it than we should definitely do that to step on no ones toes. Cranhill said CriticalCid said Because of my new method the videos aren't that precisely edited compared to my first ones. So if you find any flaws give me a shout and I will re-record it. I also have weird image tearing in some themes with fast moving images, so tell me if you notice something like that as well. sorry to be critical but your first videos were good and good quality, so would it not be better to slow it down a bit and go for quality rather than rush out poor quantity then having to fix them later. Do you think that the new videos have a bad quality? If so can you tell me what exactly bothers you so that I can fix it? :) The only thing that really has changed is that they are not edited exactly on start and the end of the video so that I have a few more frames of black screen on the beginning and the end to hide some bridging errors, so you maybe lose one second at the beginning when the theme builds up and also 1 second of the title screen from the gameplay video in the end. Nothing really dramatic in my oppinion. The image quality of the videos itself should be the same because I use the exact same settings to record and render them as previously. You’re right that it would be of course better to edit each game individually but recording and editing themes is not that much fun. So if I have to choose to work highly concentrated to create a few but perfectly edited games or if I can create 4 times more themes in that amount time in a very relaxing way because I get a lot done through automatic processes, I choose the latter. And if some theme falls through my quick quality check before I upload it I can always re-record and edit it manually to fix it.

I honestly don’t know how much “trouble” you would get. The flashy themes are the USP of HyperSpin and if you take that away there isn’t much left because RocketLauncher does all the rest. I can imagine that some people over at the HyperSpin forum will be really salty because of this and calling you a thief of their community generated content for your own benefit or LB a cheap HS clone which has to use videos for the themes because it hasn’t its own flash theme engine, etc. Personally I would love to see them get automatically downloaded through LB but in the end it’s your decision if you want to deal with the crap some people will throw at you for this. I also asked Sub-Zero (creator of over 300 themes and admin of the media section in the HS forum) if it’s okay for him if I record his themes and offering them for free download. I let you all know what he has to say about it once I get an answer :)

Great news guys. I’ve managed to get myself a pretty good and fast workflow for recording HS themes. That’s why I can give you a huge load of new theme videos. Now I'm up to 204 videos in total! The best: It took me only about 8 hours to record and edit them. So stay tuned because a lot more will come in the next few days and weeks! https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_6XLOBnGwlUN3dUN2h5UWN1VUE&usp=sharing Because of my new method the videos aren't that precisely edited compared to my first ones. So if you find any flaws give me a shout and I will re-record it. I also have weird image tearing in some themes with fast moving images, so tell me if you notice something like that as well.

I agree! The song sounds really nice :)

Okay, that’s odd. I got the same error a few times myself but it always vanished after I copied the 7z.exe and 7z.dll into the CLRmame folder.

Yeah, they are just normal .mp4 videos. I recorded the themes in HyperSpin with Fraps and edited/rendered the videos as .mp4 files. My theme is basically just a gigantic preview video screen ;) Jason also said that he plans to do background videos, on this way it would be pretty easy to use 16:9 themes in full screen as well. Btw. I love your cinematic themes, would be definitely nice to see more of those :)

Until Win 3.x gets a proper integration in the LB Database you can just export your whole Win3xO (and eXoDOS) set through MEAGRE directly in LaunchBox with most of the metadata and artwork which comes with these collections. Here’s a little guide on how to do this: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/features/exodos-import/page-3#p18694 Unfortunately I don’t know if that still works exactly the same way with the revamped image system which comes with the latest 6.3 Betas.

If the error is related to a .7z file it might be a good idea to look at Step 31 of my tutorial. Have you done that and get the error anyway?

@SentaiBrad No, you don't need the MAME importer because Taito Type X games don’t follow the name conventions of MAME. You can rename the game folder to anything you want. They are basically just PC games and don't get emulated, so there's no need to follow any arcade emulation rules like 8 characters long names and such @Retro956 If you do it the way as angelobodetti said you should be fine.

There's also an updated version of the tutorial in case you didn't have seen it: https://www.launchbox-app.com/forum/emulation/how-to-update-your-mame-romset-to-a-newer-version-with-clrmamepro

Not really. Under Add-Paths you don’t need to add any update packs, just add the backup path and the extra MAMEUIFX games if you want but otherwise you should follow the whole tutorial

You can either use the audit function in MAMEUI(FX) (this would be the fastest option) or you can follow the tutorial and the scanner will tell you what ROMs/CHDs/Samples are exactly missing.

Of course you have my permission @Jason, for my BB theme and my recorded HS themes as well (I don't know if I would have any right to claim them as my own work anyway). Also I really hope for a separated video folder for the theme videos in the future, so that it doesn’t break the gameplay video for other views :)

It’s just a very quick test on how it would look like and how easy it would be to change things. It’s more like a prototype and not intended to be really used. Just wanted to share the idea :) And to be honest I only understand maybe the half of what I’ve actually done, it was a lot of trial and error I have finals in a few weeks and I don’t think that I would have the time and mood to learn XAML before August. So if someone wants to jump in and make a great view out of the idea with additional game info, etc you’re more than welcome. I think in combination with the planned background video feature (which could be used for HS widescreen themes) it could really look quite awesome. Especially if BigBox could automatically change between the video background and the 4:3 theme view based on the aspect ratio of the videos. Maybe Jason could even add a new folder for video themes so that we don’t have to replace the normal EmuMovies gameplay videos with the video themes. On this way it would be pretty easy to switch between the clean and flashy views without any hassle. Also I need to mention that theme recording is VERY time consuming. It took me almost two hours to record, edit and render the 16 themes. So helping hands on that matter would be more than appreciated and if someone needs to know what program and settings I used to edit and render the videos let me know.