CriticalCid

For the performance I can say that my work PC I use to record and render the videos can play all the x256 videos completely fine through BigBox. It’s an AMD Phenom II Hexa-core with 3.0 Ghz and a AMD HD 6870. Both of them are 6 years old. I also encode circa 15 frames per second with this machine on the “medium” preset. So I don’t see any reason to not use it.

But all my recorded themes are in 4:3 as well? I record them in the original 4:3 resolution of HyperSpin (1024x768). That’s the reason why I can use the original 4:3 aspect ratio of the themes + wheels beside of it on a 16:9 resolution. Like I said, if you want to use recorded 4:3 themes in full screen on your 4:3 monitor you have to wait until Jason adds video backgrounds or remove the wheels or you have to stretch them on the height until they fit.

Yeah I heard you that you want to know my settings but there are quite a lot of steps and it would take me a lot of time to write that all down with explanations because everything is command line based now. I’ll do it if I find the time and mood to do it, so please just be patient. And are you really sure that you want to change the aspect ratio of the videos? That will look kinda ugly if everything is stretched on the height.

I would guess so but I don’t know how to do it. Like I said was this just a test I did and I don’t know XAML at all. Basically I just deleted every element one by one until I had only the wheels and videos left and then I just resized them until I had the video in full screen. That’s how far my XAML skills go If someone want to google and fix that, you're more than welcome

I have the same issue on my 16:10 monitor as well because the theme is only optimized for 16:9 desktop resolutions and I don’t know how to make it flexible for different aspect ratios. Like I said was this theme just a quick test I did in 10 minutes and isn’t flexible at all. So unfortunately you have to manually adjust it. To change it you have to open the WheelGamesView.xaml in the theme folder and change to values of ColumnDefinition Width="25*" /> ColumnDefinition Width="75*" /> The values say how much space of the screen the wheels and the video are using in percent. The upper value is for the wheels and the lower value for the video. Just change it until it fits for your aspect ratio. The * has to be at the end of the numbers and the sum of both numbers have to result 100. Unfortunately if you are using a 4:3 aspect ratio you have to completely remove the wheels by setting them to 0 and set the video to 100 percent to get the videos work in full screen. Until Jason hasn't added support for video backgrounds there’s currently nothing you can do to change that.

Great news guys. I’ve got permission from all the people in charge to continue and share my little project :) As soon as I know all the details I’ll share them with you. To the video discussion: I would prefer if we wouldn’t discuss this here. Yeah it’s a very legal limbo on all the artwork and video stuff and there are a lot of people with a lot of different opinions about this. But to be fair: all the media creators put a lot of work in it and it is only fair and respectful to ask and get permission for it. Because like Derek said, we don’t want to piss people off and it’s better for everyone if we respect the work of others even if they can't claim full copyright to it. So far was everyone I've asked for permission really friendly and understanding with moderate and comprehensible terms. I don’t see any reason why we should give a damn about their opinion and provoke an unnecessary hassle in the emulation/FrontEnd community with LB in the middle. In the end we all share the same hobby so just be nice to each other :)

Wow that really looks like that it could be a skin for a HTPC media center, I like it!

No problem at all. But thanks for reminding me that the old themes were still online. I’ve uploaded them before I've asked for any permission because I was still testing around and wanted to share my tests, my bad. And yeah, of course I could have taken some free videos like the progetto video snaps but to be honest are the EmuMovies ones way better (60fps, more or less the same length, better resolution) and I can record every system, not only the MAME ones. And I also plan to record 16:9 main menu themes after my arcade project so I would’ve needed EmuMovies videos for it anyway. But if @Jason wants to distribute the themes for free from his own server I could record progetto versions as well.

Calm down guys. Yes, the videos are indeed from EmuMovies and yes I have talked with Circo about this. He and his team are completely cool with this as long as I host the videos on their server. I know that it’s not an ideal solution because that means you‘ll need a premium membership over their but I truely can’t blame them for this. But on the other side he said that it would be no problem at all to get them downloadable directly through LaunchBox. But we could have a bigger problem now. Circo made me aware that the HS engine could be protected and not allowed to be recorded and that my permission from one of their media section admins over there won't be enough. He will speak with the HS creators tomorrow and then we will see. But he also thinks that it would be fine, so I'm hoping he's right. I've taken down the themes I’ve already recorded for now. Sorry for the confusion.

Short update, I have recorded over 800 themes with my new method so far and they look just great! If everything works as expected I will release a complete set of almost EVERY available arcade theme from all arcade systems (MAME, Sega Model 2, Sega Naomi, Daphne, Taito Type X, etc. Over 2000 themes in total!) on this weekend! I won’t upload any of these before I’ve finished everything because all themes are in only one folder right now and I want to sort them by arcade system first before I release it.

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 :)