MAMEWAH Movie Support

[Minwah]

As a few of you here have requested this feature, I could use some input...

At the moment, after 5 seconds of inactivity, the movie preview (if available) will play in place of the screenshot (Artwork # can be specified).  Here's the questions:

1) Is 5 seconds ok, or should I reduce it (maybe 3 seconds)?

2) What should happen if you move off of the game, when the movie preview is still playing?  Should it stop immediately and display the screenshots of the newly selected game(s), or continue playing until finished?

3) What should happen when a movie preview has finished?  Maybe cycle between screenshot and movie?

I could make all these configurable, but I'm not sure it's worth it (?)

And before anyone asks, I've done intro/exit & screensaver movie support

[SpamMe]

1) I think 2 seconds would be ideal.
2) Stop immediately, for sure.
3) I think the movie should just repeat

I doubt any of these need configurability. Just want to thank you again for the incredible work you do here!

[2600]

I've never really thought about using this, but it does sound interesting showing a movie instead of or cycling with a screenshot.

I think a few, if not a hassle, should be configurable.  More things configurable, the less people bug you about it being 2 or 3 seconds.

1)Configurable
2)Stop immediately
3) Repeat or cycle should be configurable.

Would/Could the movie be played in an area like the screenshots do now? Or over the screenshots?  Not asking for a feature, just trying make sure what I'm visualising is what you are talking about.

[Minwah]

Would/Could the movie be played in an area like the screenshots do now? Or over the screenshots?  Not asking for a feature, just trying make sure what I'm visualising is what you are talking about.

Yes.  You specify which Artwork # you want the movie to appear in, and after x seconds the screenshot is replaced by the movie - works quite well so far...

[tumult]

not to put you out, but of course, configurability is always a good thing.
1) 2-5 sounds great
2) stop and play screenshot of new game
3) i'd enjoy the movie repeating

and, i just recently constructed my cabinet and installed your software.  mad props to you for mamewah, the updates, and help on this forum.

tum

[Effayy]

I've never really thought about using this, but it does sound interesting showing a movie instead of or cycling with a screenshot.

I think a few, if not a hassle, should be configurable.  More things configurable, the less people bug you about it being 2 or 3 seconds.

1)Configurable
2)Stop immediately
3) Repeat or cycle should be configurable.

Would/Could the movie be played in an area like the screenshots do now? Or over the screenshots?  Not asking for a feature, just trying make sure what I'm visualising is what you are talking about.

On all 3 I agree with 2600.  Configurable is best, as some people would want the movie shown asap when scrolling through games, some would rather wait, and maybe some would even prefer to press a key to play the movie.

Intro, Exit, and SS movies... Sweet!

- FA

[2600]

Minwah,

Not to add another thing to your plate, but I couldn't sleep and started thinking of the movie support.

Anyways, sound on/off for the movie may be another config thing that you may want to implement.  Intro/exit may not need it, but don't some people here play mp3's while in mamewah.  They may not want the screenshot movie to make any sound.  Anyways just a thought if you are in the code now.

[Minwah]

Minwah,

Not to add another thing to your plate, but I couldn't sleep and started thinking of the movie support.

Anyways, sound on/off for the movie may be another config thing that you may want to implement.  Intro/exit may not need it, but don't some people here play mp3's while in mamewah.  They may not want the screenshot movie to make any sound.  Anyways just a thought if you are in the code now.

Haven't quite done it yet, but I already have it on the list

[PedroSilva]

As a few of you here have requested this feature, I could use some input...

At the moment, after 5 seconds of inactivity, the movie preview (if available) will play in place of the screenshot (Artwork # can be specified).  Here's the questions:

1) Is 5 seconds ok, or should I reduce it (maybe 3 seconds)?

2) What should happen if you move off of the game, when the movie preview is still playing?  Should it stop immediately and display the screenshots of the newly selected game(s), or continue playing until finished?

3) What should happen when a movie preview has finished?  Maybe cycle between screenshot and movie?

I could make all these configurable, but I'm not sure it's worth it (?)

And before anyone asks, I've done intro/exit & screensaver movie support

Here's my opinion:

When you select a game you want it to show right away ... Using a delay doesn't seem logic ... it's as if you wait with a blank screen before showing the snap ... to me it doesn't make sense so as for questions number on: No delay. Show in this order:
1st movie
2nd snap (if movie doesn't exist)
3rd alternate (if snap doesn't exist).

For the second one ... I don't want to wait for a 10 or 15 seconds movie to finish, when I'm looking for a game so:

- Ends right away and starts the movie for the selected game (after one stops the up or down movement when searching)

For the 3rd one ... cycling !!!

Regarding config I think you don't need to wast you precious time on that (regarding this subject). Why ? In my opinion if you want to display the movies you will not want the delay. If you don't want, simply you don't place them on the specified directory.

I have posted some time ago a link to a fe that uses this feature:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=18312


You may want to have a look ... it may give you some aditional ideas ... this machine is working on an arcade shop near by ... it's really nice the looks of the movie. At first I thought it was the game running, but I think that's not possible ...

Anyway ... hope this helps to improve your great FE ...

[darktemp]

I think the delay is in to speed up loading when flipping through the list of games.  I agree on the 2 second delay.

[PedroSilva]

I think the delay is in to speed up loading when flipping through the list of games.  I agree on the 2 second delay.

If I understand correctly, that delay exists already automaticaly ... if you run thro the games list "non-stop", it doesn't show the snap util you stop ... if that's the delay that you refer to ... I also agree ... I just didn't mentioned it because it's already done and working with the snaps ...

[Minwah]

Well I made the delay configurable anyway...just about done with the movie stuff now

[jdjuggler]

Where do these movie clips come from?
Thanks,
JD

[Minwah]

Where do these movie clips come from?
Thanks,
JD

Well they are 3D Arcade attract mode movies...

[visciouslymamed]

Will MAMEWAH resize the vids to the proper aspect ratio? For 3darcade, the vids are 256x256 for speed when mapping as textures. If MAMEWAH doesn't resize them then they will appear square.

[exibar]

MinWah movie support for Intro and Exit is, simply put, AWESOME!!!!

  That will be increadible to start up my almost complete cab and have the Arcade 84 movie play... and then to have the 3darcade attractmodes play during game selection is wicked cool too!

  Could I suggest that you give the abilty to put all those attract mode movies into a screensaver that cycles through all of them randomly when the screensave kicks in?

  My thoughts:  allow the ability to configure everything possible, when not too cumbersome to program.  Whatever setting you might think is the "right" one, there's always someone out there that will howl at you for choosing what they feel is the wrong setting...

  You've made me feel like I've made the 100% right choice by going with Windows XP and MameWah for my cab....  

 MameWah is simply the best!  thank you MinWah for the awesome support you've given all of us too!

Mike B

[Minwah]

Will MAMEWAH resize the vids to the proper aspect ratio? For 3darcade, the vids are 256x256 for speed when mapping as textures. If MAMEWAH doesn't resize them then they will appear square.

Well kindof.  I put code in similar to the image display aspect ratio code...so it keeps the correct aspect in terms of the video size, not neccessarily the actual game ratio.  Took me a while to realise all the preview vids are the same size...

Unfortunately MAMEWAH doesn't store the actual resolution of each game, so it would not know how to adjust the ratio based on the real games resolution.  In future I might be able to do this, but for now I have found you can get quite a good comprimise by *not* keeping aspect ratio, and having a suitably sizes artwork box.

[Minwah]

Could I suggest that you give the abilty to put all those attract mode movies into a screensaver that cycles through all of them randomly when the screensave kicks in?

  My thoughts:  allow the ability to configure everything possible, when not too cumbersome to program.  Whatever setting you might think is the "right" one, there's always someone out there that will howl at you for choosing what they feel is the wrong setting...

The movie screensaver is already done

You're right about the configurablility...I have learned this over time!

[fogman]

Minwah...you're killing me!  I'm looking more forward to the next release of Mamewah than I did to Doom3, Half-life 2, Spiderman 2 and any other geeky thing that makes my wife roll her eyes!  Do you have any idea when it will be out?!

Seriously, its a great program even now.  Thanks for the work on this up to this point and all the work you're putting in for the next release.

Peace.

[Minwah]

Minwah...you're killing me!  I'm looking more forward to the next release of Mamewah than I did to Doom3, Half-life 2, Spiderman 2 and any other geeky thing that makes my wife roll her eyes!  Do you have any idea when it will be out?!

Seriously, its a great program even now.  Thanks for the work on this up to this point and all the work you're putting in for the next release.

Peace.

LOL...I hope it to be out very soon, I have finished programming, just testing (+bugfixing) to do

[PedroSilva]

Where do these movie clips come from?
Thanks,
JD

Well they are 3D Arcade attract mode movies...

Hi,

I'm starting to test the creation of some movies and I came up with some questions. Appreciate the help:

- What's attract mode ?
- Does Mamewah play normal avi or mpeg files ?
- What's the best resolution for capturing ? Should I use the game's resolution itself (having diferent sizes for each game)?
- How does Mamewah resizes ? (Proportional / fit / cut / other)
- What's the optimum size for the movies ? And duration ?

I know ... i know ... tom many questions ...   ... but like that .... I'll only post once ...  

Thanks in advance.

Regards

[Minwah]

1- What's attract mode ?
2- Does Mamewah play normal avi or mpeg files ?
3- What's the best resolution for capturing ? Should I use the game's resolution itself (having diferent sizes for each game)?
4- How does Mamewah resizes ? (Proportional / fit / cut / other)
5- What's the optimum size for the movies ? And duration ?

1) The mode that you see when you haven't put any coins in.  ie trying to 'attract' you to play the game.

2) Both

3) I believe the 3dArcade ones are a standard size for all games.  Personally I would like to see movies at the games native resolution, for the sake of preserving the aspect ratio etc.  High-res games like 640x480 could maybe be halfed or something for disk-space sake.

4) It can either stretch (/compress) to fit the exact size of the artwork box, or resize to fit but retaining aspect ratio (of the video).

5) Don't think there is an optimum...they are as long as neccessary to capture the attract sequence.  The 3dArcade ones I have range from 32kb to 18mb.

It would be nice to see some really high quality captures...but this would probably make distribution difficult if not impossible

[PedroSilva]

1- What's attract mode ?
2- Does Mamewah play normal avi or mpeg files ?
3- What's the best resolution for capturing ? Should I use the game's resolution itself (having diferent sizes for each game)?
4- How does Mamewah resizes ? (Proportional / fit / cut / other)
5- What's the optimum size for the movies ? And duration ?

1) The mode that you see when you haven't put any coins in.  ie trying to 'attract' you to play the game.

2) Both

3) I believe the 3dArcade ones are a standard size for all games.  Personally I would like to see movies at the games native resolution, for the sake of preserving the aspect ratio etc.  High-res games like 640x480 could maybe be halfed or something for disk-space sake.

4) It can either stretch (/compress) to fit the exact size of the artwork box, or resize to fit but retaining aspect ratio (of the video).

5) Don't think there is an optimum...they are as long as neccessary to capture the attract sequence.  The 3dArcade ones I have range from 32kb to 18mb.

It would be nice to see some really high quality captures...but this would probably make distribution difficult if not impossible

Great ... all the answers I needed but even with so many questions, I forgot two ...  

- I assume that the play is made with sound, so how does Mamewah behaves if we have the mp3 play list active? Or does only start playing if no movie is available for that particulary game ?

For the next question I admit ... I confess that I have not yet read the docs cause I'll install it only when I go home so ...  

- How did you end up doing the display thing ? Does Mamewah displays like ... movie, then snap, then alternative,  if none of the previous is avilable, or we have to create a diferent artwork field for each (movies and snaps)?

- Regarding the movies, I'm going to make some of them, but infortunatly I do not have a site do make them available   ... if anyone has it ... I'll be most happy to give them ...

I'm planning on doing (since Mamewah resizes with no loss of aspect ratio) on the games original sizes.

[Minwah]

1- I assume that the play is made with sound, so how does Mamewah behaves if we have the mp3 play list active? Or does only start playing if no movie is available for that particulary game ?

2- How did you end up doing the display thing ? Does Mamewah displays like ... movie, then snap, then alternative,  if none of the previous is avilable, or we have to create a diferent artwork field for each (movies and snaps)?

3- Regarding the movies, I'm going to make some of them, but infortunatly I do not have a site do make them available   ... if anyone has it ... I'll be most happy to give them ...

I'm planning on doing (since Mamewah resizes with no loss of aspect ratio) on the games original sizes.

1) You can pick how this is treated: mute_movies / merge (audio) / pause_music (I mute the movies, I don't like music starting/stopping).

2) If a movie is available, after the configured time delay (during which you will see a snap/image), the movie plays and loops.  Basically you specify an Artwork # (previously only used for images) to use to display the movie in.

3) Sounds cool, perhaps bittorrent would be the way to distribute...

[PedroSilva]

1- I assume that the play is made with sound, so how does Mamewah behaves if we have the mp3 play list active? Or does only start playing if no movie is available for that particulary game ?

2- How did you end up doing the display thing ? Does Mamewah displays like ... movie, then snap, then alternative,  if none of the previous is avilable, or we have to create a diferent artwork field for each (movies and snaps)?

3- Regarding the movies, I'm going to make some of them, but infortunatly I do not have a site do make them available   ... if anyone has it ... I'll be most happy to give them ...

I'm planning on doing (since Mamewah resizes with no loss of aspect ratio) on the games original sizes.

1) You can pick how this is treated: mute_movies / merge (audio) / pause_music (I mute the movies, I don't like music starting/stopping).

2) If a movie is available, after the configured time delay (during which you will see a snap/image), the movie plays and loops.  Basically you specify an Artwork # (previously only used for images) to use to display the movie in.

3) Sounds cool, perhaps bittorrent would be the way to distribute...

Man ... you think of everything ...   ... Great work !!!

[PedroSilva]

Hi,

I have these options on the output layout for the movies and I need to know wich are the best to chose from ... any hints ?  

VIDEO:

Frames per sec.: 1 - 999999999
Compressor: Cinepak Codec by Radius
                      Intel Indeo Video 4.5
                      Codec Intel IYUV
                      Microsoft Video 1
                      No compression
There are specific settings for each compression mode ... I'll tell wich after chosen.

Compression quality: 0 - 100
Key frame each X frames: 0 - 9999 (optional)
Data rate: 0 - 9999 KB/seg. (optional)

AUDIO:
8,000 Hz; 8 bit; mono  7 kb/sec. - 48,000 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo 187 kb/sec.

[Minwah]

I have these options on the output layout for the movies and I need to know wich are the best to chose from ... any hints ?  

Goodness knows    Try some variations out and see what is a good quality / filesize compromise...

[)p(]

Hi,

I have these options on the output layout for the movies and I need to know wich are the best to chose from ... any hints ?  

VIDEO:

Frames per sec.: 1 - 999999999
Compressor: Cinepak Codec by Radius
                      Intel Indeo Video 4.5
                      Codec Intel IYUV
                      Microsoft Video 1
                      No compression
There are specific settings for each compression mode ... I'll tell wich after chosen.

Compression quality: 0 - 100
Key frame each X frames: 0 - 9999 (optional)
Data rate: 0 - 9999 KB/seg. (optional)

AUDIO:
8,000 Hz; 8 bit; mono  7 kb/sec. - 48,000 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo 187 kb/sec.

you need a better codec then those...the files will be huge!

i think mpeg4 is currently the best codec to use. But mpeg2 or even mpeg1 are not too shabby and take less cpu power to decompress. Most capture software capture to uncompressed avi ..so you need a seperate program to convert that in a more reasonable format. there are lots of those...do a google search for mpeg encoder

peter

[pointdablame]

3darcade's site doesn't have the vids anymore... and the .torrent seems down.

Has anyone been able to get the torrent to work?  Any other places to get the movies?

[PedroSilva]

Hi,

I have these options on the output layout for the movies and I need to know wich are the best to chose from ... any hints ?  

VIDEO:

Frames per sec.: 1 - 999999999
Compressor: Cinepak Codec by Radius
                      Intel Indeo Video 4.5
                      Codec Intel IYUV
                      Microsoft Video 1
                      No compression
There are specific settings for each compression mode ... I'll tell wich after chosen.

Compression quality: 0 - 100
Key frame each X frames: 0 - 9999 (optional)
Data rate: 0 - 9999 KB/seg. (optional)

AUDIO:
8,000 Hz; 8 bit; mono  7 kb/sec. - 48,000 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo 187 kb/sec.

you need a better codec then those...the files will be huge!

i think mpeg4 is currently the best codec to use. But mpeg2 or even mpeg1 are not too shabby and take less cpu power to decompress. Most capture software capture to uncompressed avi ..so you need a seperate program to convert that in a more reasonable format. there are lots of those...do a google search for mpeg encoder

peter

Yap ... I know I have to convert them after but for now I'm not concerned about the size ... only quality ...

The files are +- 100 Mb each 2.5 minutes ...  

[arcadecab]

Minwah,

I have the intro movie and screensaver movie support working fine, but I cant get the attract videos to work in place of screenshots with the new version.  I keep getting a Run-time error '445'  Object doesn't support this action.   What could be wrong?  I think my path is correct.
Thanks.

[Minwah]

I keep getting a Run-time error '445'  Object doesn't support this action.   What could be wrong?  I think my path is correct.

I haven't seen this before...could you email me your (MAMEWAH) mame.ini file?

[Superdude]

Does anyone here know where I can get the videos?  I tried the torrent and the irc channels but nobody is home.  Doh!

[visciouslymamed]

Does anyone here know where I can get the videos?  I tried the torrent and the irc channels but nobody is home.  Doh!

Seeding.

[pointdablame]

Does anyone here know where I can get the videos?  I tried the torrent and the irc channels but nobody is home.  Doh!

Seeding.

Thank you kind sir  I can keep this thing up all weekend at least, so let's get some more people on this.

[Magnet_Eye]

I keep getting a Run-time error '445'  Object doesn't support this action.   What could be wrong?  I think my path is correct.

I haven't seen this before...could you email me your (MAMEWAH) mame.ini file?

Did you figure this out? I am getting the same error. right at mamewah startup, then it closes itself.



EDIT: I found out what happened. It was an issue with my music path, and i had to delete the file mamewah.mus in the files folder. Then it worked.

[Magnet_Eye]

Question about movie aspects: My movies are squashed, the horizontal movies are forced to be the size of vertical games. Also, the movies have gray area on either side, which i do not like.

I have movie aspect set to 0.

Any ideas?

[Minwah]

EDIT: I found out what happened. It was an issue with my music path, and i had to delete the file mamewah.mus in the files folder. Then it worked.

Do you know exactly what was wrong?  I've not been able to reproduce the error so any help fixing it would be useful...

[Minwah]

Question about movie aspects: My movies are squashed, the horizontal movies are forced to be the size of vertical games. Also, the movies have gray area on either side, which i do not like.

I have movie aspect set to 0.

Any ideas?

I think the 3darcade videos are all at the same size, so some do appear a bit odd.  The 'keep_movie_preview_aspect 0' option doesn't work, so videos are always kept at their original aspect ratio - this is probably why you have grey areas either side of the video.  I've fixed this for next release...

[Magnet_Eye]

Well, mamewah was working the first couple times i launched it.. then i put in a path for a music file. So i am guessing at this point it created the mamewah.mus file? Anyway, my path was wrong or something...and i got that error. All I know is once i added that music path the error started. So, I went back into the ini file and removed the path completely, but it was still giving me the error. So i decided to look into the Files folder and i saw that file (mamewah.mus) and decided to delete it and try to launch the FE again. It worked. So for some reason, that mamewah.mus file was created and was causin it to crash, even though I changed my .ini file back. Who knows! Oh, and i originally placed my sound file in the root directory and had that as the path...i then created a Sounds folder and put it in there in case it was causing a problem.

the error: error 445 Object not found.

Sorry my attempt at describing this is so weak...im half asleep.