Preview Videos for ROMs (1 Viewer)

[buddman]

Hey all,

Lately I've been building an arcade box for someone for Xmas and have been trying out various front-ends. I noticed that some of them support intro videos for each ROM, and found it to be very cool. I was wondering if it was possible to somehow add the ability to give ROMs a preview video when you browse over them. Has this ever been talked about or thought of? Is it somehow possible to add to a skin, or does it require work on the plugin itself?

 

[hulkhaugen]

I'm no programmer, but i guess it could be done "easily". But it really depends on what you mean by preview. If it's a pre-recorded in-game video stored as an avi/mkv/wmv, i guess that you could name the video with the same title as rom, except for the file-extension. But as far as i can see, this would have to be coded bye the myemulators coder. you could also probably just launch a .bat file which would start the video, and then launch the game, but then you would have to create a .bat for each rom in addition to actually record the videos of the gameplay.

If you were thinking of a random generated video based on the content of the rom-file, i imagine that it would be extremely hard, if not "impossible" to create.

Don't take my words for anything else than a guess, i have to programming experience, this is just what sounds logic to me. But out of curiosity, why would you launch a video? Most games already has some sort of a intro video...

 

[buddman]

I mean a pre-recorded video like an avi or something. Many front-ends for arcades can do this (check out YouTube - Maximus Arcade Demo for an example, watch how the video plays after about 2-3 seconds of staying on a game). The way it works with Maximus Arcade is that the video file name must match the name of the rom (exception of extension of course). It's very easy to setup as long as you have the videos (which can be downloaded from various locations).

Would be cool if MyEmulators can do this. Maybe all we need is someone to skin it...

 

[Crackofdawn]

I think it would be cooler to have the video playing in the background of the actual rom starting up... ie: the emulator runs and starts the rom and plays the rom in the background image of mediaportal when hovering over a game for more than 2-3 seconds. Then if you click the game it takes you into the emulator full screen or closes it and reopens it full screen, or if you move to another game it exits the emulator. Not sure if that is even possible though.

 

[bobtheamazing]

Sure it's possible... I will be coding enhancements to at the very least a branch of the My Emulators code. I have some things in front of this, but it is a good idea.

Where could we get good videos for it though?

 

[Atreides]

Hyperspin comes to mind. I can't think of anywhere else, unless we start our own DB.

 

[buddman]

Well I have about every single video for NES, SNES, N64, SEGA Genesis, TurboGrafx 16, and Atari...

You can get a lot of them free from RessurectionXtras and Compatibility Lists - Scenyx Entertainment Community, but I also have an account at EmuMovies - Your #1 Resource For Video Game Artwork, which is probably the best source for getting videos (though you have to pay).

 

[Atreides]

Any chance on you spreading the wealth of those videos?

 

[buddman]

I don't think it would be right to share the ones I got from EmuMovies since they want you to pay for the service. However, I can share the ones I got for free, which would be NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis.

 

[buddman]

So does anyone want me to upload these somewhere? I'd be willing to help in any way possible if video previews in MyEmulators is something that is achievable.