59 replies to this topic

[viktory2k1]

Hi after many long nights, I think I finally got the recorder right for a 3 monitor setup. I learned a few things. If you have the latest pinballx and have it configured to where you can run it with no media and all works good, then on to the recording. I had it working fine on my test setup which consisted of the 46" playfield and a 19" vx922 monitor. Worked great except a handfull of tables that weren't configured right. Then I got the cable I needed and took the actual backbox off the cab and brought in in my work area(bedroom).  I had many issues getting the DMD monitor right and more but finally got it. Then it worked great with visual pinball and then got it working great with pinballx, then the problems started. First, I accidently deleted my game manager so had to reset that all up. Finished that and had issues with wheel images disappearing from game manager as well, I recorded this thing a bunch of times and each time it worked worse and worse to the point where only 1/4 of my tables were showing right on pinballx, they played fine but what was recorded was usless for most tables, well Before this, I ugdated pinballx to a new version and didn't know that a new version of PBX recorder was out so installed that, I loke the new recorder, as it actually has the settings I was expecting to find on v1.0. Now I have v1.3. Wow is it fast. I recorded everything again starting from scratch. I learned that it will not delete any old files or anything from a fellow member so I went into the pinballx/visual pinball/media area somewhere like that and took a look. No kidding, I just checked the recycle bin and must have had 6 different recorded version of each table, including BG and sound, it was just a mess, so I deleted everything in all the media folders and set the recorder a little differently to record 15 sec of PF, BG, and DMD. I swear I did just images the first time I used it ever(v1.0) and it showed videos. Well, that is what is happening now, recording, I am in the C tables. Alot of the trouble is while waiting for the cable for the backbox, I went on a download spree thinging it would be a breeze to set up the 3 monitor system, Nope, not at all but this time, It will work I hope. It is not a visual pinball problem or pinballx, it is the recorder. I will post results when this is done which may take a bit. I learned if you have a problem with a BG or something not recorded right, you have to delete whatever is in the media folder, if you have a blank screen on bg, it will record it and say you already have it. I have a few I forgot to fix.

 

 

I have since this pic was taken, got rid of the speaker grill on the monitor.

Edited by viktory2k1, 10 February 2016 - 06:17 AM.

[viktory2k1]

Nope, didn't do the trick. All the stuff was in the media folders but wouldn't work on pinballx. I will try something else after I fix a few tables. DAMN 4 hours!. I will do images like I did the very first time and it showed a snippit of video. I changed the vidoe format option to mp4 and nope. What the hell?

Does it matter what the media filenames are based on? I have 2 examples, 1 is description tag and other is VP file name. Now is an description tag and never messed with that.

Well, done for the night. tired. Will try again tomorrow, I deleted everything it recorded and oddly enough no dmd videos were in there, It would be really nice if it had a instruction guide. Later..................

Edited by viktory2k1, 10 February 2016 - 09:47 AM.

[gtxjoe]

If videos don't play in Pinballx, you need to go to the pinballx.net webpage and download the LAV fillter install linked on the main page.

Dmd won't record if you do not have screenres.txt setup correctly. Try playing Funhouse or Big Guns or Genesis from VP and make sure you get a fancy multi color bordered led displayed in the Dmd window. This will ensure that screenres.txt is configured properly

[viktory2k1]

When I play a game from pinballx it works fine, yes, the border color shows up on one of them but didn't test the other. My strange point I am trying to make is all games will launch and play from pinballx but the recordings wont show until I maybe do images. The very first recording I ever did on the test setup was images and it showed a little video which I think would repeat itself but now I am doing actual recordings, I may go back to images only and try that and I will check this filter out but never had it before. I would thing screenres.txt is good because I can launch and play a game from pinballx and all looks good but boring just seeing the wheel image while scrolling. I would rather see a short video of the table. well here we go again....

[viktory2k1]

I installed the LAV converter and went to test and nothing so I dug in my media and 1 video was there so I went back to pinballx and scrolled to that table, 2001, and there was a video playing! I was very happy. Then I remembered I was on a few hours of sleep yesterday and when it didn't work, I deleted all media again and changed the recording format and recorded 1 table and it didn't work, the video I mean. Well, with the LAV converter, it worked great so now I am redoing all tables and if the DMD's don't record right, I don't see why not, I will figure that out and run the recorder to just do the DMD's. I will post the results. Maybe I should drink lots of beer and then mess with settings, LOL.

Still recording.....in the V tables now, I was browsing aroud here on the front-end topic and there was alot of talk about screenres.txt for PBX recorder, I think that it uses what ever you have in your screenres.txt file in the table folder, is this right? I saw the recorder one and looked the same and never changed anything in it. We'll see in a few minutes.

Edited by viktory2k1, 11 February 2016 - 09:28 AM.

[viktory2k1]

OK, it recorded, all BG's and PF's perfect except a few like 3-4 out of 256. I do have a problem, no DMD'd show and no game sounds while scrolling, play the game, all good, I wonder why no sounds, I had a feeling about the DMD issue, I set it to record them and I think I could see the DOS looking screen showing FPS and saw DMD on there, thats it for the night, I have a few tables to fix and run the recorder again but, thankfully, I don't have to do all on them again so satisfied with what I have so far, Just have to figure out the game sounds and DMD.

Edited by viktory2k1, 11 February 2016 - 09:53 AM.

[gtxjoe]

I have not added audio support to PBXR.  In attract mode, the table usually only has audio when starting up.  Since PBXR starts the table and waits 30 seconds before recording, the recording would probably miss recording that audio, or grab just part of it, so not very useful to include.

 

gStAv has a huge library of audio samples for Pinballx browsing.  I would look into using that.  http://www.gameex.in...rowsing-tables/

 

As for not seeing any DMD in PinballX, sounds like a PinballX setup issue.  If you have no DMD images or videos, you should always see the animated PinballX logo video.  Get that working first

[viktory2k1]

OK, thanks, I had sounds with the old recorder and the funny thing is, I set it to record images and not video and ended up with video and sound but that was my test setup, now that I think of it, I think screenres.txt is set to monitor 4 for DMD monitor and pinballx is set to 3 but they all work with the actual game, hmmm. I will look into it, The old recorder had sound. You made these recorders? Nice!!

I like the pinballx animated video too. For non DMD tables. Kinda afraid to mess with the monitor settings because it means I will have to position them all again but I did that default thing in the regestry. That sound spoiler looks like my tables list!LOL

This is a youtube from back in mid Dec 2015 of my test setup and there are sounds on most tables with the old recorder. Funny, I had it to record images only. After watching the vid closley, they are only images I thing but why sound? Maybe I should record with images only and then the sound will work?

https://youtu.be/x3eX3ApOrLo

Edited by viktory2k1, 12 February 2016 - 12:04 AM.

[viktory2k1]

This is my screenres.txt and the PBX setup screen.

 

 

 

At this point in time, I am afraid to change any settings but I swear I saw a screen somewhere that showed the real port each monitor was plugged into. I don't see anything in screenres.txt as to what monitor the DMD is but not a big deal, when I set them up, I had to drag them from the BG to the DMD monitor and resize using the windows border thing and making it the size I was and did the default in registry thing but still had to resize them in the cut-out on my grill panel. I really hope I didn't do anything wrong as it took forever. The DMD works perfect in a game. but not recorder.

[Outhere]

Here is my screenres

in the pinballX you need to fill in all four spots in the DMD area

Attached Files

•  B2S_SetUp.jpg   38.31KB   13 downloads

Edited by Outhere, 12 February 2016 - 04:57 AM.

[gtxjoe]

In pinballx setting you have "DMD Enabled" = No. Change it to Yes

In screenres.txt you have DMD width, DMD height, X offset and Y offset all set to 0. You need to fix that

Edited by gtxjoe, 12 February 2016 - 04:45 AM.

[viktory2k1]

But it works, I just had to move and resize each one and when it was where I wanted it, I set a default setting in the registry I thought the enable DMD would put the dmd on the backglass, thats why I set it like that, I will back it up and mess with those settings....I don't know what to set those to, the default settings in the reg? I will try both things but first back it up.

Here is my screenres

in the pinball X you need to fill in all four spots in the DMV area

 

Where is that screen? I have seen it b2s screen res editor.

Edited by viktory2k1, 12 February 2016 - 04:50 AM.

[Outhere]

gtxjoe -> Does the DMD area in pinballX need to be filled in?

[viktory2k1]

Well, this is in the default registry and it is maybe 1 digit off in the few tables I looked at so is this what I put in pinballx?

DMD height-194

DMD pos x-3836

DMD pos y-175

DMD width 640

[Outhere]

But it works, I just had to move and resize each one and when it was where I wanted it, I set a default setting in the registry I thought the enable DMD would put the dmd on the backglass, thats why I set it like that, I will back it up and mess with those settings....I don't know what to set those to, the default settings in the reg? I will try both things but first back it up.

Here is my screenres

in the pinball X you need to fill in all four spots in the DMV area

 

Where is that screen? I have seen it b2s screen res editor.

Tables folder

[viktory2k1]

All I did was enable DMD in pbx settings and now nothing works except the dmd is different colors. I get error saying B2S server stopped working.

Edited by viktory2k1, 12 February 2016 - 05:21 AM.

[viktory2k1]

I went to screenres.txt and it only showed the playfield numbers so I put this in the screen res.txt, I got the numbers from the default setting for DMD right from the registry.

 

 

Good? or no good?

 

I wrote everything down so no big deal if it doesn't work and made no changes to registry. That 4 is the backglass monitor which confuses me so what is the DMD currently set at?

 

Hey! the few tables I tested worked fine dmd and all, this is visual pinball, now pinballx....Works fine when I launch a table otherwise no dmd, I will record DMD only...

Edited by viktory2k1, 12 February 2016 - 06:07 AM.

[viktory2k1]

If videos don't play in Pinballx, you need to go to the pinballx.net webpage and download the LAV fillter install linked on the main page.

Dmd won't record if you do not have screenres.txt setup correctly. Try playing Funhouse or Big Guns or Genesis from VP and make sure you get a fancy multi color bordered led displayed in the Dmd window. This will ensure that screenres.txt is configured properly

I don't think funhouse has a DMD. Just a backglass score as far as I can tell but changing alot of settings and now I will record a few tables and see what happens with the new screen res and if it still doesn't show DMD in the recording, then I will mess with the values in pinballx, I like to make 1 change at a time. Sorry if this is a dumb way but I have a bad memory and write every change down. So far So good...

Edited by viktory2k1, 12 February 2016 - 06:43 AM.

[Carny_Priest]

One thing that trips people up is that VPM display does not equal dB2S. The position settings for VPM displays are stored in the registry. It's great that you have that set up correctly, but that doesn't mean that screeners.txt is setup correctly. If you were using a three screen dB2S for a later alphanumeric game like Earthshaker or Funhouse, you would have a nice looking display that replaces what VPM displays. Get your dB2S working for these games then the recorder will work. You would start by using the settings that already work and are stored in the registry.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[viktory2k1]

One thing that trips people up is that VPM display does not equal dB2S. The position settings for VPM displays are stored in the registry. It's great that you have that set up correctly, but that doesn't mean that screeners.txt is setup correctly. If you were using a three screen dB2S for a later alphanumeric game like Earthshaker or Funhouse, you would have a nice looking display that replaces what VPM displays. Get your dB2S working for these games then the recorder will work. You would start by using the settings that already work and are stored in the registry.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I did and nothing happened, I wrote down the registry numbers and put them in the screenres.txt, then I put the DMD values from there to pbx settings and recorded just DMD and it didn't record anything new, hmmmm. I play the game from pinballx and all good. I am missing something. Those games work fine except earthshaker, I don't have it. but they look great except DMD on table scrolling, works great when running the table and I swear, I used to have sounds, maybe I will wipe it out and record images only? Let me post some pics from pinballx with and without running a table, funhouse, a good example and cueball wizard....

Edited by viktory2k1, 12 February 2016 - 07:07 AM.