1630 replies to this topic

[mjr]

Great, glad that worked!  Happy holidays to you too.

[bpjacobsen]

so far me likey. couple of questions:

 

1. Is there a way to configure dmd so that some tables display the dmd on the bottom half of the dmd monitor (similar to a real dmd for dmd videos) but then have the other tables (which is a good majority) that I use custom dmd images for but have them display on the full dmd monitor area? PBX does seem to allow for this but can't figure out how to do this in PBY. Will I have to use the topper for the images perhaps and set that to the full area then just disable dmd videos for those tables (assuming I can)

2. I noticed that tables are displaying both a dmd video and my image. like it will display the video for x amt of time then switch to the image and it goes back and forth. I don't even have a video in the dmd video folder for the table so not sure where the dmd video is coming from?

 

To better illustrate point 1, see attached comparison screenshots of a dmd vs my custom image. How do I separate those out so I can display one or the other depending on which table has which? Air Aces would more or less fill the screen in the middle but the dmd for 24 would display more like a real dmd on the bottom section. In PBX, if you have a dmd video in the dmd videos folder it shows that. If not and you have a image file in the dmd images folder, it displays that. Not sure how to differentiate these in PBY like this?

 

notice the screenshot showing air aces as seen in pby. it's squished into the same space as the dmd video. How do I make the images display correct in full screen. seems like I would have to separate those out using toppers sized for the full area? is this possible? hope so. I'm really loving how you can manage everything from inside pby. and it seems run faster than pbx also. 

Attached Files

•  dmd video example.png   73.19KB   0 downloads
•  dmd custom image.png   21.38KB   0 downloads
•  squished.png   85.51KB   0 downloads

Edited by bpjacobsen, 04 December 2020 - 03:34 AM.

[wiesshund]

I am not sure if this is your answer, but you could drop that topper on a 16.9 sized solid black background
say like 1920 x 1080
Save it as a new png image

 

allow it to display using the whole screen
then move the pinmame DMD and resize as needed.

 

[mjr]

bpjacobsen - if you want to figure where a particular media item is coming from (like the mystery video you mentioned), bring up the operator menu (press digit "0"), select Game Setup, and select Show Media Files.  That'll bring up a list of all of the media files for the current game and their locations.

 

For your window/media sizing issues, I'm not clear on whether you're talking about PinballY's windows or Visual Pinball's windows - the latter meaning the windows showing when you're running a game.  If you're talking about what you see when the game runs, PniballY doesn't really involve itself in that; that's up to VP or whatever other player program you're using.

If the sizing issues are with PinballY windows, it might help if you temporarily turn on window borders in the windows in question, so that you can see exactly where the windows are in the layout.  Just right-click on the window in question and select Show Window Borders.  That would help clarify whether the problem is the placement of the windows, or the scaling of the media within the window.

[bpjacobsen]

actually, I woke up this morning and realized I might be over complicating this. What if I just set the dmd area to the full area then it should display my images correctly and still display the dmds correctly? Or will it stretch the dmds then? I might have to resize then re-do the dmd recordings so it captures the full screen including the black section. However, I can't find where to change the window sizes. I was prompted first time opening pby to set the window areas but now I can't find an option to change them so I can test my theory above.

 

Also, I'm finding that when batch recording, it does a handful of tables then just freezes and has to be force killed in task manager. Anyone else having that issue? Last night it got about 40+ recordings done before getting stuck. Any ideas why that is happening?

 

Lastly, once I get this sorted out, is there something similar to game manager where I can just scroll down and set only my non-dmd tables to keep the dmd on when running tables (so my images stay on when playing) So far it appears I would have to open each game one by one in the game setup within pby which seems cumbersome. Or is there perhaps a config file that I could open that I could change a flag for those games a bit more quickly than opening the settings up one at a time from pby? game manager in pbx makes this easy. just uncheck hide dmd for tables that you want it to stay on in game.

[mjr]

bpjacobsen - to reposition windows, just drag/resize them the way you would any other window.  Even if you don't see the sizing border, it's there, it's just invisible.  You can move it by dragging anywhere within the window.  The exception is full-screen windows, which you can't move until you take out of full-screen mode.  To do that, just right-click within the window and un-check Full Screen.  

 

I don't know if you've noticed that there's on-line help included, but you can find details like this and lots of other info there.  The Usage Tips chapter might be of interest for some quick info on stuff like moving windows around.  Just press F1 to bring it up, or right-click in the main window and select Help.

Edited by mjr, 04 December 2020 - 06:42 PM.

[bpjacobsen]

bpjacobsen - to reposition windows, just drag/resize them the way you would any other window.  Even if you don't see the sizing border, it's there, it's just invisible.  You can move it by dragging anywhere within the window.  The exception is full-screen windows, which you can't move until you take out of full-screen mode.  To do that, just right-click within the window and un-check Full Screen.  

 

I don't know if you've noticed that there's on-line help included, but you can find details like this and lots of other info there.  The Usage Tips chapter might be of interest for some quick info on stuff like moving windows around.  Just press F1 to bring it up, or right-click in the main window and select Help.

OK so I did just resize a dmd to the full area then recorded again and that is what I needed. So now it records and displays exactly what you have in the image. So for dmds, it will record the whole screen including the black area and dmd area. 

 

OK, so any thoughts on why it is freezing while recording?

 

Also, how do I get thumbnail previews for the videos? I thought the lav filters would have automatically enabled the thumbnails but not happening.

Edited by bpjacobsen, 04 December 2020 - 06:53 PM.

[bpjacobsen]

well, I managed to get to about 152 tables out of 200+ before it finally crashed so not bad

[mjr]

OK, so any thoughts on why it is freezing while recording?

 

Well, obviously it shouldn't be doing that, so I'm afraid I can't offer any suggestions - it's probably not anything you're doing wrong, just some program bug.  The only way I can usually make any headway against bugs like this that I can't easily reproduce myself is to have you do a source build in Visual Studio and run it under the Visual Studio debugger, so that you can directly observe what the program is doing at the point where it crashes.  If you're able to do that, send me the details and I'll take a look.

 

 

Also, how do I get thumbnail previews for the videos?

 

What thumbnails are we talking about?

[bpjacobsen]

 

OK, so any thoughts on why it is freezing while recording?

 

Well, obviously it shouldn't be doing that, so I'm afraid I can't offer any suggestions - it's probably not anything you're doing wrong, just some program bug.  The only way I can usually make any headway against bugs like this that I can't easily reproduce myself is to have you do a source build in Visual Studio and run it under the Visual Studio debugger, so that you can directly observe what the program is doing at the point where it crashes.  If you're able to do that, send me the details and I'll take a look.

 

 

Also, how do I get thumbnail previews for the videos?

 

What thumbnails are we talking about?

 

when you are looking at the list of videos in file explorer and you select one of the large icon options, it shows a preview of the video in the icon. This worked in the past but I don't know why it's not working now. the videos work fine otherwise. just not the thumbnail previews.

 

as for building the source build, I don't know how to do that. I"m happy to do it if you can guide me through the process. THanks

[wiesshund]

 

 

when you are looking at the list of videos in file explorer and you select one of the large icon options, it shows a preview of the video in the icon. This worked in the past but I don't know why it's not working now. the videos work fine otherwise. just not the thumbnail previews.

 

as for building the source build, I don't know how to do that. I"m happy to do it if you can guide me through the process. THanks

 

I think you mean open explorer

click view

pick preview pane

?

 

Which also tends to only work if said files are associated with windows media player

[bpjacobsen]

in file explorer, click view - large icons or extra large icons. see attached. It used to show a thumbnail preview of the video. Not sure if windows media player supports f4v? But even mp4 was not showing the thumbnail.

Attached Files

•  icons.png   13.85KB   1 downloads

[wiesshund]

Under Performance Options

1. Type Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows 10 into the Cortana search box.

2. Click on the result to launch Performance Options window.

3. Make sure the check box for Show thumbnails instead of icons is ticked.

Under File Explorer Options

1. Type File Explorer Options into the Cortana search box.

2. Click on the result to launch File Explorer Options window.

3. Click on the View tab. Under Files and Folders, make sure the check box for Always show icons, never thumbnails is unticked.

Edited by wiesshund, 05 December 2020 - 12:59 AM.

[bpjacobsen]

this is not working for me. cortana is telling me it can't help me with that. 

[wiesshund]

this is not working for me. cortana is telling me it can't help me with that. 

Say what?

fine

right click start
left click system
scroll down
click advance system settings

in performance click SETTINGS
 

[bpjacobsen]

both settings are as suggested. The issue is the preview of the videos is not showing as per my screenshot. It must be b/c my default media player either doesn't support f4v or it's not enabled. Otherwise, not sure what else the issue is. I need to see if I can find the file types settings in media player and see if maybe f4v is not checked or something

[wiesshund]

both settings are as suggested. The issue is the preview of the videos is not showing as per my screenshot. It must be b/c my default media player either doesn't support f4v or it's not enabled. Otherwise, not sure what else the issue is. I need to see if I can find the file types settings in media player and see if maybe f4v is not checked or something

 1st, see if windows media player can actually play them

[bpjacobsen]

I downloaded VLC media player and set the system to open f4v files with VLC. and I can play the videos but still no thumbnail previews. trying to find more info but continue to hit a dead end. So frustrating b/c it used to work. It makes it so much easier to spot bad videos so they can be re-done. Rather than having to page through pby one table at a time to see if any videos are messed up. Will report back if I figure this out.

[mjr]

You have the right idea that the desktop thumbnails are handled through your video player program, although that's actually a simplification.  The real situation is that installed applications register thumbnail handlers with Windows by file type.  In other words, it's not *necessarily* your preferred video player that handles it, and it's not even necessarily one program that handles it.  The real situation is that there's a registered ".mp4" thumbnail program, a registered ".flv" thumbnail program, etc.  As usual with this file extension crap on Windows, you might have multiple video players installed that are fighting over which one handles thumbnails for which extensions.  The event that broke your previously working setup might not have even been anything you did manually, or that you realized would affect this - it might have been an automatic update to one of your video players or something like that.  At any rate, I don't know of any good way to troubleshoot this sort of thing because Microsoft makes it pretty opaque.  The registry keys that set up the links between file types and thumbnail programs are documented somewhere in the Windows SDK, and you can look at them with RegEdit, but I don't know the details off-hand of which keys you'd want to inspect.

[wiesshund]

Set Defaults by App in windows 10 control panel

Scroll down to windows media player and click it, click manage

 

It will show you what it does and does not have

 

though it may be easier to back up to Default Apps instead of picking 1 by one
and pick windows media player as default for at least video
Which should hand back over to media player the thumbnail part

VLC, last i remember, does not do thumbnail cache creation or previews in the preview pane
It does not talk to windows in that way.

But it does, on install, if you allow it to, kick media player to the curb

 

Many apps can play music or videos
But not all of them integrate with windows, and can not provide a thumbnail or preview function
 

just open windows 10 settings app, and type default in the search, you will find what you want

 

If you enable preview pane, not only can you see if the video thumbnails
which could be black if the first few frames are empty
you can also click the play button in the preview pane and see if the video is playable in general by windows it self.

If it does not, good chance PBY wont be able to play it either.

VLC and some other 3rd party players are capable of at least attempting to play back a file that might be kinda messed up
or encoded strangely, where as PBY isnt going to be kosher with that, nor will media player usually.

And media player can play valid flv's