Retroarch - Video playback + Overlays & Shaders

[Aorin]

I'm getting used to overlays/bezels for emulation, stretching videos isn't working for me, if it's 4:3, fine, let be it.

In Libretro forums, there's some threads where some nice guys post their overlays, there are TVs and borders, tons of them, here are some I created myself:

Check tutorial in the second post

 

NDS (Original Aspect Ratio)

GBA (Original Aspect Ratio)

And there are some that are really pro like these:

Genesis:

Master System:

Saturn:

SNES:

PSX:

There in Libretro forums I wanted to know more about video playback in Retroarch, I remember when first reading about it, Retroarch was meant to be a multi purpose software, emulation is part of it, but it has general media support, Exodus tested it, and suddenly we noticed that Retroarch plays videos like any other player. When I first loaded a video, yesterday it loaded this, as Retroarch is configured to use a TV border and a crt shader:

I then started to add Retroarch as an alternative external video player in Kodi, which is a nice feature since I have tons of pre wide-screen videos, like cartoons, 90's/80's/70's TV series and movies and so on.

I'll make a simple tutorial on how to add Retroarch as external player in Kodi in the second post, I know there are a lot of you guys that will love it and have retro video wheels in Hyperspin, personally I use Kodi, that can be loaded inside HS as well, but it doesn't matter, this should work for both ways.

Some other screenshots:

 

[Aorin]

Installing Kodi and adding it to Hyperspin

This tutorial will show you how to add Kodi in Hyperspin focusing on using Retroarch as a main player to play 4:3 content in modern TVs, making even low quality old videos look great and authentic.

 

Assuming you have Kodi installed in its default directory (not mandatory, but simpler), open HyperHQ, click in Main Menu Wizard tab and then in the plus sign:

Name it Kodi and press Next:

Choose whether you want it before or after a specific system.

This step is really important, choose "Is this menu item an executable program?", Yes:

Obs.: If the first option is selected, Hyperspin will always try to find a xml for this system, and it won't work.

Just confirm the dialog box and continue:

This window will show you a resume of what was created, and will prompt you to Continue with Wizard, so we can find the Kodi.exe file:

This is the default Kodi.exe path:

No need to fill anything here, just move on:

We won't need any Hyperlaunch (Actually Rocket Launcher) intervention using Kodi inside Hyperspin, just say No:

Kodi added with success.

Now, still in HyperHQ click on Wheel Settings, choose Kodi and make sure you have these settings:

Obs.: WinState is Hidden, so Kodi will only show up when fully loaded, otherwise, a cmd window may appear above Hyperspin.

We have now Kodi inside Hyperspin, make sure you put a main theme named Kodi under Hyperspin\Media\Main Menu\Themes\Kodi.zip, and possibly a video preview.

Now, let's get back to the focus of this thread, which is how to use Retroarch as a video player, making it a unique experience in HD and UHD TV's and monitors.

* Watch SD content with a nice shader, simulating a CRT screen, avoiding pixelated low quality video.

* Fill in black lateral bars with a nice TV frame/border, making use of all your TV/monitor screen, while not stretching the videos, losing its aspect.

*Kodi supports gamepads natively (activated in its settings menu), so does Retroarch, so you can advance and rewind videos in a cab, in a HTPC, a PC Gamer, etc.

Things to notice, Retroarch plays all popular video formats, but it does not resume videos from where you stop it, it displays subtitles but only supports one format for now, it supports switching dual audio tracks using a pre configured key or button, but it's still far from being perfect. I'm requesting some more attention about this video player feature Retroarch in Libretro forums, I hope they add and fix some minor things soon.

Apart of that, I use Retroarch as my main video player as I've been collecting tons of series, cartoons and movies that are 4:3 or similar aspect and they look great in a FullHD TV, even those low quality videos.

 

Adding Retroarch in Kodi as an external player

 

Kodi's main settings are located at z

You can just press ctrl+r and paste %appdata%, it will open your appdata/roaming folder, there Kodi should be located, inside Kodi's folder open userdata folder.

In this folder you should create a file called playercorefactory.xml, this file contains settings that will tell Kodi that there is/are other players and how to manage them.

Inside this file you have this content:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="Retroarch" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>C:\Program Files (x86)\Retroarch\retroarch.exe</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
<warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
</player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
<rule filename=".*4x3*" player="Retroarch"/>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>

Note, in this case, Retroarch is set to be the primary player for 4x3 videos, i.e., if you create a folder that has "4x3" in this name, like "Movies - 4x3" etc., Kodi will call Retroarch to play the video, you can also just set 4x3 in the video file itself that it will work either way.

It's important to have a Retroarch specific installation, apart from the one you may use for emulation, in this case I have Retroarch under C:\Program Files (x86)\Retroarch\Retroarch.exe

No core should be downloaded as the video player is baked in Retroarch.exe.

Choose x86 or x64 installation here:

http://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/

 

The file playercorefactory.xml is attached here as a sample and you can paste this file under C:\Users\Your User\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\userdata

playercorefactory.xml

 

Assuming everything is in place, once in Kodi, if you try playing any AVI or MP4 file (set to default above), it should load the video directly, in case the video has a different format, that wasn't set in the playercorefactory.xml, the default Kodi video player will be used, but still, clicking with the mouse right button in the video you want to play, you have a new option, "Play Using":

Then you can choose whatever player you have added or the default Kodi player, in this case, as the video is an AVI file, Retroarch becomes the default player:

 

There are tons of overlays already, but you can always create yourself one using your favorite TVs, I won't cover it now but let me know if you want a specific TV model.

I'm uploading my Retroarch folder as well, it contains a lot of overlays ready to use.

Some TV border samples:

Some Shaders can simulate even bad signal transmissions.

You can basically use any TV with any background, you can rebuild your old room with your old TV if you want.

 

This tutorial covered the basics of adding Kodi to Hyperspin and integrating Retroarch as an external player.

Post your suggestions, critics or doubts, thanks.

Check in a post below my zipped Retroarch folder.

[badboo]

Your overlays are so cool. I didn't know about the video option. That's why I have been trying to implement Retroarch to most of all my systems, well, except the PCSX2 or Dolphin which they are good at what they do for that generation of consoles. 

Besides emulation , the beauty of RA are those shaders and overlays as seen in your post. 

I know there are a lot of options for shaders there. For me I use CRT-Easymode or CRT-Easymode gbd. I need to try the other ones to see how they look in different systems.

[Aorin]

2 minutes ago, badboo said:

Your overlays are so cool. I didn't know about the video option. That's why I have been trying to implement Retroarch to most of all my systems, well, except the PCSX2 or Dolphin which they are good at what they do for that generation of consoles. 

Besides emulation , the beauty of RA are those shaders and overlays as seen in your post. 

I know there are a lot of options for shaders there. For me I use CRT-Easymode or CRT-Easymode gbd. I need to try the other ones to see how they look in different systems.

Yeah those overlays are nice, note that only the first two are mine though, the others are from another Libretro user.

Try playing some videos later on to see how they look, specially if you have 4:3 or similar aspect video, looks amazing!

[badboo]

that's great, I will try doing that with some videos I have.

Cheers

[gigapig]

Thanks for the info Aorin, looking forward to the tutorial and watching the Six Million Dollar Man like this.

[Aorin]

I have updated the second post with a tutorial, enjoy!

Here's my Retroarch folder, you should unzip it under C:\Program Files (x86) and use this as a separate Retroarch instance.

Retroarch.rar

If you have problems unzipping this file, you'll need to update your WinRar program to 5 or above.