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    A New Chapter for MagicMirror: The Community Takes the Lead
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    Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Troubleshooting
    mmm-pirvideoplayer
    40 Posts 9 Posters 27.9k Views 8 Watching
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    • R Offline
      Reotch2 @Nystro0m
      last edited by

      @Nystro0m This finally worked. Unfortunately, it turns out running the video as a module within electron is super “clunky” on my RPI-3. OMXplayer seemed to play the video flawlessly.

      It’s really unfortunate, because although it was choppy, it was BEAUTIFUL. Are there any overclocking options or MM tweaks that may improve embedded video quality? (yes… now I’m getting greedy).

      Also, as an amateur mirror-ist(?), how would I have found the MMM-htmlvideo since it wasn’t published on the module page?

      Really appreciate the help

      Mykle1M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • R Offline
        Reotch2 @cowboysdude
        last edited by

        @cowboysdude I’d really love to, and in my younger/bolder days it’d probably already be posted; unfortunately it’s not worth risking the Copyright issues. Sorry man.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • R Offline
          Reotch2 @pyrosmiley
          last edited by

          @pyrosmiley said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

          @Reotch2 I actually just was dealing with something similar trying to get that module to work as a background!

          Right now I have just a picture instead, but it should be the same idea. Put the video file somewhere on the MagicMirror directory - my image is in the CSS file but it doesn’t matter where. That way it’s included in what’s accessible on MM’s webserver that it starts. That way, in the config, you can specify the URL for the file! On mine, the picture bg.jpg is in the CSS folder, so my file listed in the config is "http://127.0.0.1:8080/css/bg.jpg".

          The biggest issue with this is that AFAIK it’s liable to get erased in updates to the MagicMirror framework, since I’m pretty sure the only two files that don’t get touched are config.js and custom.css. I’m also pretty sure that someone smarter than I has figured out a great way to get around that. BUt, since it’s just for halloween it’s probably temporary anyways so hopefully this gets you up and going.
          PS that is a cool as hell idea!

          @pyrosmiley This was the fix. You and @Nystro0m nailed it. Unfortunately after all that work, the video gets choppy when run within MM. I’m going to toy with some of my RPI-3 overclock settings, but if that doesn’t work, I’m just going to stick with OMXPlayer and dimmed modules. :(

          Thanks for the help.

          pyrosmileyP Nystro0mN 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • pyrosmileyP Offline
            pyrosmiley @Reotch2
            last edited by

            @Reotch2 If you’re still shooting for this, I HIGHLY recommend using ffmpeg to convert the clip to .webm format, which was developed for web streaming video — it’s crazy efficient with file size and perfect for this type of thing. If you’ve never used ffmpeg before it can be daunting, but the gist of what you do is ‘’’ffmpeg -i .mp4 -o .webm’’’ and then let it do its thing. It may take some googling to get exactly the settings you want but a basic conversion should do pretty well for you.

            Good luck!

            pyrosmileyP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • pyrosmileyP Offline
              pyrosmiley @pyrosmiley
              last edited by

              @pyrosmiley said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

              @Reotch2 If you’re still shooting for this, I HIGHLY recommend using ffmpeg to convert the clip to .webm format, which was developed for web streaming video — it’s crazy efficient with file size and perfect for this type of thing. If you’ve never used ffmpeg before it can be daunting, but the gist of what you do is ‘’’ffmpeg -i .mp4 -o .webm’’’ and then let it do its thing. It may take some googling to get exactly the settings you want but a basic conversion should do pretty well for you.

              Good luck!

              Formatting got messed up on my phone but the ffmpeg command is ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -o output.webm

              It should work just fine, I literally did it for my mirror today.

              R J 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Nystro0mN Offline
                Nystro0m @Reotch2
                last edited by

                @Reotch2
                Have you tried to convert your ghost.mp4 to your native screen resolution?
                I think the pi will have a hard time to do the scale conversion live.

                If you dont have the software for it, i can help you out.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • R Offline
                  Reotch2 @pyrosmiley
                  last edited by

                  @pyrosmiley I converted the M4V to .webm using ffmpeg (incredible tool btw). Unfortunately, it’s still super choppy. @Nystro0m in a later post suggested converting it to the native resolution, so that will be the next step. That’ll be my last attempt before I stick with the semi-transparent OMXPlayer. My kid is only 11 months old, so I’ve got a couple years before it needs to be “perfect” to scare the hell out of him.

                  You guys have been awesome. Thanks for all the continued help.

                  Nystro0mN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Nystro0mN Offline
                    Nystro0m @Reotch2
                    last edited by

                    @Reotch2
                    Is you other widgets also laggy chunky?
                    Im thinking about the transitions on the RSS module etc.

                    R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • R Offline
                      Reotch2 @Nystro0m
                      last edited by

                      @Nystro0m I have minimal transitions on the screen (weather, newsfeed, clock). It looks like there is an occasional hiccup on the newsfeed, but otherwise, no issues. My front door cam is kind of a cluster and naturally clunky because it’s a non-rtsp feed, so I’m stuck doing snapshots every 500ms to give ma a “live” picture. Thinking this may be the culprit, I disabled it in the config.js to verify it wasn’t the one killing the video.

                      I like where you’re headed though. (top) is showing two electron processes, is that normal? The highest processor abusers are Electron # 1 / Electron # 2 / XORG.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Mykle1M Offline
                        Mykle1 Project Sponsor Module Developer @Reotch2
                        last edited by

                        @Reotch2 said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

                        it turns out running the video as a module within electron is super “clunky” on my RPI-3.

                        What version combination of MM and Electron are you running? We’ve had great success eliminating excessive Electron CPU usage with MM v2.1.0 and Electron v1.4.15 on Pi3 B’s, and just recently, a Pi2 as well.

                        Obviously, the results are at the end of the topic

                        https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4684/electron-cpu-usage

                        Create a working config
                        How to add modules

                        R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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