The case for a MiSTer-native video player

[chanunnaki]

Like cameras, what the pros always say is that "the best camera is the one you have with you", whether that be a simple point & shoot, or mobile phone, or DSLR... and I find just replacing the word "camera" with "computer" or "console" works equally as appropriately.

I recently got a Dell 2007FPB. It's a quality monitor, 4:3; 1600 x 1200P, and I got it for use exclusively for use with MiSTer and for that purpose, it's amazing.

Then Zack Snyder's Justice League came out and it's in 4:3 aspect ratio and I thought to myself... "hey, perfect timing, I should watch that on my new Dell 4:3 monitor", but no, that wasn't possible for me as I don't have a HDMI-to-DVI cable and none of my computers or laptops have VGA output. So I was stuck watching the movie on my 32:9 super ultrawide 1440P samsung. Oh well, it was still a great movie, but how amazing would it be to be able to watch classic Movies and TV shows directly on the MiSTer?

When searching for a great monitor for MiSTer, I could have gone with a 16:10 1920x1200 monitor, but I didn't, because I see a lot of value in the 4:3 aspect ratio. The movies of my favourite director Stanley Kubrick, like Full Metal Jacket are also best experienced in 4:3 AR too IMO.

I, like probably many of you, consider MiSTer more than the sum of its parts. It's now an integral part of my entertainment set-up. I value it even more than my PS5 and Xbox Series X and I've completely eschewed traditional software emulation altogether.

Look at the OG Xbox... that was created as a dedicated consoles with DVD playing capabilities, but it was hacked to allow for homebrew. What came of that was Xbox Media Centre, or XBMC. XBMC eventually became Kodi and Plex and the rest as they say is history.

The problem with these systems media system is that they are simply too bloated in my opinion. I love the simplicity of the MiSTer interface, reminding me of the utilitarianism of the Command line interface. Many people have wished for a "flashier" front-end, like you can find with RetroPie, and a lot of time has been spent arguing for the merits of the simpler interface of the MiSTer.

I believe that if the MiSTer had a native video player, using the same interface as what is there currently, it would bring value to the platform as a whole and also cement the existing interface as one that is both practical and here-to-stay.

Anyway... those are just some thoughts. I'm not really pushing for the inclusion/developement of a video player for MiSTer, I'm just saying it would be sweet for me personally and I'm pretty certain it will come along eventually. In the meantime, I guess I will crack out the old Raspberry Pi to act as a makeshift dedicated 4:3 video player.

[aberu]

There is a possibility it could be done on the ARM side (maybe not, as the HDMI output is on the FPGA side, might be complicated?), however being done in FPGA you would probably get 720p@30FPS at best (if UltraEmbedded's MPEG player core on the Arty A35t is any indication, which is a smaller version of the A100t which is a comparable chip to the DE10-Nano's Cyclone V somewhat).

[chanunnaki]

Yeah, on the ARM side would be useful too, and it would be easy enough to include mpv in a recompile of the linux kernel. Not sure how well it would run anyway, but I'm hesitant to do anything custom because I want to keep it simple and just use the updater scripts and don't want any breaking with every update.

I believe the Cyclone V is capable of decoding 4K with the correct implementation, but of course it wouldn't fit into the framebuffer.

[aberu]

I believe the Cyclone V is capable of decoding 4K with the correct implementation, but of course it wouldn't fit into the framebuffer.

At what framerate and for what purpose? Seeing the projects up on terasic they have situations where students have used a large portion of the FPGA in a complicated way to do HDR color processing on much lower resolution footage.

[zakk4223]

Yeah, on the ARM side would be useful too, and it would be easy enough to include mpv in a recompile of the linux kernel. Not sure how well it would run anyway, but I'm hesitant to do anything custom because I want to keep it simple and just use the updater scripts and don't want any breaking with every update.

I believe the Cyclone V is capable of decoding 4K with the correct implementation, but of course it wouldn't fit into the framebuffer.

You can install mpv without recompiling anything or breaking updates etc. It could be done just like all the other linux side stuff people use (prdoom, scummvm, etc). If you could generate/find a static linked build of mpv it could even be as simple as copying a single binary over.

Anyways, someone already did it in the past. Do a search here and you'll probably find it. I'm not sure how far they got, though.

[chanunnaki]

Yeah, on the ARM side would be useful too, and it would be easy enough to include mpv in a recompile of the linux kernel. Not sure how well it would run anyway, but I'm hesitant to do anything custom because I want to keep it simple and just use the updater scripts and don't want any breaking with every update.

I believe the Cyclone V is capable of decoding 4K with the correct implementation, but of course it wouldn't fit into the framebuffer.

You can install mpv without recompiling anything or breaking updates etc. It could be done just like all the other linux side stuff people use (prdoom, scummvm, etc). If you could generate/find a static linked build of mpv it could even be as simple as copying a single binary over.

Anyways, someone already did it in the past. Do a search here and you'll probably find it. I'm not sure how far they got, though.

Oh, that's cool, I'll look into and see what kind of performance I can get playing videos through ARM core.

[mrchrister]

it would be great to have the mister display old tv shows! the arm side should be able to handle those old dvdrip files I have. I can't find any reference to the aforementioned mpv compile. any hints?

[hiddenbyleaves]

From the moment I had my MiSTer hooked up to a crt I thought it would be cool to have an FPGA core recreation of a DVD player. I would archive my dvd collection and have a folder of iso files that I could load up to see the goofy menu designs and special features and other things. I think I'll probably have to learn fpga development myself if I want to see it though.

[Megahurtz]

I'd be all for a video player that could load files off of the network.

Is there anything for the Pi designed to play back videos on a crt? I know the Pi can do composite video out, but I'm more curious about the software side and how the interface scales to a low resolution.

An modded OG xbox is also a great SD solution, but they're big and noisy.

[limi]

I use a Raspberry Pi with a simple $20 HDMI-to-Component adapter to output 480i to use as a video player for my JVC D CRT, more details here.

[akeley]

I also have been using RPi with Retropie/Kodi outputting via composite to a CRT. SD content looks way better than on modern panels (just like old games .

The only problem is that old widescreen films are squashed and tiny on a 4:3 display (and appropriate CRTs are too big for me). For that reason I did some tinkering with CRT shaders from Retroarch, combined with Reshade, and the results were quite acceptable.

[hiddenbyleaves]

I have a RPi and a Pi2scart but I have struggled trying to get kodi to play iso files, probably my own mistake somewhere. Obviously they can be converted etc. but I am not interested in the films themselves but rather looking at menu design, transitions special features and dvd games.

Anyone know of a good way to browse an archive of DVD releases in iso format on a crt, not the movies themselves but the menus and special features? The only thing I can think of would be a pc with an old graphics card and a vga to scart like a groovymame setup.