Author Topic: M4 Player - Alpha [WIP] (Read 4686 times)

XeNoMoRPH · « **on:** 20:47, 11 September 19 »

Quote

Beverly Hills Cop trailer converted for Amstrad CPC with M4 board, with music by David Whittaker adapted for CHIPNSFX by CNGSOFT (thanks again for permission). A very simple player on early-stage. Some improvements coming.

Author: Roland Rząsa
source: [ Amstradiens facebook group ]

Duke · « **Reply #1 on:** 21:50, 11 September 19 »

Looks too good to be real ... (imo.

)

LTronic · « **Reply #2 on:** 22:14, 11 September 19 »

OMG.
If that's true that means we could bring FMV games to Amstrad CPC like Laserdic arcade based games (were using Z80) or even Mega CD stuff like Night Trap

How does this demo work ? Does it stream through Wifi or read the FMV through mass storage hooked to M4 ?

Gryzor · « **Reply #3 on:** 22:46, 11 September 19 »

Damn! How many colours is that?

Token · « **Reply #4 on:** 23:26, 11 September 19 »

It's really CPC or PLUS?

TotO · « **Reply #5 on:** 23:34, 11 September 19 »

It is 16 colours mode 0 with dithering. Probably with palette update for each frame.

Ast · « **Reply #6 on:** 22:11, 12 September 19 »

you could also do these kinds of things on an xMass, using iMPdos!

GUNHED · « **Reply #7 on:** 16:17, 13 September 19 »

Great software at all!!! Well done!!!

The conversion of the video to CPC format is awesome! Which program was used?

rolek · « **Reply #8 on:** 01:47, 15 September 19 »

The clip was converted to mode 0 and played on real CPC, I'm using my own program - CPiC which I wrote a years ago to convert images for Symbos format.
The whole project is a 'side effect' - I'm working on a puzzle game
(which will be finished very soon, finally) - and in tests time on a real machine, I found how fast is M4 SD card reader.
Hope to (re)start my website soon, where updates will come.

YT original video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfz7_K-y4fE

XeNoMoRPH · « **Reply #9 on:** 09:33, 15 September 19 »

Quote from: rolek on 01:47, 15 September 19

The clip was converted to mode 0 and played on real CPC, I'm using my own program - CPiC which I wrote a years ago to convert images for Symbos format.
The whole project is a 'side effect' - I'm working on a puzzle game
(which will be finished very soon, finally) - and in tests time on a real machine, I found how fast is M4 SD card reader.
Hope to (re)start my website soon, where updates will come.

Thanks for writing in the forum, I will be aware when you will have the website

XeNoMoRPH · « **Reply #10 on:** 22:02, 18 September 19 »

it's another emulator by @Devilmarkus but it's cool

https://youtu.be/T9rpqYTZlE4

GUNHED · « **Reply #11 on:** 22:22, 18 September 19 »

Now, I'm thinking of using such videos in combination with PlayCity and LS3 (PCM sample mode f.e).

rolek · « **Reply #12 on:** 22:11, 16 April 20 »

Hi,

One more conversion test - this time Cyberpunk2077 trailer.
In upcoming days I'll publish standalone player to use on CPC, version without GUI is already done.
Enjoy watching!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdQvxUKn7Wg

XeNoMoRPH · « **Reply #13 on:** 08:31, 17 April 20 »

Waiting Release

m_dr_m · « **Reply #14 on:** 23:34, 18 April 20 »

Pretty nice color conversion! I'd like to see the result on my CPC.

Seems to refresh at around 7 Hz, so ~111 Kib / sec?

rolek · « **Reply #15 on:** 01:20, 19 April 20 »

Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 08:31, 17 April 20

Waiting Release

[size=78%]I hope to upload my website in the coming days. The player will be available from the very first moment, but it'll be a super simple version, just playing one certain file - still, anyone having CPC with M4 card will have the opportunity to watch converted movies.[/size]

Next on the list is the more advanced player - some GUI giving the possibility to search for video files, displaying directories, file information, etc.
The converter is unfortunately last, cause I'll probably need rewrite whole app, at the moment source code is in Delphi which working correctly only under Windows XP.
If I'll be able to make the current version usable ( now it's hard to identify button purpose even for me ), something like "alpha" version will be available in the next 2-3 months.

rolek · « **Reply #16 on:** 01:21, 19 April 20 »

Quote from: m_dr_m on 23:34, 18 April 20

Pretty nice color conversion! I'd like to see the result on my CPC.

Seems to refresh at around 7 Hz, so ~111 Kib / sec?

More or less, I'm not sure how accurate timing has this video, I'm using weird hardware set - RGB2All converter and USB EasyCap grabber.
Converter was set to make 9FPS in output file which was probably little bit too optimistic.

zhulien · « **Reply #17 on:** 09:14, 20 April 20 »

what does green screen mode look like when you use the 16 colours as shades of green?

SkulleateR · « **Reply #18 on:** 23:21, 20 April 20 »

Nice

This looks like one of those Amiga CDXL Videos back in the days but this time on 8Bit

rolek · « **Reply #19 on:** 23:31, 20 April 20 »

Quote from: zhulien on 09:14, 20 April 20

what does green screen mode look like when you use the 16 colours as shades of green?

Very good question, never even thought about it.
The player works only on a real computer ( don't know if any emulator handling M4 card ).
I think you just developed new option in converter

Conversion at the moment is the only partially based on pixels' brightness, I'll add the possibility to set the target color scheme.

genesis8 · « **Reply #20 on:** 21:22, 21 April 20 »

Quote from: rolek on 01:20, 19 April 20

The converter is unfortunately last, cause I'll probably need rewrite whole app, at the moment source code is in Delphi which working correctly only under Windows XP.

As you use Delphi, you may be able to use freepascal to have an executable under more modern os ?
Also do you know about the PC demo for PC XT/CGA 8088 corruption which has a part with a video like yours (http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption) and its "update" 8088 Domination (see video example
https://youtu.be/cK703qMFb0M) ?
As it also uses 160x200x16 its code could be useful to you ?

rolek · « **Reply #21 on:** 23:27, 21 April 20 »

Quote from: genesis8 on 21:22, 21 April 20

As you use Delphi, you may be able to use freepascal to have an executable under more modern os ?...

I thought about freepascal before but stuck with the video library which I'm using to extracting frames - but maybe it's a good idea to google it again.
Happily final program working under newer Windows versions, only my Delphi not even trying to start what causing some limitation - can't use modern Windows dialog boxes etc, what is more annoying than a big problem.
Never seen this demo before, looks great. I'll look it closer, definitely - maybe can use some ideas or part of code[/size][size=78%].[/size]

zhulien · « **Reply #22 on:** 21:10, 22 April 20 »

Quote from: rolek on 23:31, 20 April 20

Very good question, never even thought about it.
The player works only on a real computer ( don't know if any emulator handling M4 card ).
I think you just developed new option in converter
Conversion at the moment is the only partially based on pixels' brightness, I'll add the possibility to set the target color scheme.

Although I cannot find an online copy, CPCOxygen wrote an article on Green Screen graphics that I had done which used 16 shades of green spread evenly across the 27 brightness levels - you end up with a very photo realistic (greenish) image - but if animated it likely will be the closest to tv-type (like a black and white tv but only green) animation. Your animation speed is fantastic and if you can use green scale it will look a lot better (on a green screen) and worst (on a colour screen).

What do you know... i found CPCOxygen yearbook here (http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=695693) and it is free if you want the PDF version. Unfortunately the yearbook doesn't have the specific article.

rolek · « **Reply #23 on:** 14:50, 04 May 20 »

If you want to watch the Cyberpunk or Beverly Hills trailer on real CPC (M4 Board required) you can download it from https://www.dolmainsoftware.com/downloads.php
I also sent my new (first) CPC game - MoveIt! - XeNoMoRPH has already written about it (thank you!) in a separate thread.

HAL 6128 · « **Reply #24 on:** 17:49, 04 May 20 »

Hi Rolek,
nice program and cool speed of the movies! Also the colors a very good converted for mode 0.
Is there any chance to have a look a the file format of the movies (the *.vvv?) to create a own one?

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Author Topic: M4 Player - Alpha [WIP] (Read 4686 times)