Awesome will try that

EDIT - I see the write to card option in smartdmd but it won't allow me to select my file from the browser. I noticed it's looking for an image and went ahead and downloaded the win software but I thought I could just select the SD card file that I'm working off of in PB but no dice. Right now I'm flashing the SD file via the stern software so an image is created and then I'll read it off of the card through PB and then write through PB or the win32 software.

Little strange it can't done directly but I'll see if this works. If there is a better way to use the internal write to SD function of PB, lmk

EDIT 2 - so that didn't work. the firmware I'm working off of in PB is the SD card file from Stern (JP2). I've made the edits in PB now i need to burn the file but with internal PB software. It's looking for an Image file though - how would I burn this?

EDIT 3 - success. Need to use win32 software to burn and when selecting file, pick all files and select the custom firmware file I made. Write to SD - success.

Thanks!

Hello
I just took pinball browser with a license and I would like to know how to export all the sounds then the videos at the same time without doing it one by one. I also have an error message for the videos is this normal?

erreur (resized).PNG

I've never had any issues with Etcher.

I've actually had multiple issues with Etcher and have only started using it in the past month but have flashed a number of different SDs within that time. Mostly success but sometimes not. These are the issues I've faced and what I've done to overcome them. All of these descriptions are based on flashing a .raw Stern code (customized or not). I am using an external SD card USB reader BTW which could be compounding my problems. Or much of this could be faulty SDs but all of the ones I'm using are brand new. I do think overall there is a reliability issue with the Etcher software:
Reader I'm using: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ARAH6O0/
SD cards I'm using: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0143RTB1E/

In any case, I hope this helps anyone facing similar issues:

1. Open etcher, select .raw file, then going to choose the drive/SD to flash to.
Issue: Drive/SD isn't an option (even though it is mounted and readable by my PC)
Solution: Remove SD and/or reader and plug back in or sometimes a full PC restart resolves.

2. Open etcher, select .raw file, choose the drive/SD to flash to, click Start.
Issue: Immediate "unknown error"
Solution: Restart PC and try again (no clue why this resolves the issue, possibly some cached memory problem that Etcher introduced during the previous flash)

3. Open etcher, select .raw file, choose the drive/SD to flash to, click Start, click yes for the resulting Allow prompt
Issue: Ether flashing progress starts as expected but nearing the end it displays an unknown error.
Solution: Re-format the SD and try again.

4. Etcher reports its successfully flashed with verification success. Load the flashed SD into my pin (Stern JP2) and boot up
Issue: JP2 just hangs, black screen on the DMD. All red lights on the board behind the backglass lit, nothing "blinking"
Solution: Re-format the SD and try again.

Hmmmm... If you’re at work shouldn’t you be...... working?

Hi @oga83. First let me say I love your software, I'm having so much fun with it.
I want to report a bug:
If I do video imports with no conversion, the macro thinks I'm doing them with conversion. This is for stern spike software for your reference. I am on pinball browser version 7.56.
Let me know if you would like any other details, and thank you so much for your hard work!

Thank you for responding back.
I noted that the macro has it set to '1' for the RawFlag, so it seems to be written correctly there.
The only reason I believe it is converting, is that I can hear my CPU fan ramp up and it takes a much longer time to run the macro than to import (without converting) by hand. I can send you an example file by PM? Thank you again for looking into this.

Ok, so you recommended normal video imports.
I have a few questions:
1. Is there any indication when the conversion fails?
2. What are the limitations when replacing a video? Right now, I am using the same frame count, and targeting a smaller file size than the original video. Is that necessary? Or does the import conversion take care of that?
3. I'm on a Stern spike machine. Sometimes after flashing to an SD card (using Balena Etcher) and inserting into the machine I will be stuck in a "boot-loop" where it will start booting up and restart itself automatically before fully loading and it will never fully load. Does this indicate anything specific I have done wrong while preparing the SD card image?
4. Is Balena Etcher the preferred way of flashing to the SD card? I couldn't find a way to write a .raw file to the SD card in Pinball Browser.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much! This is extremely helpful

One note on the Write to Disk Image function. I thought originally that I could not write .raw files using this, but that is only because the drop down does not filter for all image types. If I type in the file and path by hand, it will successfully write to the SD card.

write_SD (resized).png

Hi,
is there a way to use more than 1 palette within a .bin file with pinballbrowser and pin2dmd?
In my case its is for transformers pro (stern SAM system).

When I use more than one color palette (for example one color palette for movie animation and a different for a comic animation) the system will always use the default one

I found no answer to this question.

regards
Marco

Etcher is a cross-platform utility. You didn't mention which OS you are using. I'm using Etcher on the macOS. No issues with that tool.

it sounds like you need to use the GPIO side channel option. however, I will tell you that I looked at all of the stern games at one time and really, only a few titles had enough extra, free ram available (those with licensed music) to do any justice to any of those games (due to the fact that stern included double the ram chips on those titles).
memory (resized).png

I remember that I ran out of memory for X-Men simply by coloring the magneto multi-ball sequence here's some of what I remember doing
magneto (resized).jpg
phoenix (resized).jpg
storm (resized).jpg

Windows 10. Most of the time no issues but I am using it a lot, and with different but the same type of SD cards and would say there's some kind of 1/5 failure rate at least. I'm thinking of using a different utility/app moving forward.

I was having a lot of issues with etcher as well - it was creating failed flashes about 1/4 for me. Now I exclusively use the flashing built into pinball browser and I don't have any problems. You can actually flash .raw files from it, just type in the absolute file path. Once the flash is done, eject the drive on the my computer screen and you are good to go.

Sounds like there may have been some issues with the Windows build, but Etcher is updated quite often. I'm sure it will be fixed. You could help by submitting bug reports.

Burning from Pinball Browser is not possible for me, because I use a Mac and have to go to virtualization to use Pinball Browser Unfortunately, the internal SD card reader is not on the USB bus, so can't be transferred into the VM like a Jump Drive or other USB device. I do my editing in the VM, then copy the image back to the host (Mac) and burn with Etcher. No issues with this process if someone reading this is also on a Mac.

just tested the compare firmware function for tmnt 1.21. Just works great.
It searched the new ones, changed the others and with an upload everything is again ready to go.

thanks that function makes it so easy

HDD Raw Copy has worked 100% for imaging SD cards. I use the portable build that doesn't need to be installed.

www.hddguru.com

PIN2DMD does not support GPIO sidechannel, but serial sidechannel. You can use the pin2dmd editor to overcome
the memory limit by coloring the non dynamic scenes there and the scenes with dynamic content like score etc in pinball browser.

so I'm updating JP code with videos and I'm not receiving any errors when doing it but when I go to put the raw file on SD card, in burns fine (tried win32 and sterns recommended software) yet upon boot up it shows me game code start then insert usb for code on the machine. Any ideas why this is happening?

using 7.56

EDIT - I had to start over. Also video clips need to really match the time if not shorter than originals otherwise it will get corrupted. Huge pain in the ass but thank god for this software! It's truly remarkable!

Similar to what delt31 said, I ran into a few issues immediately upon implementing a single video change in JP 1.02 (using PB 7.56). The file I was importing was an H.264 .mp4 converted from a .mov file. All I did was add some overlay text/graphics to the existing video that I had exported from PB to edit, then bounced that version of the video to a new .mp4.

Issue 1: Video did not seem to import when testing on my JP pin. The stock video was still playing.

Cause: In the Videos tab I located the video I wanted to replace. There were two nearly identical locations JawsIntroToIsland_Title and JawsIntroToIsland_Title_NoText. The issue is that PB wasn't actually honoring the video location I was at. I would type in and let PB autofill the location name and hit enter. While it appeared I was at that video location (which are 0x60 and 0x61), it kept showing that I was at location 0x0. So when I was importing manually I was unknowingly importing my video to the 0x0 location over and over again.

Solution: Start over with a fresh code version. Then I kept having to quit and restart PB to make sure that when I hit enter, I was actually looking at and importing to the right location. I can consistently reproduce this. Here's a screenshot. Note that it shows 0x0 when it should be showing 0x60. Trying to select another location from the dropdown list also results in me staying at 0x0 BTW.

2020-08-30_11-22-49 (resized).png

Issue 2: Videos tab > Import Video option appears to be broken. Any time I use that option to import a video file I get a nasty null reference exception (sorry I don't have a screenshot of that as reproing it corrupts the firmware file = Issue 3).

Solution: Only use the Import file (no conversion) option instead. However, this also resulted in an error if I tried to import the same .mp4 file to the other location JawsIntroToIsland_Title_NoText after I had just imported it without error to JawsIntroToIsland_Title.

Issue 3: Upon any given, seemingly successful flash of the new firmware the pin wouldn't load up. Instead it would show the JP logo, then say "game restarting..." over and over in a loop.

Cause: Not entirely sure. I feel like each time this happened was after I got some kind of Issue 2 error in PB which was corrupting the firmware.

Solution: Start over and try again. If you don't get any errors upon importing video files the resulting firmware should load up correctly.

Perhaps, overall the safer bet is to use macros instead of manual UI importing for videos? Not trying to knock this feature whatsoever, it's amazing. Just wanted to provide some input for possible bug fixes and to help others running into the same.

how would I go about viewing UI icon/image type stuff? For example, the pizza toppings in TMNT or the power feature icons in Iron Maiden?

I would have thought the display tab but all that I see there adjustments menu type stuff.

Go to the scenes tab and expand a scene until you see "all members" then find the image files.

Ahh I see. I haven't paid for a license yet. I wanted to make sure I could actually use it for something before paying the fee. But I believe the scenes are locked behind the license... decisions, decisions...

$20 is one of the cheapest prices I've paid for a Pinball related purchase. And this one is one of the most powerful. If anything, just consider it a tip to the developer for providing a wonderful tool to the community.

Agreed. Even if you only use it once, it's well worth the price.

oga83 How can this feature be used for .RAW files? It only allows selecting a .IMG file.

You can manually type in the absolute path and file name to burn a raw image.
I reported that bug recently and oga83 is going to fix it in a future release.

Thanks daveyvandy But when I paste in the full file path then hit Write to SD I get this. Is this b/c I have already opened that same file in PB? I just tried the same but without opening the .RAW file first. It's writing now. Unfortunately the only reason I'm doing the PB write to SD method vs Balena vs Win32DiskImager is b/c no matter what, the resulting SD in the machine does that restarting game loop/never loads up, it gives me the "restarting game" loop over and over. All I've done is taken a working .RAW, add a single .mp4 video, no errors in the import process. I'm used to seeing a video file upload error during a given PB video import to let me know that the code is borked.

NOPE No dice with this PB write to SD method. Still getting that damn "restarting game" loop. I don't know what could possibly be going wrong here. I've tried everything. oga83 Can you please help?

2020-08-31_17-37-08 (resized).png

You have to close the image first by pressing the drop down next to the folder icon in the top of pinball browser and pressing close firmware. Then write it. After it is written, make sure you eject it from your computer by right clicking the drive and pressing eject.
I had tons of similar problems using Etcher to write to SD. And using this method with Pinball browser does not give me any reboot loops anymore.
I will say, there are rare cases where importing a video will cause boot loops even with this method. Just try writing the original raw image first and use this method, then try rewriting it with your change.

Well, I tried to donate but got this error.

pasted_image (resized).png

unless you implemented a new mask I'm not aware of this is not possible,

I'm pretty much done making keyframes for my 3rd and 4th Sam color project and I counted 3 scenes you can color in Tron with the PIN2DMD editor.
-AttractMode Stern Logo
-Ball Save
-First Frame of Info

take a look at the videos, the majority of scenes in SAM roms have the players scores in the left side of the screen. Unless you implement a new mask that
lets you do a color mask on the left side (players scores) and a replacement mask for everything right of the players scores, coloring frames in the PIN2DMD will not be possible.

and on a side note is their any documentation explaining what the limitations and features are for what can be done with the image import feature.

the team logos on NBA look like crap and I like to import vectored images
do they have to be black and white
can they be colored --> will the colors be show in the proejct or will I have to make a a pallet and color everything.

edit never mind, just saw what can be done with the image import features on th first post

but I know remembered of an feature I like to see added

can the
color selected
tool selected
not reset when you hit the "save and edit next image"

Agreed. This is the most likely reason people are having issues with Etcher on Windows.

Since I have to copy the image file out of the Windows VM and onto the host Mac to flash, I would never encounter this problem.

oga83 This video import issue is driving me insane. Can you please help?

Steps I take:

1. Open fresh version of a working, previously edited firmware .RAW
2. Upon no bookmarks available, check online prompts and I choose NO
3. Go to Scenes > Select "Search and bookmark videos"
4. Go to Videos > locate and confirm the Video location of the video I want to replace
5. Import a new version of that same video .mp4, same length (and even same filename as a test but either way new or old filename fails)
6. Select "Import video..."
RESULT: This error:
2020-09-01_10-57-11 (resized).png

Try again starting over with a new copy of a working .RAW and go through steps 1-5
6. Try Import file (no conversion...) instead
RESULT: This error:
2020-09-01_15-26-28 (resized).png

NOTE: I have also re-downloaded all the ffmpeg .exe's and put them into the main PB 7.56 folder. I still cannot play videos within PB from the Videos tab either. I click the Play button and nothing happens. Also when PB prompts you to download ffmpeg it takes you to a link that downloads some kind of .tar file, not an archive of the actual .exe's PB expects...

What could be going on here? Appreciate anyone's help.

Maybe try running pinball browser in administrator mode? Just throwing out a guess.

at the moment i don't have the licensed version of Pinball Browser in front of me. But i can play videos 0x0 and 0x1 without Problem. Can you play this videos and replace them?
for ffmpeg i used this version: https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/
my guess is that if you have problems playing Files the ffmpeg version is not right. Without working ffmpeg you will not be able to replace the files

when i have a licensed version in front of me i will try to replace videos and test if it works.

Thanks oga83 . I just tried your exact steps, fresh ffmpeg, PB 7.56, and JP 1.02 downloads and have the same results. No ability to play videos, same errors / exceptions upon import. Is there any action I need to take against those ffmpeg exe's besides simply copying them into the PB root folder? Does this point to an issue with my PC in general? I don't have another PC I can try this on. I've never had any issues like this with audio.

sounds very bad. I tried to play it through and on my pc it worked. Downloaded jp 1.02 LE and replaced video. Playing and replacing worked.
What os are you using? Windows 10?
where is the pb 7.56 folder located in downloads? or have you moved it somewhere else?
where is the jp 1.02 folder located, local disk?
maybe some information on this can help to figure out why it is not working.

Both paths lead to an immediate error. And no I have never been able to play videos from any version of PB. :/

What os are you using? Windows 10?
YES, Windows 10.

where is the pb 7.56 folder located in downloads? or have you moved it somewhere else?

It's in C:\Users\[My Name]\Documents\JP Sound Replacement (MOVED 4-18x03-19-20)\PinballBrowser756\ - I have wondered if the location or my weird folder name is the issue. I tried moving \PinballBrowser756 and a sample video file .mp4 to my Desktop root folder but that didn't change anything.

where is the jp 1.02 folder located, local disk?

C:\Users\[My Name]\Documents\JP Sound Replacement (MOVED 4-18x03-19-20)\jurassic_park_le-1_02_0.Release.8G.sdcard.raw\

What folder should PB be located in general? Willing to try just about anything at this point. Thank you both again!