Update on my cabinet video/media project

[cerebusk]

For about the last 14 months, I've been working on a project to fill in some media gaps for VPX tables.  As of my most recent upload, I've now created 501 media files, so I thought I'd post an update about how the project is going.

 

Brief background:  I'm a PinUp user and my goal is to get basic media in place for all "historical" VPX tables on my cabinet.  What does this mean?  Basically, I am trying to get a Backglass video, a PlayField video, a Real DMD video and a Loading video for every real table recreation that I can.  The Backglass and PlayField videos are easy because you can record them yourself using PinUp's built-in tools.  A lot of Real DMD videos and Loading videos are available either here or through PinUp's media download functions, but I discovered pretty quickly that as you go back in time there were fewer and fewer available, especially for EM tables and early SS tables.

 

So I started making videos for tables that didn't have something available already.  First, I made videos for my favorite tables.  Then I moved on to using a few of the top 100 lists from Pinside to guide me.  More recently, I've just started working through the remaining tables year-by-year.  I started that phase with 1969 and have just started working on 1977, although a couple of recent new releases mean that there are a few holes now in 1975.  I'll fill those in eventually, unless somebody beats me to it.

 

Here's what I have made so far:

• 362 Loading videos plus a few variants where I tried more than one approach to the video and released both versions.
• 137 Real DMD videos that match the standard type of rotating through the game name, the manufacturer, and the release year.
• 2 Animated Wheel icons.  Honestly, I stopped at 2 because the workflow for making animated wheels is complex and I find that the results are not worth it.  The files are huge because it turns out that APNG is not a very efficient video format.

 

As of the beginning of August 2023, the media files I've made have been downloaded a bit more than 28,000 times in total.  That's not bad, but it's also not very much when you consider that the most popular table on this site has been downloaded more than 25,000 times alone.  It make sense though, because the number of people interested in a loading video for a 1973 EM table is always going to be a tiny fraction of the number of people who just want to play a new, cool, and well made pinball table!

 

So where are we on total progress?  I maintain a spreadsheet that matches up the tables shown as available on the Virtual Pinball Spreadsheet site with the media assets that are installed on my cabinet.  I use a cutoff date of 2016 because the majority of tables that are released after that date are Originals, which I don't personally track as closely, mainly because the availability of media for those tables tends to be good without my help.  I try to stay focused on legacy tables -- new releases usually get enough attention that someone will make media for them.

 

As of today, here is what my spreadsheet shows:

 

• 368 tables released in 2016 or earlier are missing loading videos.
• 223 tables are missing Real DMD videos.
• 39 are missing wheel icons.  (This number may not be completely accurate, but I do check to make sure there is a wheel icon when I make a video, so there might be a few that I will eventually fill in here.)

 

Based on this, I'm not quite halfway done.  The good news (for me anyway) is that I'm not the only one who is making videos, so it's possible that I'm closer than I think.  My current plan is to finish up the 1970's (82 loading videos, 29 DMD videos), then work backwards from 1969 to 1931 (89 loading, 39 DMD), then start with the 1980s (149 loading, 78 DMD).  At my current rate, this will take me another 14 months.

 

 

[bobinis]

Thank you for the work you are doing...I definitely have benefited... I know what a pain it can be as I've made a few very generic Dmd videos using online tools.  I'm not very fluent in gimp enough to properly cut out images and don't know how to build in motion etc into the video or what tools to use....but what little I have ventured in I know how valuable your efforts are.  

 

So Thank you!

 

[cerebusk]

21 hours ago, bobinis said:

Thank you for the work you are doing...I definitely have benefited... I know what a pain it can be as I've made a few very generic Dmd videos using online tools.  I'm not very fluent in gimp enough to properly cut out images and don't know how to build in motion etc into the video or what tools to use....but what little I have ventured in I know how valuable your efforts are.  

 

So Thank you!

 

I figure that I've put about 500 hours or so into developing the first 500 media elements, so by the rule that it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to become an expert, I should reach that level sometime in the 2040s.  Honestly, the most important thing I've done is picked fairly popular tools to work with and let the wisdom of the internet teach me how to use them.