u/humanlvl1

Hello. I've been really enjoying watching full, period accurate films on the TVs while I work around the shop and I thought some less tech inclined people might appreciate a quick guide on how to achieve this. I've typed most of this for someone else already so might as well post it, I guess. This method should work for other input video formats but I have not tested it.

https://preview.redd.it/waij0mdxjzeh1.png?width=1578&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f8d1401e4e904129a1b1d7e27b955159aa2a481

I've been using the ffmpeg CLI tool and it seems to work fine.
Step 1: If you don't have it open a terminal window (Windows key, type term, hit enter) and type in winget install ffmpeg.

Step 2: Go to the movie folder in Retro Rewind (.\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroRewind\RetroRewind\Content\Movies\VHS\Public) drop in your full film, rename RR_Channel_Public.mp4 to something different, then open another terminal or PowerShell in that folder (you can shift + rick click anywhere in the folder and select "Open PowerShell window here").

Step 3: Conversion time. The command I use to convert films to a format the game accepts:

ffmpeg -i .\input.mp4 -vf "scale=514:514:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=514:514:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -af "volume=2.0" RR_Channel_Public.mp4

Note the input.mp4 arguement might have to be different. Also -af "volume=2.0" increases the volume of the output video by 200%: I found the films are too quite in game and this helps me hear them as I move away from the TV. Modify or remove that arguement to taste.

That's it. If you exit out to the main menu and load your save back the movies should work.

This method works in multiple directories underneath Content/Movies/VHS, but not every single one. Right now I have a working movie in Public, Police, and Scifi folders (the output filenames need to be different).

I've converted some films so I can watch them in game but it sucks that I can't pause whenever it's a good bit but I have to do something around the store.

Just a taste. Normally I wouldn't ask but I've had a bad week and I just need a bit of Cairn right now. I'll pay you back, I promise. No? Is there more content in the game I missed? Maybe some other climbing game? Just a little bit to even me out and I'll be good.

As you can see I'm all th

https://preview.redd.it/viij7tgw40eh1.png?width=2940&format=png&auto=webp&s=c11d06c92f6033094c2ae5f81065ab0fb442f44a

This is probably a stale subject and I don't think I'm about to say anything that hasn't been said hundreads of times already but I have time to burn and I feel like ranting...

I am very thankful whenever people do actual science on FM but it's ridiculous that we have to do it as a community. Sometimes I wonder how deliberately SI design the game to keep mechanics obscured in order to make them believe the game is more complex than it is and to encourage a sort of gambler's hook. In my first few hundread hours I remember feeling compelled to do tea leaf readings when playing this game. It's obvious that one of the core design principles is to make the player immersed in a role of a manager but hiding the way the game works in order to feign complexity feels cheap and prevents healthy discussion from taking place. It stops us from creating wikis, reporting bugs, and coming up with creative improvements to the game that a competent studio should then consider taking on board. It shouldn't have taken this long to find out that training is broken. It shouldn't take literal years for SI to find out that fatigue is broken in international management*. We should already have a better idea of what makes players pop off when talking to them about their issues. It feels like a rigged game of minesweeper to even the most experienced players.

It's a poor design choice especially when highly complex games (like Rim World or Paradox grand strategies) are showing how much can be gained by committing to transparency with mechanics and taking tooltips, logs, and wikis seriously. However complex or simple FM is, it's okay. We'll still play it even if training is basic and shouts are fake. I don't know why anyone would think making the game appear artificially complex and allowing players to feel duped after investing hundreads of hours is beneficial to anyone. New players are already overwhelmed by the game. You're just alienating your core community and making us feel genuinely disrespected.

I say this while yet again dreaming of a better studio developing FM but also remembering that things could be so much worse. Just a moment to be thankful of the good job SI is doing from keeping the game EA'fied, even if they are far from perfect. Also thank you to the modders and testers that are sharing their work with us. Hopefully FM's Unity era will be as amazing as we hope.

*this one blows my mind. This is a bug reproducible in 100% of international games (after the first one) that has a dramatic impact on visible player fatigue. Players would have 3-4 day breaks and show up absolutely exhausted to the next game. SI didn't know this was a bug for years until Zealand had a conversation with one of the senior devs and this just came up as side point.

Castellano used Tatis' bat to tie the game in the 9th vs Cardinals.