How do you guys keep track of high scores at your housecade?

Not sure how I missed this originally... I suppose I glossed right by it, but man... you did a great job on this. Love, love it.

SO this thread got me to thinking...which can be dangerous at times. I also needed a way to keep up with and display high scores....and being that Im a real geeky kind of guy this is what I came up with:



Sorry about the crappy audio, Im using my phone to make the recording.

I created this using nothing but open source and/or free software. Im running the client on the same PC that runs my home automation since it is always on anyway.

The digital signage software is called Xibo that I run off of one of the web servers I have running here (its actually a virtual box machine running on the same pc as the client). The client runs on either windows or linux and displays on a VGA screen or TV. All updates to the client are automatic...when you change the design, it gets pushed out to the client.

I used paint .net to create the background on the first sign and the graphics for the high score regions, and I used FreeStudio to convert the videos into SWF flash files. I also use KDenlive for video editing/creation, but I dont have anything in the sign from it yet.

The high scores on the left pane consists of 33 regions that pull transparent png images from a web server to fill in the game name, the score, and the name/initials of the current top score holder. To change any of them I simply drop a new image on the server and it gets pulled and updated automatically.

The flash videos playing on the upper right can be anything I want them to be I just chose a couple from youtube and threw them in there for filler. Each region has a timeline for how long to display each piece of content so I can play a video, then show a picture for 10 seconds, then play another video...or put another image up, or....whatever really.

The high scores text on the bottom right will be replaced with a graphic weather depiction since I did something different with the scores and then the ticker at the bottom that is currently displaying the weather from our weather station here at the house will eventually display current info such as new xbox/wii/play station games I've gotten, the latest DLC i've added to the consoles, someone's personal best high score, etc etc since I am moving the weather to the other region..

My home automation system pulls the data from the weather station software and an RSS feed is created by a vb script I wrote to create the RSS xml file that feeds the bottom ticker in real time.

Of course...all of this can be changed on a whim, or I can have several "signs" running on a schedule...just whatever.

I added a second sign in the schedule (also created using paint. net) just so you can see it change...it's supposed to be bright yellow but it washed out in the video, it looks pretty good here.

I went with a Coke theme since the screen will be mounted above my Coke machine.

Soooo...thats how I display my high scores as of today :) Hope you like it (and sorry for the wall of text here heheh)
 
That, sir, is pretty bad-ass..

Thanks. I use a program that generates image files that is used in conjunction with a freeware image viewer that autoloads when I load the laptop the TV is attached to.

The video is oversaturated of course ... the text is quite readable on the 42" Plasma TV (it's one of those odd TV's that aren't HDTV but are better than standard... I'm able to run 640x480 on it.)
 
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I'm just using a "white board" with dry-erase markers. I have a "Marlboro" scrolling sign, but at least one of the memory chips has gone bad... it won't hold a full text message anymore. Some of it gets garbled... I honestly have no idea how to find the bad chip(s) and replace them.

http://www.facebook.com/Iggy81206/videos/vb.781611095/10152140896901096/?type=2&theater

It holds the programmed message until it's turned off, then part of it corrupts:

http://www.facebook.com/Iggy81206/videos/vb.781611095/10152140810311096/?type=2&theater

Anyone else have a sign like this? I got it from the liquor store I used to work at. They were taken down when the "you can't advertise smoking related stuff anymore" law went into effect.

I imagine a sign like that is worth good money, simply because they can't legally be made anymore. But I have no interest in parting with it.
 
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