Not accepting .webm or .mp4 for custom animated wallpaper anymore?

A Former User

Had a moving, looping Blade Runner 2049 wallpaper that suddenly got deleted out of nowhere today. "No problem, I'll upload it." Only .webp and .svg appear as possible file extensions. First time it asks for either of those, and I know for a fact .webm were accepted. Converted both .webm and .mp4 files I have to .webp, uploaded it, and both looks less quality than before. Any info on what happened, and I know this isn't the place, but any ways to create a high quality .webp file?

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@lukeatreides You are talking about adding a own theme to Opera itself or it's about uploading a theme to the add-ons store?

A Former User @leocg

@leocg Adding the wallpaper (not sure if it counts as a theme?) to Opera itself.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@lukeatreides Did you try just renaming the file extension?

A Former User @leocg

@leocg I did, but it doesn't make it look as crisp/high quality as when it accepted .webm files.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

Can you test in Opera Developer to see if it works there just to make sure it's not already fixed?

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

See this fix that Opera made to Chromium: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1753824. The fix is in Opera Developer. See "DNA-79359 Static background when selecting animated theme" in https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/changelog-for-65/#b3425.0.

A Former User @burnout426

@burnout426 Just checked in OperaDev, only accepted file formats that show up are .jpg/.jpeg, .png, .svg and .webp.

A Former User @burnout426

@burnout426 said in Not accepting .webm or .mp4 for custom animated wallpaper anymore?:

Static background when selecting animated theme

That's not what I mean though, animated themes still show as animated, but it used to accept .webm and it doesn't anymore

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @Guest

@lukeatreides Understood. It was an assumption on my part that the fix fixed that too. Noted in that bug.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

Goto https://addons.opera.com/en/wallpapers/details/windows-10-animated/, right-click on "add to Opera" and chose "save linked content as" and save it to your desktop. Then, change the file's extension from .avzip to .zip. Then, extract that zip file. In it, you'll see a webm file, 1.jpg file and a first_frame_start_page.jpeg file. You'll also see a persona.ini file that tells Opera what do and with what filenames.

You need to set things up like that and zip the files up (not the folder they're in, but the files themselves). Then, when you add a wallpaper, just just the open filter type at the bottom to zip and point it to the zip file. The the animation will work. Test myself.

For webp files in the zip file, Opera only supports those as static images. Use webm for animations.

A Former User @burnout426

@burnout426 ~~Not sure what I did wrong. I understand "first_frame_start_page.jpg" is supposed to be the first frame of the .webm file, but what is "1.jpg" supposed to be?~~
Nevermind, it works, I'm just a dumbass. But I will say, this used to be easier, and me being semi-knowledgeable about computers sure helps, but users really shouldn't go through so many hoops to add our own animated wallpaper to Opera.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @Guest

@lukeatreides said in Not accepting .webm or .mp4 for custom animated wallpaper anymore?:

But I will say, this used to be easier

It looks like some Chromium API changes broke loading webm directly. No guarantees, but there's hope that direct webm loading will work again in the future. It's not a simple fix, so it might take a while. Again, no guarantees. Consider building the zip file with the webm and persona.ini in it to be the correct and official way of doing it now.

mryanmarkryan2

mryanmarkryan2

Dear Opera Dev,

Why does playing videos in the background have to be such rocket science? I have my own mp4 videos I would like to play.. converting them to webm didn't work and its a huge hassle. Can't it be easy to have this feature? This and speed dial are the two reasons I've used Opera since the 90's..

Thanks

Have you fscked your local propeller head today?

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @mryanmarkryan2

@mryanmarkryan2 The feature for adding webm files as wallpapers is broken due to some upgrading of code. Hopefully, that will come back. And, hopefully mp4 supported will be added too.

For now though, the huge hassle way is:

Here's how you can convert an mp4 video to a webm file and zip it up so you can add it as an animated wallpaper:

Goto https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/ and download ffmpeg to your desktop.

Extract the zip file to a folder and then rename the folder "ffmpeg".

Open a command prompt and run:

cd "%userprofile%\desktop\ffmpeg\bin"

Move the mp4 you want to convert to the ffmpeg bin directory and rename the mp4 to "video.mp4"

Then, run this command:

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -c:v libvpx -crf 30 -b:v 0 -an video.webm

Now you'll have the mp4 video as a webm video without audio as the file video.webm.

Then, run:

ffmpeg -i video.webm -vf "select=eq(n\,0)" -q:v 3 poster.jpg

Then, you'll have a pic of the first frame.

Then, create the following file in the bin folder (while filling in the info you want).

persona.ini:

[Info]
name=Name
author=
author url= 
version=2

[Start Page]
background=video.webm
position=center bottom
first frame image=poster.jpg

[Web UI Pages]
background=poster.jpg
position=center bottom

Then, zip up persona.ini, video.webm, and poster.jpg as background.zip. You can select the 3 files in Windows Explorer, right-click the selection, goto "Send to" and choose "Compressed (zipped) folder" to create the zip file if you want. Or, you can use a utility like 7-zip.

Then, in Opera, under Easy=setup, you just click "add wallpaper", switch to the directory background.zip is in, switch the filter drop-down to "Wallpaper archive" and open background.zip.

You can search Google for ffmpeg how-tos etc. if you need to do something more specific with the conversion.

Now, if you want to convert a webm file to an animated zip file an easier way than the above, you can have Opera 58 do it for you.

Download Opera 58, launch the installer, click "options", set "install path" to a folder named "Opera VBG" on your desktop, set "install for" to "standalone installation", uncheck "import data from default browser" and install.

In that Opera, add your webm file as a wallpaper and it'll be accepted as you'd expect. Then, close that Opera. Then, in the "Opera VBG\profile\data\themes" folder, you'll have a zip file for the video background that contains the proper stuff. You can then add that zip file as a background in newer versions of Opera and it'll work. It just won't have a poster in it. But, that's usually not a big deal. You could unzip it, add a poster and zip it back up though if you wanted to.

A Former User

Re: Not accepting .webm or .mp4 for custom animated wallpaper anymore?

Here is a workaround for making your own animated wallpaper.

Go to https://addons.opera.com/da/wallpapers/details/rain-in-gta-v/. right-click on "add to Opera" and chose "save linked content as".
Convert the background folder your've downloadet from .avzip to .zip
Delete video.webm inside the zip folder
Rename your own .webm video to video.webm and put it in the background zip folder
Go to your /Opera folder and find a folder named 65.0.3467.78 or something like it (If you have more than one then take the newest).
Go to inside the 65.0.3467.78 folder then go to resources\standard_themes
Put your backgroud zip folder in this folder
If you have opera open then close it and reopen it. The background should then be visable under all backgrounds.