Video Playback Guide

Video playback in LaunchBox and Big Box is a Premium feature. If you haven’t already upgraded, check out our Premium page to unlock videos and many more advanced features.

📂 Adding Videos to Your Games

You can add gameplay videos to your games in a few different ways:

1. Manually

   • Edit a game in LaunchBox.

   • Go to the Videos section.

   • Assign your own video file from your computer.

2. Using an EmuMovies Account

   • If you have a paid EmuMovies subscription, you can automatically download videos.

   • Edit a game, click Download Media, then open the EmuMovies tab.

   • Videos downloaded this way will automatically link to the game.

   • This also works in bulk:

     • During import, you can fetch videos for all your new games.

     • Already imported? Select multiple games, then → Tools > Download > Update Metadata and Media for Selected Games.
       

       

🖼️ Watching Videos in the Game Details Pane

In LaunchBox, videos appear in the media carousel inside the Game Details pane.

• If your videos aren’t showing, go to Options > Visuals > Game Details and enable Show Videos.

• You can play videos full screen by:

  • Clicking the full-screen button

  • Double-clicking the video

  • Pressing Enter on your keyboard

To exit full screen:

• Press Escape on keyboard

• Press Back on controller

• Or click anywhere on the video

⚙️ Auto-Play Settings

You can control how videos play inside LaunchBox:

• Go to View > Media and toggle Auto-Play Videos.

• Enabled: The video will automatically play when you select a game.

• Disabled: The video will appear in the carousel but won’t play until you click it.

🖥️ Video Playback Engines

LaunchBox and Big Box both allow you to choose between two different video playback engines. You can configure each app separately:

• LaunchBox: Tools > Options > General > Video Playback

• Big Box: System Menu > Options > Videos > Video Playback Engine

Both default to Windows Media Player.

▶️ Windows Media Player (WMP)

Pros

• Lightweight and fast — fully integrated into Windows and .NET/WPF.

• Uses Windows’ native media control, often more optimized.

Cons

• Color Accuracy Issues: Some users see washed-out or inaccurate colors. This is caused by GPU driver settings limiting WMP’s color range. Users can fix this via their graphics control panel.

• Secondary Monitor Glitches: On secondary displays, videos may appear dark/black at first, then pop in with artifacting. This happens because WMP relies on hardware overlays, which are only reliably supported on the primary monitor. It’s a long-standing limitation of WMP and graphics drivers that cannot be fixed from our end.

▶️ FFmpeg via FFME .NET Wrapper (FFME)

Pros

• Plug-and-play — comes with robust codecs out of the box.

• Reliable playback on any monitor (no black-screen or artifacting issues).

Cons

• Heavier on system resources. Scrolling quickly through games can feel laggy.

• Videos in Big Box may take slightly longer to load, sometimes appearing after the transition starts.

• On slower CPUs, switching between videos can cause brief audio stutter if the UI thread is overloaded.

📝 Summary

Recommendation

• Use WMP if you value lightweight performance and are running on a single primary monitor.

• Use FFME if you want better codec support, multi-monitor reliability, and plug-and-play convenience, and you have the computer power to back it up.