CEVidium - Video Conversion and On-Calculator Playback Project

Warning:

• This only works on the TI-84+ CE.
• This will not work on the TI-84+ CSE.
• This will not work on any TI-84+ (SE)

NOTE

July 21, 2025: Ok. Encoder parity has been reached, as best as I can tell. At least for the capabilities called for in toolkit2.py. Thing is, the adaptive palette selection algorithm just isn't meant for video objects. Never was. That's the focus of the work going forward. Also, UI now wants more libraries, even though they don't use them yet. Reread the dependencies section if needed.

Motivation

I wanted to see Bad Apple play on my TI-84 CE. Then I wanted to see more cool stuff.

The Video Converter

Depending on use, you need to install a bunch of other things before you can get on with it. Download and install FFmpeg. You'll also need to install Python, the version of which depends on which tool you'll be using. You are encouraged to use the UI version. I am no longer supporting the CLI version, and neither does PyPI, so you're on your own wrt use and package installation.

Converter Dependencies

• Python 2.7.x, if using the command-line tool (BUILD2.bat)
  • ffmpy
  • pillow
• Python 3.10, if using the GUI (main.py)
  • pillow
  • ffmpeg
  • numpy
  • tktooltip
  • tkinterdnd2
  • scikit-learn
  • scikit-image

Using the Converter

• If using the command-line tool (BUILD2.bat)

  1. Copy your .MP4 or other video file to the CEVENCODER folder.

  2. Rename that video to a name that contains 8 or less characters.

  3. Open a command prompt in the CEVENCODER folder.

  4. Type into the cmd prompt: BUILD2.BAT -h

  5. Read the options, then retype the above line without the '-h' flag and with the flags that you want. For example, if your input video is MYVID.mp4 and you wanted to use the 96-by-X 4 level grayscale encoding with dithering:

     • BUILD2.BAT -i MYVID.mp4 -e M1G4 -d

     Available encoding formats used with the -e switch:

     • M1B1 - 96*N x3 scaling, 1bpp color (black/white)
     • M1G2 - 96*N x3 scaling, 2bpp color (black/white/lgray/dgray)
     • M1G4 - 96*N x3 scaling, 4bpp color (black/white/ 14 grays)
     • M1C4 - 96*N x3 scaling, 4bpp color (4 shades, 6 primaries, 6 secondaries)
     • M1A4 - 96*N x3 scaling, 4bpp color (15 color adaptive palette)
     • M2B1 - 144*N x2 scaling, 1bpp color (black/white)
     • M2G2 - 144*N x2 scaling, 2bpp color (black/white/lgray/dgray)
     • M2G4 - 144*N x2 scaling, 4bpp color (black/white/ 14 grays)
     • M2C4 - 144*N x2 scaling, 4bpp color (4 shades, 6 primaries, 6 secondaries)
     • M2A4 - 144*N x2 scaling, 4bpp color (15 color adaptive palette)

     Note that some of the information produced by its usage text is incorrect and will not be fixed anytime soon. If any information above contradicts the utility, assume that the text in this readme is correct.

  6. If everything worked, copy the contents of CEVENCODER/bin to your calculator.

• If using the GUI (main.py)
  1. Open a command prompt in the CEVENCODER folder.
  2. Type python3 main.py
  3. Use the Import button to select the file using the GUI, or drag & drop the video file into the window.
  4. Take a good, hard look at the UI, then push a bunch of buttons until something happens.

Using the Video Player

The video player consists of two parts, you must build both of them and then send them to the calculator.

Building the project

• The main player software in CEVPLAY
  • Install The CE Toolchain if you haven't already. The version that is known to work with this part of the project is 12.1.
  • Open a command line in the CEVPLAY folder.
  • Run make.
  • Find CEVIDIUM.8xp in the CEVPLAY/bin folder, then send it to your calculator.
• The decoders that the player uses in CEVDECODER
  • Open a command line in the CEVDECODER folder.
  • Run build.bat.
  • Find DECODEM1.8xv and DECODEM2.8xv in the CEVDECODER/bin folder, then send them to your calculator. Archiving these files is recommended.

Running the player

prgmCEVIDIUM is an assembly program. TI has made it increasingly difficult to run these types of programs. You can try these steps:

• Run the program from the homescreen as an Asm( program. Find the Asm( token from catalog by pressing 2nd, then 0, then pushing the down button until you select it. Press Enter to copy it to the homescreen, then proceed to put in the program as normal. The homescreen should read Asm(prgmCEVIDIUM when you are done. Press Enter to start.
• If you can't find Asm( in the catalog, it may be because your OS version is too high. In later versions of the OS, Texas Instruments removed that command to prevent people from easily running assembly programs, so you'll need a jailbreak such as arTIfiCE. The instructions may both vary and change without warning, so I cannot copy them here.
• Some of the newest calculators may have had their exploits patched over such that no available jailbreak works. In that case, head on over to Cemetech to find out or ask for a working jailbreak.
• If the program runs but immediately quits, it's because you don't have any videos that CEVidium can recognize. Send some to the calculator! Here's a wonderful example containing a dumpster fire

Copyrights and Licenses

• The ZX7 (de)compression code and executable was created by Einar Saukas. See CEVENCODER/tools/ZX7_LICENSE for details.
• SPASM-ng (e)z80 assembler was created by a bunch of people. See CEVDECODER/tools/SPASM_LICENSE for details.
• The CEVidium CLI encoder, CEVidium player, and the decoders were crafted by me. See LICENSE for details.
• The CEVidium GUI encoder was programmed by me using AI-assistance. See CONFESSIONS.md for details. Not sure how to license it.

Acknowledgements

• Merged fix for counting logic, by github user ctrefethen
• Those fixes for the original version of the encoder, by commandblockguy, whose pull requests I mismanaged because I didn't know what I was doing. (sorry!)

Controlling the Video Player

Controls on video selection:

Keys	Function
[Mode]	Quit CEVidium
[2nd]	Start video
arrow keys	Show next video

Controls during playback:

Keys	Function
[Mode]	Retrun to video selection
[2nd]	(Un)pause the video
[Left]	Rewind video by one segment
[Right]	Fast forward video by one segment

Version History (Player)

• 0.00 - Initial commit
• 0.01 - Updated the documentation to make what's available actually useable
• 0.02 - Updated docs again, figuring out merge stuff to include others' improvements.
• 0.03 - Fixed a bug that prevented 4:3 video playback with the M1X2-ZX7 decoder. Also changed UI spacing in the media player for readability and made it easier to make other changes like that in the future.
• 0.04 - Label change to verify that CEVidium built with the new toolchain.

Known Issues

• Deprecated the original encoder toolkit without prior notice but still have references for it for debugging purposes. You should be using BUILD2.bat
• If you choose to modify the build to use the old codecs, encoder 4 (DECODR03) is known to crash.
• You really cannot use Python 3 for this. Everything is broken and I'm trying to fix it. By burning it all to the ground. And then burning the ashes just to make sure.
• The shiny new GUI encoder doesn't support adaptive encoding. That's on the TODO list.
• The shiny new GUI encoder also sometimes mysteriously screws up. I ran into a problem importing a video. I "solved" it by closing the app and trying to do the same thing again. Intermittent problems, yeh?
• The rewind feature in the decoders aren't known to work properly. Getting that to work properly is encoder-dependant and involves starting each encoded segment with a keyframe. I... uh. Probably should make that an option.