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lientebollemeis
19th Apr 2011, 8:27 AM
First some important things:
1. The movie shouldn't be too long. (It's smaller (in MB) and takes less time to download)
2. YouTube is the best for short fun movies.
3. It should ALWAYS be AVI!
4. ALWAYS 128x128. Otherwise it will not look good on Sims TV.
5. ALWAYS 15 frames/seconde. It may be more, but then the file will be bigger.
6. You may remove or replace the files with extension .movie (default movies)
8. Channels came with Base Game, University, Seasons and Free Time.

Now the tutorial
First you decide which movie you want for which channel. I choose the trailer of the first Harry Potter movie for the channel Horrormovie Werewolf (came with Free Time) which I found on YouTube. I choose a trailer and not the whole movie as the movie should be short.

IMPORTANT: You have to watch the whole movie (trailer in this case) on YouTube first so it's fully loaded.

If you know which movie you want (YouTube or a file on your computer) go to this site: http://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-avi

http://thumbs.modthesims.info/getimage.php?file=1192869

This is what you need to fill in:
Bestand kiezen: Choose the file on your computer.
OF enter URL: Give the URL copied from YouTube
Change Size: 128x128 is ideal.
Change frame rate: 15 frames per second as it should be
Cut video: If the movie you chose is too long you can make it smaller by filling out the start- and endminute. The first 00 is hour. The second 00 are minutes and the third 00 are seconds.
Convert file: Check everything and then press Convert file.

Don't change anything else if you don't know what you're doing!

The longer the movie, the longer it will take to download.

Now you get this screen:

http://thumbs.modthesims.info/getimage.php?file=1192867

After a short while you get this screen:

http://thumbs.modthesims.info/getimage.php?file=1192868

You can fill out your e-mail and press Submit address.
If you do that, you may shut the window and even shut down your computer. You'll get an e-mail when the file is ready to download.
If you don't want to give your e-mail, you'll have to wait until the window Save As shows so you can save the file.

Where you need to place the file depends on which channel you chose (see overview at the bottom).

These are the possible paths:

Base Game: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Base\TSData\Res\Movies\Broadcast
University: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 University\TSData\Res\Movies\Broadcast
Seasons: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\Movies\Broadcast
Free Time: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Free Time\TSData\Res\Movies\Broadcast

Base Game: TvChildren
Base Game: TvFood
Base Game: TvSBN
Base Game: TvMusic
Base Game: Commercials
Base Game: TvWorkout

Univeristy: TvSports

EP Seasons: The Weather Forecast
- Winter: TV_Weather_Winter
- Summer: TV_Weather_Summer
- Spring: TV_Weather_Spring
- Autumn: TV_Weather_Fall

Free Time for all movies: Watch movie... Horor...
- TVMovie_Werewolf
-- Harry Potter 1 (trailer)
- TVMovie_BWCat

Action
- TVMovie_Weather
- TVMovie_Fetch

Childrenmovie...
- TVMovie_Fairies
- TV_FamilyFun

Comedy...
- Mime-kat: TVMovie_MimeCat
- Kip: TVMovie_Checkers

Drama...
- TVMovie_PoolTable
- TVMovie_BubbleBath

The principal is the same for having other movies for the different games. You'll just have to save the AVI-file in the folder Games instead of Broadcast.
I haven't tried this!

I'm not responsible for any crashes, explosions or whatever to your game and computer!

Original tutorial written by Lientebollemeis (me) is found here: http://bit.ly/qfOtn8
Grangerpup
24th Apr 2011, 10:28 PM
FYI-- You may want to change the path names from Deutsch to English, just to clear up any possible confusion. Great tut by the way.
lientebollemeis
24th Apr 2011, 10:34 PM
Good idea. I'll change the names. But I don't know whether it's still the right path as my game is installed in Dutch. That's why I put the English names of the EP's in front of the paths. So there couldn't be any confusion.
Nixxy245
29th May 2011, 2:04 PM
nice and easy tutorial! i sure will try it out,although i used to work on other way :)
lientebollemeis
29th May 2011, 6:58 PM
There are different ways to do this, but as you said this is a simplistic one. It seems that not a lot of people have troubles with it (none for now :) )
TaishoBee
13th Jun 2011, 8:31 AM
Can you place movies like this in the sims 2 folder that is inside your documents? I see a folder there with the same broadcasts and games folders GREAT tut by the way, thank youuuuu
lientebollemeis
13th Jun 2011, 10:09 AM
You can try, but it didn't work for me.
Just put it in the folder that is described in the tutorial and it will work fine.
TaishoBee
13th Jun 2011, 9:10 PM
I tried but it crashed my game?
lientebollemeis
13th Jun 2011, 9:28 PM
What exactly did you do? And what exactly happened?
I can't help you just with having the information "It crashes my game".
TaishoBee
14th Jun 2011, 9:18 AM
What exactly did you do? And what exactly happened?
I can't help you just with having the information "It crashes my game".

Sorry about that!

I went and converted a video like it says. I moved it to the base game area, Sims2/tsdata/res/movies/broadcast/

I tried it in TvChildren without replacing or delting any of the Maxis ones.

and I renamed my video to have the .movie at the end too.

Did I do this wrong? My video I'm trying to use is TAWOG Happy Place.avi

which I got from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au1b0y4evB8 I wanted the failure one but it's really bad quality, lol

Thanks so much for your help :)
lientebollemeis
14th Jun 2011, 2:37 PM
You don't need to rename the video to have the .movie at the end.
You convert it to .avi and put the .avi file in the corresponding folder. Then it should work.
TaishoBee
15th Jun 2011, 12:34 AM
You don't need to rename the video to have the .movie at the end.
You convert it to .avi and put the .avi file in the corresponding folder. Then it should work.

This is where it's installed:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y146/linuxkid76/Screenshot2011-06-14at53050PM.png



And the game crashes after the default robot show and then the commercial. I think it's when the game is trying to access my custom video. Do you have any idea why?
lientebollemeis
15th Jun 2011, 7:27 AM
No, I don't know why. What does the game exactly say when it crashes?
And you can try to play the game with only your custom video in the folder.
Does it only crashes when you put it in this TVfolder? Maybe you can try another channel and see what happens.
TaishoBee
17th Jun 2011, 5:54 AM
No, I don't know why. What does the game exactly say when it crashes?
And you can try to play the game with only your custom video in the folder.
Does it only crashes when you put it in this TVfolder? Maybe you can try another channel and see what happens.

It crashes to desktop, but I did save the long error that it wanted to send to Apple. I don't know if it would help at all? I uploaded the text file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/w9kwx40akmv5fd9/error-txt.txt


So far I have tried in TVChildren, TVMusic, and TVCooking. TVCooking it didn't show up, and the others the game is fine and then as soon as the game gets to my video, it freezes and crashes.

I'm still testing it, but I wanted to post what's happened so far.

Is there a better way to get an exact crash report for this?
lientebollemeis
17th Jun 2011, 6:29 AM
I don't know whether there is another way to easily get a crash report.
But you have an Apple as computer. Do you have the same problem with a Windows computer?
I only have Windows and I know some things just don't work on Apple. Maybe this is something like that too.
TaishoBee
19th Jun 2011, 10:03 PM
I don't know whether there is another way to easily get a crash report.
But you have an Apple as computer. Do you have the same problem with a Windows computer?
I only have Windows and I know some things just don't work on Apple. Maybe this is something like that too.

I don't have a Windows computer, but I hope it's not an Apple thing. :( I'm still trying, but no dice so far.
lientebollemeis
28th Jun 2011, 7:17 PM
Maybe you can try to put it in a folder of another expansion?
Bonita
15th Dec 2012, 10:56 PM
Help here, how can i make the videos i recorded from the game into tv channels with skilling, similar to the cooking channel but i wanted for charisma, anyone could guide me?
Mootilda
16th Dec 2012, 2:37 AM
I suspect that BHAV modding of skilling is outside the scope of this tutorial.
lientebollemeis
16th Dec 2012, 8:40 AM
Help here, how can i make the videos i recorded from the game into tv channels with skilling, similar to the cooking channel but i wanted for charisma, anyone could guide me?

I'm not really sure about this, but you can convert the videos you made in the right format (by following the tutorial) and put them in the folder of the cooking channel where you get skilling.
I don't know which folder this is though.
Bonita
16th Dec 2012, 1:46 PM
I'm not really sure about this, but you can convert the videos you made in the right format (by following the tutorial) and put them in the folder of the cooking channel where you get skilling.
I don't know which folder this is though.

Mootilda is there any tutorial for this? To make them watch tv to get other skills.
Bonita
16th Dec 2012, 7:46 PM
I have found already a mod with already made with what i wanted to do :)
Dujon15
24th Feb 2013, 4:49 AM
hey every one it does not have to bo 128x128 i have tried 512x512 and it works and looks better!!
lientebollemeis
24th Feb 2013, 8:48 AM
Thanks for trying that.
Although this makes the file bigger and your computer needs to be able to handle that when loading and playing the game so do this at your own risk.

Remember: it doesn't mean that when it works for you, it will work for everybody.
Dujon15
24th Feb 2013, 8:51 AM
yup it works but when i tried to make it 360x360 i just got a black or white screen in sims 2


so it looks like it can only do files that go up in double like 128x128 256x256 512x512 1024x1024 etc
lientebollemeis
11th Jun 2013, 11:31 AM
It are involutions of 2. Everything in IT is like that.
So 64x64 (too small) but in theory possible too.