The Commander X16 Movie Maker brings actual video playback to the 8-bit Commander X16. In his latest video, Matt from The Retro Desk breaks down how this ambitious software makes full-motion video possible on real hardware.
At the core of this project is Anthony Henry, known online as Tony3068. He built a suite of tools that converts standard video files—like MP4s—into formats the X16 can understand. This wasn’t always possible. Early emulator-based examples misled users by relying on file read speeds that far exceeded real hardware capabilities.
Eirik’s Speed Boost
One major reason the Commander X16 Movie Maker now works on hardware is thanks to another developer—Eirik from the X16 Discord. He provided direct sector-reading code that massively improved SD card performance. In benchmark testing, this code transferred 1,000 sectors of 512 bytes each into VRAM in just 35 jiffies. That’s the speed the project needed to cross the line from emulator-only to real-world-ready.
From Classic Film to 8-Bit
Matt demonstrates the process using Charade, the 1963 public domain thriller starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. He crops and downscales the video to 160×112 resolution, reduces the frame rate to 10 FPS, and selects 21kHz audio to maintain sync. The result? A 1.3GB video that plays directly from SD on an actual X16.
Tony’s tool lets users pick their priorities. You can tweak color depth, resolution, or frame rate to match your needs. Matt shows how different settings impact playback using examples like Big Buck Bunny and Bad Apple. Each one comes with trade-offs, but they all work.
Real-Time Playback
On hardware, playback includes working audio, support for bookmarks, and a custom library browser. Black-and-white videos can play at full resolution thanks to 1-bit-per-pixel encoding. Color videos require more compromise, but they still play smoothly using the optimized player tools.
Matt wraps up by showing real-time playback of his Charade encode. The sound syncs, the frames advance, and the X16 pulls off something that felt impossible just a few years ago.
