Scraping - just how 'far' do you go?
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Ok folks, so I've decided to redo my collection a bit with some updated stuff all over, and thought it would be a good idea to re-scrape it all and get some nice video snaps. I'm using the desktop Skraper programme for Linux (although I think it's down right now but nvm).
But I'm suddenly fazed by all the options. How far do I go? Do I want combined box art and a video snap alone, or should I go for screenshot, 3d box, wheel and video? I suppose I'm trying to future proof my scrape a bit against new theme updates, and don't want to get it wrong and have to do it all again. I like to scrape and then back it all up cleanly.
What would you recommend? Video snaps do take up quite a bit of space too and demand some resources. I suppose I've just gotten overwhelmed a bit and am keen to hear how you approach it all. I used to just have a single combined art with the logo and box on a screenshot. Thanks peeps.
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@ranma I gave up on video snaps because the volume is not normalized...meaning for one video it's low, the other is booming. I like what they look like, but for the sake of saving space and having constant noise when sometimes I like it quiet...I just have box art.
Which... I'm so OCD that I hand picked almost every box image for every system. I wanted the best so that when my screen saver is playing, I have no muddy images. I love the box art of all the classics from the 8-bit C-64/Atari800 age.
I don't like all the flashy, eye-burninf stuff that comes with some of the themes, so I used a heavily modified Eudora set. I created many of the Logos, replaced the line drawings with higher quality images of the systems and used high quality logos as well.
For me, this is perfect.
I hope that helps.
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@jamrom2
It does help actually thank you. I too am in two minds about video snaps. On the one hand they're very attractive and can add a nice dimension and professional feel to your system, but on the other they override my BGM too quickly no matter how I set it and take up SO VERY MUCH storage space! I dunno, I'll probably stick with them for now but keep my options open. I know what you mean about some of the screen grabs too. One or two of the default choices aren't great at all, but it's a Herculean task to manually go through them so I'm stuck with that for now.Your theme sounds brilliant. I'd love to see a couple of screen shots if possible. ;-)
Outside of snaps and screen shots, do you think it's worth pursuing things like wheel art and marquees? I'm only thinking in terms of future proofing against newer themes.
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@ranma said in Scraping - just how 'far' do you go?:
It does help actually thank you. I too am in two minds about video snaps. On the one hand they're very attractive and can add a nice dimension and professional feel to your system, but on the other they override my BGM too quickly no matter how I set it and take up SO VERY MUCH storage space! I dunno, I'll probably stick with them for now but keep my options open. I know what you mean about some of the screen grabs too. One or two of the default choices aren't great at all, but it's a Herculean task to manually go through them so I'm stuck with that for now.
Your theme sounds brilliant. I'd love to see a couple of screen shots if possible. ;-)
Outside of snaps and screen shots, do you think it's worth pursuing things like wheel art and marquees? I'm only thinking in terms of future proofing against newer themes.Using screenshots and videos on my current setup, it's great. You get a nice 'feel' for the game by watching some gameplay, more than a screenshot could convey. It's helped me find some cool random stuff when flicking through the collection.
I tend to get the non-normalized videos through Skraper, then batch run them through Handbrake. In most cases, it makes them a little bit smaller (a lot smaller for some outliers not following Screenscraper's upload rules), fixes the codec playback issue for some MAME-captured videos, and normalizes the audio volume.
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@ranma It really is down to personal preference and system setup. I don't like video snaps, for two reasons. They take time to load in the menus, which means it takes half a second for them to show up when selecting a game. That bothers me. And frankly, what I want from my menus is simply to get a good look at the game to decide if it's something I want to try out. Secondly, as you state, they take up a lot of space compared to simple images. So for me it's an easy choice when it comes to videos, I simply don't like them.
But, if you have a relatively small selection of games running in an arcade cabinet, I can understand why people like them. They do suit that quite well, especially when using the Attract-Mode frontend, which is much more suited for smaller collections.
I use my own tool Skyscraper. It caches the raw data locally, meaning I have the option of changing the look anytime I want, and then just have to re-regenerate the gamelists. So for me it's quite easy. I simply don't have to choose, because I can just redo it whenever I want without having to re-download everything.
You could consider that aswell if you'd like. Skyscraper is under Optional packages.
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@jamrom2 said in Scraping - just how 'far' do you go?:
Which... I'm so OCD that I hand picked almost every box image for every system.
I did the same thing.
Spend a lot of time searching perfect artworks, but it was worth every second and it makes your image much more personal. -
Great responses here, thank you so much. Of course it does come down to personal preference but your responses are helping me determine which way I want to go, so please don't think there's no value in the discussion. :-)
I'm currently trying re-encoding some videos with Handbrake to see how that goes and if it's worth pursuing. I think I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it (which to some degree you can do with Retropie lol), but I still have a bit of thinking to do about which way I'm gonna go ultimately.
Guys and gals here - you rock, as always. Thanks again. ;-)
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