[kronusprime]

I've been using kodi/xbmc a long time....since xbox.
Around version 12 or 13 I decided to start using offline scrapers for videos because I'm anal about keeping my media all neet and tidy.
I've tried both rom collection browser and advanced launcher with little success over the years with advanced launcher giving me the best luck on an old android tv box from china.
These android boxes are getting some pretty decent specs now so I thought I'd try again. I got 4 of the newer ones with digital clocks! Deleted all the crap that came with it and installed kodi 16 from the play store.
I have my ripped dvds blurays and audio cds set up perfectly on a headless ubuntu server and use a mysql database so I only have to update once. 1 terabyte hard drive for TV shows. 1 terabyte hard drive for cartoons. And a 2 Terabyte drive for movies. I use a 250 gig drive for the OS and my music. All nice and neat. Like I said I'm anal about this stuff.
I've been trying to get my games whipped into shape so they will play nice with kodi. I am using rom collection browser since advanced launcher seems to be dead and the latest zip file I could find gave dependency errors about missing python 2.0.
I only have a few games and even fewer systems. So I started with my old Atari 2600.
I pointed RCB to retroarch. Then my roms folder. Then to an empty artwork folder and set it to scrape.
12 out of 35 got some data. Ok, changed the scrapers from default to use just giantbomb and mobygames. Much better but still missing some data.
I used the software emumovies.com provides to scrape and find out some of my roms were named wrong.
I searched for some easy renaming software and just could not find anything easy.
After a few days of trial and error I gave up and paid $60 for a lifetime membership at emumovies.com.
Using their ftp I matched up all of my roms to the names they use manually and then downloaded everything for each game including the high quality videos.
Ok time to import again for RCB. Now even less roms work. I guess the (USA) part of the rom name throws it off.


So here is what I have tried last and ended up giving up.

Import just one game using the gamesdb scraper.
Move the rest of the games and art to that folder.
Change the location manually for each path in RCB. So set boxart front to my folding containing them.
Rerun the scraper using only local artwork. Only the first game has any data. I mean anything. The other games are there but nothing is showing.
So rerun the scraper using just the gamedb. Now they all have the pictures and movies from emumovies.com. But no text data.
So rerun the scraper using giantbomb and mobeygames. Ha ha I get a bunch with text data.!

Start to follow this patch for the next system. The whole 7 games I own for Atari 7800.
All the data for Atari 2600 is gone. I bang my head on my desk.
Try again. Both seems to be working.
Now for Playstation with my final fantasy and lunar RPGS.
Only single disc games work. I bang my head on my desk.
I search online for how to name my disc's and find out I need to put \(Disk .*\) for the disk indicator.
I rescrape. Now I have Final Fantasy 7, then a disc 1 disc 2 and disc 3. Yes 4 discs. Same for Lunar. I bang my head.
I manually delete the extra disc's and now Playstation looks good.
I try to add Dreamcast for Skies of Arcadia. Same as playstation with extra disc's but I can fix that.
I rescrape and accidentally hit all systems. I should have just shut the power off. I have duplicates again and some of the atari games have data from psx games with the same names. I bang my head.


I have spent the better part of a week trying to figure this out. When I used advanced launcher on the older box I could just edit the xml file and point to my metadata copy and paste the text data and when I turned it on everything was there!
I just want to make this easy so I can clone the folders on a few jump drives and add them to each box.

Please kill...I mean help me.

[kronusprime]

I tried to add my dreamcast games again......all gone no data no pictures not even a list of the roms. Other systems seem ok but I have tried 4 times now changing the scraper each time for dreamcast. Nothing....I bang my head

[mechevarria]

I spent the better part of a week wresting with Rom Collection Browser and once I got it straight it didn't even look right in Kodi since it has not been updated in a long time. The best favor I did for myself was switch to the Hyperlauncher plugin. Instead of working off a database its all XML based so you can tweak entries. You mentioned your roms have '(USA)' in the name so that means your files are probably already pretty closely named to entries in a Hyperlist.Hyperspin XMLs.

[Loto_Bak]

I wrote a script that converts LaunchBox xml + images into RCB sqlite database and compatable image filenames.

Basically you import your collection into LaunchBox then run the script to import it into RCB
Works well enough for me. Gives me images and metadata.

You can find my post with a link to the code here
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2304040

Try it with a few roms to see if it'll work for ya.

[kronusprime]

I spent the better part of a week wresting with Rom Collection Browser and once I got it straight it didn't even look right in Kodi since it has not been updated in a long time. The best favor I did for myself was switch to the Hyperlauncher plugin. Instead of working off a database its all XML based so you can tweak entries. You mentioned your roms have '(USA)' in the name so that means your files are probably already pretty closely named to entries in a Hyperlist.Hyperspin XMLs.

Yes I was looking into that earlier. Emumovies and Hyperspin share the same FTP so the names are identical. Another reason I paid for the lifetime membership.
The problem is hyperspin for android has not been released yet. So I think my options for android are...
1 Gamesome
2 Rom Collection browser
and
3 Advanced launcher but only for older versions of Kodi. (I found an old advanced launcher zip file in a folder with some old android emulator apks on my backup drive!)

Tried Advanced launcher last night on Kodi 16 and nothing seemed to work. Most recent zip I could find just spat out python dependency errors.

I really want to thank you for posting though. Nice to see some people trying to help!

[kronusprime]

I wrote a script that converts LaunchBox xml + images into RCB sqlite database and compatable image filenames.

Basically you import your collection into LaunchBox then run the script to import it into RCB
Works well enough for me. Gives me images and metadata.

You can find my post with a link to the code here
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2304040

Try it with a few roms to see if it'll work for ya.

Thank you! Can you tell me if this will work on an android system?

[BeanyBubb]

those scrapers are a joke. just sayin.

[BeanyBubb]

I spent the better part of a week wresting with Rom Collection Browser and once I got it straight it didn't even look right in Kodi since it has not been updated in a long time. The best favor I did for myself was switch to the Hyperlauncher plugin. Instead of working off a database its all XML based so you can tweak entries. You mentioned your roms have '(USA)' in the name so that means your files are probably already pretty closely named to entries in a Hyperlist.Hyperspin XMLs.

Thumbs up on that. Im about to look into HL. Rom Browser is pretty crusty and old looking.

[kronusprime]

For me RCB still looks amazing and I really want to use it. But....it just seems unstable at best.

Here is what I would like to have in my home.
One main server hosting all my media, Movies, TV Shows, Music, "and my games".
One common interface that can stream all of the above over a wired gigabit connection.

Now so far KODI as served me quite well on all but the games.

Years ago when XBMC was on the original Xbox almost everything was different. At least in my usage.
Roms and emulators for older systems could be stored on DVDs and streaming media was at a much lower resolution. I never even had to upgrade the 8 gig hard drive.

Today I have a 55" 4K Samsung TV in my living room and 3 40" plus 1080p TV's in the bedrooms. (Not meant to be bragging)
I have amassed a large collection of blue-ray and DVD's since the Xbox days. My music collection has grown as well.
The only thing has hasn't changed much are the games I own. With the exception of newer systems that can't be emulated as easily.
With these Amazon fire TV and other similar android based systems growing more and more popular my goal is almost reachable.

I bought one of the Chinese boxes over 2 years ago and could play quite a few different systems emulators on it but each one had its own interface.
Then I found RCB and Advanced launcher and at the time Advanced launcher worked the best but I still had to edit the xml file manually to get the data the way I wanted it.

Around that time I got sick. Headaches almost every day. After seeing a neurologist in town I was told they were migraines. One night I collapsed at work. I spent a week in the hospital and needed a walker for the first few days. I then went to see a neurologist in buffalo. They had better doctors and better equipment. They found cysts in my pituitary gland. I no longer work and spend a good portion of my time avoiding noise and bright lights.
I have a lot of free time and almost never leave the house.

A few months ago I purchased an MXQ Plus with an h.265 hardware decoder. I was ecstatic. It plays 4k video and I could easily emulate dreamcast with it! I bought 3 more, one for each room.
I setup a headless ubuntu server loaded with hard drives. I started encoding my videos with the h.265 codec and the size and quality was amazing!

Kodi handles all of music and videos perfectly but games are still just out of my reach.

When I said RCB was killing me it was a joke but in all sincerity when my headaches are bad my thoughts are just a repeat of either small parts of this setup or laying down dirt blocks in minecraft.

[kronusprime]

Updates and gripes....

I tried Loto_Bak python script with some decent luck on my pc but not so much on my android box.

Spent a few hours making sure every rom was named so it matched the gamesdb.com and then making sure all the pictures and movies matched the names.

Tested just Atari 2600 in RCB and all imported with only Q*Bert giving issues but I knew that one would.

Each game had the correct pictures and videos and all but 5 had descriptions. I tried changing scrapers for the 5 but nothing.
Nothing in the NFO's for each game either. BUT!!! If I type I on the keyboard the info screen comes up with all the blasted data!!!!!!

So for the few holdouts it downloaded the information but did not populate in the correct fields?

I bang my head....

[2nzy]

switch
I tried again and again with rom browser
it just kept deleting what I'd built and took ages scraping everything
so I scrapped it and built this instead

[kronusprime]

switch
I tried again and again with rom browser
it just kept deleting what I'd built and took ages scraping everything
so I scrapped it and built this instead

That looks Amazing!
Would be perfect for the living room.
The best part about using a much stronger pc than my android box's is being able to play Wii, Game Cube, and PS2!
If I could get Skies of Arcadia Legends to run I'd be in heaven!

I've almost got mine done for android and rom collection browser.
All games have artwork with only a few missing text.
The only system that won't launch from RCB is dreamcast.
The new reicast v7 won't accept the old arguments from previous versions and no one on their forums will help.
200 plus views on my post without a single response.

[kronusprime]

switch
I tried again and again with rom browser
it just kept deleting what I'd built and took ages scraping everything
so I scrapped it and built this instead

2nzy I forgot to ask, is your machine something you can clone or is there an easy installer?
I'm thinking of setting up a main htpc in the living room that can do all this plus run the file server for my android boxes.