Wiki/wiki-rtd/docs/wiki_system_guides/es-de/esde-scraping.md

ES-DE Scraping

Scraping is done via Screenscraper or TGBD in the ES-DE interface under scraping.

Scraping allows you to make the games look "pretty" with coverarts, icons, discimages and more.

Read up on the ES-DE userguide on scraping here:

ES-DE Scraper guide

Quick tips

• On most occasions you want to use ScreenScraper and not TheGamesDB. But for PC titles scraping from TheGamesDB might be better.
• You will need to register an account on ScreenScraper.fr to scrape (support them on Patreon for faster downloads, more scrapes per day and priority scraping).
• Login to your Screenscraper.fr account inside of the ES-DE interface in RetroDECK
• Choose what content you want to scrape (remember that each content you choose could take up several mb of data per game).
• Do an initial scrape of all the games you want to scrape.
• If some games are missed do a more narrow scraping by enabling Scraper -> Other Settings -> Interactive Mode -> On& Scraper -> Other Settings -> Auto-Accept Single Game Matches -> On and choose to scrape by games missing metadata. This will allow you to select each game from a list and also tweak the searches of the missing games.
• In some cases you need to remove certain aspects of the name like if a rom comes both with a Japanese name and English name, you could try to remove one of the names to find a better result.

Where is my scraped data?

In: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media folder.

Can I add my own images, manuals, or other media?

The ES-DE Wiki has Instructions: Manually copying game media files on adding your own media.

There's a handy spreadsheet that explains each media type:

Spreadsheet: Media Types in ES-DE

Check the following guide.

Guide: Manually adding game media files

If you already have a library of game media (images, videos and PDF manuals) you can manually copy these files into RetroDECK (ES-DE).

Requirements & Tips:

• Remember that on Linux filenames are case sensitive.
• The file extensions must be in lower case in ES-DE (.png instead of .PNG / .Png).
• The media files names must correspond exactly to the game files name.
• For directories interpreted as files games (like ScummVM) you will need to add the folder file extension to the media file name example: dig.scummvm.png.
• Supported image file extensions are: .jpg and .png.
• Supported document file extensions are: .pdf.
• Supported video file extensions are: .avi , .mkv , .mov , .mp4 and .wmv.

The default media directory is: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media/<system name>/<media type>/<files goes here>

The following media type directories are supported:

3dboxes
backcovers
covers
custom
fanart
manuals
marquees
miximages (The miximages are generated by ES-DE)
physicalmedia
screenshots
titlescreens
videos

Example adding media files to games

A multi-disk game or a single game:

You want to add a screenshot and a video to the game:

~/retrodeck/roms/c64/Multidisk/Last Ninja 2/Last Ninja 2.m3u

Then the media files structure needs to be the following:

Screenshots: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media/c64/screenshots/Multidisk/Last Ninja 2/Last Ninja 2.jpg

Videos: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media/c64/videos/Multidisk/Last Ninja 2/Last Ninja 2.mp4

A Directories interpreted as files game:

You want to add a screenshot and a video to the game:

~/retrodeck/roms/scummvm/dig.scummvm

The media files for this directory which is interpreted as a file will be:

Screenshots: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media/scummvm/screenshots/dig.scummvm.png

Videos: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/downloaded_media/scummvm/videos/dig.scummvm.mp4

ES-DE Scraping FAQ

I got some weird error message about quota after scraping!

The error message mentions something about quota. You have a quota limit on how much you can scrape each day from Screenscraper where each item you scrape counts as 1 quota of the daily total. You can pay them to get a bit more daily quota and show your support or just wait 24 hours.

The Scraper said: The Server or Service is down?

The service is down, check Screenscraper when they get back up.

Can I only scrape one game or can I narrow down the scraping method?

Yes, check the Guides - ES-DE Frontend 🤖 for more details.

Can I move the downloaded_media folder?

You can move it with the the move RetroDECK option inside the configurator.

Can I copy the downloaded_media folder to another device?

Yes, just copy it into the other device RetroDECK folder.

I have donated to Screenscraper how do I get faster scraping?

You have to associate your Screenscraper Account with your Pateron Account.

Check Screenscraper Pateron for instructions.

The scraping is very slow...

Screenscraper offers different types of donations that can increase your speed with extra threads.

My systems storage ran out after scraping...

You can clean out images and videos that takes a lot of space under: ~/retrodeck/downloaded_media.

But I still want them...

The only way to still keep them is either delete something else from the storage or buy more storage.

Can I launch a speicifc game with another emulator then default, but keep the rest on the default?

Yes, if you want for example launch one of the PSX games with Duckstation instead of RetroArch.

First navigate to the game in the gamelist, then open the Gamelist Options Menu - Edit This Game's Metadata - Alternative Emulator - Set the emulator here.