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Game Covers/boxes & Instruction Books?


deutsch_joe

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I was wondering if a release from this site in the future would consist of high-resolution scanned game covers or game boxes, along with the instruction booklets.

I've found a site, gamemanuals.net that deals with instruction booklets, but they're in PDF format and in such a low resolution that you can't zoom in on the pictures or even read some small text!

Another site I found, covergalaxy.com has wonderful scans, but they don't have any handheld scans or scans of any systems pre-Gamecube/PS2/Xbox. (I wasn't planning on scanning my Gamecube game covers anyway, unless they don't have a few that I do. Haven't looked that closely yet.)

I've already done a few scans myself and can provide a couple dozen game's worth. I've been trying to upload a sample of an instruction book and a box, but dial-up doesn't seem to work very well with Imageshack.us. :( I'll try again some other time if somebody is interested in taking a look at what I've scanned.

Anyway, what do you think? Something that's good for a release?

Y/N

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i love the idea, but i dont know how appropriate it is for here, this being a mag site... I saw gamemanuals.net i think, but i didnt know the stuff there was so low-res. I have hundreds of games, and i might actually get rid of some, but id defintely be up for making an online collection of hi-res boxes, manuals, extras, posters, etc. when i get time.. something that'll preserve stuff as close to original quality as possible.

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i love the idea, but i dont know how appropriate it is for here, this being a mag site......something that'll preserve stuff as close to original quality as possible.

Good, I'm glad somebody else agrees! My thoughts exactly on how appropriate it is.

And...yes! This is exactly what I'm talking about!

I've already scanned nearly all of my old boxes and I've started on the instruction booklets. And again, Imageshack.us won't work. (I started to upload a sample but the connection was reset twice. I'll try again tonight after I get home from work.)

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Yeah, I thought I remember a site having some of the old NES and SNES-era boxart and manuals, and while it is interesting, it doesn't really apply to this site.

However, it might be a good idea to affiliate with some of them to help promote what Philly's doing and also promote what they're doing.

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Yeah, I thought I remember a site having some of the old NES and SNES-era boxart and manuals, and while it is interesting, it doesn't really apply to this site.

However, it might be a good idea to affiliate with some of them to help promote what Philly's doing and also promote what they're doing.

I tried Googling a few different things and I couldn't find that site, though I did find a few sites that had only a couple of box and/or cartridge scans here and there. Those sites weren't exclusively about the scans though. <_<

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I am an avid collector of game manual scans and I am very interested in getting copys of your scans. As far as putting them on this site......I don't know if this is the right place or not.

Please keep us updated as to where you are releasing them.

BTW if you look in the GMA fourms there is alot of talk about changing from pdf to cbr. I'm not sure if I agree or not, but if your concern is quality they may be on the same page as you.

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I've been trying to grab these up as I see them and begin to do some of my own scanning of some of my old PC manuals. Grant you, I have an older Canon scanner, so time is of the essence and is not on my side here, but I'm all for the effort.

And I agree too that there are great resources which we can hopefully submit to (Replacementdocs and GMA), and use them instead of Retromags.

Of course, when we're getting stuff scanned, we can always talk about it here, especially cause posts = gil. :)

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Awesome! I'm glad there are a few other people interested!

Well, I've done my searching around and here's what I found...

concerning cover scans...

http://www.gamescanner.org/ has A LOT in very high quality. The only thing I don't like about it is that he doesn't get the sides and the flaps like I do.

For example, take his Metroid Fusion scans, which are very good...

http://imageevent.com/gamescans/gameboyadv...&c=5&m=20&p=160

compared to mine...

front7qh.th.jpg

back4kx.th.jpg

Yeah, the sides and the flaps may make it look a little tacky, but it's complete. If a flap was a solid color and/or had no artwork on it, I cropped it out of the scan.

Anyway, how would you compare mine and Gamescanner.org's? For the better or worse?

I jumped the gun and scanned almost all of my game boxes (just have three left - and they're Japanese imports) before doing the proper research (like finding that wonderful sight), so I guess if anybody prefers mine with the sides and flaps, they can have them.

concerning instruction booklets.... (note: I've only just started scanning. I have quite a few instruction booklets.)

I've browsed around GMA's forums and I couldn't find anything mentioned about the overall quality of the scans. But before I continue, here's a scan of a page from the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time instruction book.

29308xm.th.jpg

Open what I scanned with Windows Picture Viewer and zoom in on the screenshot on the right hand side of page, you can see Link's eyes, read "Stop" on the action button and even make out a sign post in Hyrule Field.

But if you zoom on on GMA's scan...

zoomedin7vr.th.jpg

.... <_<

I want to say something on their forums, but I don't want to burst in on their forums and complain about what they're offering. Someone did it here, complaining about the Nintendo Power scans, and it's rude and disrespectful. People do it over at http://speeddemosarchive.com/ , complaining about the speedruns, and again, it's rude and disrespectful....and...I really don't want to be that kind of person.

Well, now that you guys have seen a sample of my scanning, I'll wait to talk about submitting my scans to someplace.

The least I'll do is RAR my scans and upload them to SendSpace or something for whoever's interested.

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this site was inspired BY gamemanuals.net! there aughtta be like a partnership or something between the two sites. Then, if someone on this forum had manuals to post, they'd send it to gamemanuals, or if someone there had scans or rare mags of some kind they would share with us. maybe there could be a video game scanner webring... without the voting of course!!!

Has this idea been tried already? if not, this could be great...

game box scans might be ok.............. it is a mag site, but........

on a related note, does the emulation section take roms? not COMMERCIAL roms... or maybe yes commercial following 5-yr rule... but focuing on homebrew stuff... you can find some gba/psp/ds/MAYBE GP2X in the future from various compos they did at www.neoflash.com... which, by the way, is where i found this site... phillyman was asking if this site was big enogh to recieve a FREE MagicKey 2 for review (see contest on homepage) and was complaining for awhile cuz they approved it but nevr sent it... but then they did. anyway, sry for the diversion there

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I was wondering if a release from this site in the future would consist of high-resolution scanned game covers or game boxes, along with the instruction booklets.

I've found a site, gamemanuals.net that deals with instruction booklets, but they're in PDF format and in such a low resolution that you can't zoom in on the pictures or even read some small text!

Another site I found, covergalaxy.com has wonderful scans, but they don't have any handheld scans or scans of any systems pre-Gamecube/PS2/Xbox. (I wasn't planning on scanning my Gamecube game covers anyway, unless they don't have a few that I do. Haven't looked that closely yet.)

I've already done a few scans myself and can provide a couple dozen game's worth. I've been trying to upload a sample of an instruction book and a box, but dial-up doesn't seem to work very well with Imageshack.us. :( I'll try again some other time if somebody is interested in taking a look at what I've scanned.

Anyway, what do you think? Something that's good for a release?

Y/N

i have the complete dreamcast cover and booklet collection if you want?

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badinsults- If you're collecting PCB scans, there is a dude in the ZSNES forum that has a website with a ton of PCB scans. His (her?) name there is EvanG and the site is at www.snescentral.edgeemu.com. If I recall the scans needed to be hi-res enough to read the serial numbers on the board (to help development of zsnes), so they should be archive quality.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry I haven't replied in awhile. I've been a bit busy.

jbbdude - You might want to talk to Phillyman about the partnership between the two sites.

zovik - Thanks for the site, but this

supermariobros3uprg1a1gl5.jpg

is an example of one of their scans. :huh:

badinsults - That's a cool idea and I like how you have it in high resolution, but how do you get them off the cartridge to scan them? I mean, if you try to peel them off, they'll just tear. If you don't peel them off, how do you scan them?

douglas678 - Thanks for the offer man, but that's not what I'm trying to do. At this point, I personally don't want to start an archive or anything of scans. (It could happen in the future, but not now.)

Initially, I was scanning my older boxes and instruction booklets before I sold them with the games on Ebay. I wanted a digital copy to keep forever, so when the Wii comes out and I can download games, I'll have everything - just in digital format. Then it occured to me that somebody "out there" on the Internet might enjoy the fruits of my labor too. So that's why I created this thread - because I figured this site would be the most likely spot for the scanning gurus to hang out - so somebody might know a website where I can contribute my stuff too. If there is no website, but just one or two or more people want my stuff, then that's fine too.

At this point, I have all of my older stuff scanned as well as every box I own. Since that was my initial goal, I've slacked off a bit, but I'm currently scanning my Game Boy Advance instruction manuals.

Let's just say that when I go back to school in mid-August, my computer (that has my scanner and scans on it) will be on a broadband connection and I'll upload everything I've scanned for you guys (well, primarily for 420, as he's the only one that seems to be interested.) Hopefully, I should have my GBA stuff done then. I've got A LOT of Gamecube instruction booklets to scan after GBA, so Gamecube will take awhile. I can see myself scanning those during my busy school schedule, so I'll release those as I finish them one at a time.

Sound good?

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  • 5 weeks later...

Here's a bit of info that may be relevant-

Cowering (yes, THE Cowering, of goodtools fame) appears to be working on a database schema to handle game art and scans. His forum at www.allgoodthings.us has more discussion; perhaps you guys interested in archiving could get in tough with him. That project is already well established when it comes to roms, but the art side appears to be just starting.

And I could have sworn evang collected PCB scans...

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Yeah- he does. Here's a direct link for example: http://snescentral.edgeemu.com/pcb.php?id=0177&num=0

The box art may not be so hot, but I doubt many other people collect PCB scans. (It was helpful for ZSNES development, that's why they're there.) It would definitely be best to contact him first, though; he's been around the scene for a long time.

Another very old but classic site with some scans of varying quality is tsr's NES archive at http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/index.html It hasn't been updated in 6 years, but is still a font of goodies.

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Awesome! Thanks for the links, zovik!

However, I still can't do much at the moment. My house still doesn't have Internet, but I should be getting it September 1st or soon after September 4th, thanks to Labor Day weekend... When I get hooked up, I'll post my scans here in addition to seeing if I can submit them to those sites...

Right now, I've got everything scanned except my Gamecube manuals, and I can't scan those because I accidentally left those behind when I moved back to school... <_<

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Awesome! I'm glad there are a few other people interested!

Well, I've done my searching around and here's what I found...

concerning cover scans...

http://www.gamescanner.org/ has A LOT in very high quality. The only thing I don't like about it is that he doesn't get the sides and the flaps like I do.

For example, take his Metroid Fusion scans, which are very good...

http://imageevent.com/gamescans/gameboyadv...&c=5&m=20&p=160

compared to mine...

front7qh.th.jpg

back4kx.th.jpg

Yeah, the sides and the flaps may make it look a little tacky, but it's complete. If a flap was a solid color and/or had no artwork on it, I cropped it out of the scan.

Anyway, how would you compare mine and Gamescanner.org's? For the better or worse?

I jumped the gun and scanned almost all of my game boxes (just have three left - and they're Japanese imports) before doing the proper research (like finding that wonderful sight), so I guess if anybody prefers mine with the sides and flaps, they can have them.

concerning instruction booklets.... (note: I've only just started scanning. I have quite a few instruction booklets.)

I've browsed around GMA's forums and I couldn't find anything mentioned about the overall quality of the scans. But before I continue, here's a scan of a page from the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time instruction book.

29308xm.th.jpg

Open what I scanned with Windows Picture Viewer and zoom in on the screenshot on the right hand side of page, you can see Link's eyes, read "Stop" on the action button and even make out a sign post in Hyrule Field.

But if you zoom on on GMA's scan...

zoomedin7vr.th.jpg

.... <_<

I want to say something on their forums, but I don't want to burst in on their forums and complain about what they're offering. Someone did it here, complaining about the Nintendo Power scans, and it's rude and disrespectful. People do it over at http://speeddemosarchive.com/ , complaining about the speedruns, and again, it's rude and disrespectful....and...I really don't want to be that kind of person.

Well, now that you guys have seen a sample of my scanning, I'll wait to talk about submitting my scans to someplace.

The least I'll do is RAR my scans and upload them to SendSpace or something for whoever's interested.

I couldn't help but open my mouth on this one. I hope I add a worthy contribution to this thread.

Joe, It's even more rude to go behind someone's back and slag them off. It's more honourable to do it to their faces. Maybe it would've been better for you to go and post a friendly complaint in the GMA forums in the first place? I'm sure they'd listen to you and not take it as an insult. However, if they were to read you slagging them off in other forums, maybe they would find it rude and insulting? So you must be the kind of person you say you don't want to be.

From what I've read in the GMA forums, they welcome criticisms and complaints. Oh, and they also make mention of a problem with server space, which is probably why they don't offer many print-quality scans.

Picking out one scan out of an archive that implicitly tries to get across to people that it isn't endeavouring for perfection (which is the part that you couldn't find, Joe, about the quality of the scans), as it's a far-fetched goal to set and achieve, and basing GMA's entire archive off that example, is unfair.

It's also unfair to compare Retromags' quality scans to a site like GMA which hosts the things on its own server allowing instant downloads and none of the lack of seed problems you can get with torrents after a while. Of course they have to take into consideration file size, or they wouldn't be able to host many scans. They're not like Retromags whereby the only thing necessary is the size of a hard drive and a torrent uploading tool.

I've downloaded a couple from GMA and I have to say, I don't really find anything particularly wrong with them. The majority is readable and a lot are very nice quality. Good enough for a digital document. It is unavoidable that some are poor quality as GMA has the policy that they take what they can find, and over 90% of what they add to the archive these days is donated to them from users who aren't part of a dedicated scanning team like Retromags has. GMA isn't responsible for their own scan content, it's everybody donating and the various sources GMA has used, so they're the ones you need to direct a complaint to.

Joe, I think I might be the disrespectful person who you were on about who complained about those Nintendo Power scans. We don't learn from our mistakes if nobody alerts us to them. This is why most businesses have a complaints department (albiet, mostly crappy and useless ones that can only be reached via phone and hefty on-hold waiting times, to which untrained monkeys reply in assitance of your complaint/call), so they can better their product(s). :o

From what I mentioned in the past on here in some other thread somewhere about the Nintendo Power releases, they were far from perfect. Instead of going to the GMA forum and talking about it there, I decided to alert the scanners here to the high contrast issue that has killed a lot of the detail on the pages. To which they responded with something like, "we did it to make the pages readable". Which is a fair response, although I don't agree with it. I just think they needed to turn the contrast of their monitor up before deciding to adjust the contrast on the scans to make them viewable on a dimly lit screen. But the point is, I spoke up about it to the person(s) it would concern.

There are big problems with trying to be perfect. One of them is the problem that none of us are going to live forever. I personally prefer to have a reasonable to good quality upload than a perfect upload that's going to take years to prepare.

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If I remember, GMA basically got started by organizing the many hundreds of scans that were already available online, which (of course) were all of varying quality. Their goal is to collect as much as possible as quickly as possible and replace items in the collection with better quality scans as time goes on.

So... deutsch_joe, rather than risk sounding rude (which you want to avoid) you could ask if they accept higher quality versions of existing scans and upload yours.

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I think HOW you phrase something is what makes is disrespectful or not .... if you go into a forum and say something along the lines of "I think there may be a problem, here it is, what do you think, and can I help?", sure, you'll get the lamer or two that will just flame for the sake of it, but you'll also get a lot of constructive conversation about this too.

That's all I want to add to it ... and hey, if no one likes your idea, but you do, buy some cheap web space and start uploading, the more people doing stuff, the merrier.

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And to add what Sav and zovik said, Retromags hasn't had a new official worthy release since the last of the nintendo powers, which was I think over a month ago or so. It's a different animal to GMA, completely, which means you're not going to see anything released potentially at retromags bar third party projects for absolutely ages. You don't get that problem at GMA.

Whether a polite complaint is welcomed or not by a site like GMA, in all fairness, nobody has a right to complain about something they're getting for nothing, so it's best to phrase a complaint as constructive criticism, pointing out you're trying to help the project, rather than blast/bash/knock it.

Amen.

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