Post subject: Just Want to Help Out
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 10
Location: East Bay, California
I'm not really sure where this post should go, so I just slipped it into the off-topic area for future reference. Okay, so on to the meat of my statement. I've seen this site and leeched for quite some time now, and I am looking for a good way to give back to this community. For starters, I will be setting up after-hours Torrent seeds on my primary box. In order to do this, I will need some kind of list of all the current Torrents and any obsolete ones as well (I've been downloading Torrents from here since January or so and would like to dump obsolete videos in favor of new releases). Additionally, I would like to make it known that I have - or can make available on short order - any facilities necessary to handle part of the load involved in converting keypress files to fully-fledged videos (emulators and all which that entails, DECENT video capture programs, and so on). Bisqwit or whomever is in charge of video production, please let me know if I can be of service to you. Hopefully by chipping in my resources, I can help make this community even better for all of us. :)
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
For seeding, you can use a small program that Bisqwit have written in python. For more info.. check there. http://tasvideos.org/HowToRunBtfriendInWindows.html For encoding video check there. http://tasvideos.org/HowToMakeAVI.html but still missing some information like adding subtitles and your logo at the beginning of the movie.
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 10
Location: East Bay, California
Thank you for the links, but I already have the programs needed to handle all that. What I could *really* use is a list of the current and obsolete videos so that I may delete the obsolete videos on my hard drive to make room for the new ones. Thanks for your help! :)
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
Ok you make me think of something that Bisqwit can create. A program that auto-delete obsoleted movies. So it will be more easier for you and probably some other people :).
Former player
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York
I'm not quite clear on that obsolete movie deleting idea, if it's what I think it is it seems a little unnecessary... usually the filenames have v2, then the new one is called v3, etc, but I guess that's not very reliable as frenom's megamanx video is labeled v3 and wodball's newest is v2. The best way right now to do it would probably be to go thorugh the movie list on the site and compare the file size, author name, and length to the different versions of the appropriate game. But anyway. Bisqwit and phil right now are comfortable with being the ones who encode the videos, as is my understanding. You happen to come at a time when a couple people are also offering to seed constantly(see http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=342&start=30 ), but nothing has happened as of yet so your help would be greatly appreciated. Personally I think the best way one could help the community is by making good videos, heh. But we certainly do need seeds. There are many people just like you who have joined the community(usually through the boards first, then started participating in the IRC channel) who didn't think they'd have the skills to make any videos, then as they got more involved in the community they ended up trying anyway. Everyone welcomes you to post more and join in the channel, of course.
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 10
Location: East Bay, California
That's an interesting idea. What about a database in SQL as the backend to some sort of "user-defined update" client? My thought is that somebody can start seeding a file across BT from the client, but if it's listed on the site's obsolete list, it will ask if the user wants to update the video. If they say "yes" it will start downloading then seeding the new video; if they say "no" the seed aborts since the tracker is already rejected. Sound good? EDIT: Thank you for the welcome Blechy. My idea is more about getting rid of obsolete videos from *my personal server* but I think it could see further use with Trackers that are rejected for obsolescence. Also, it should be noted that I won't have the seeds up until probably Monday (getting everything in order on my end) but the server will be up between 00:00 and 07:00 PST (08:00 - 15:00 GMT) so it will see peak hours overseas on local hours offpeak. :)
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
If you use the btfriend program mentioned by Phil, it will never seed movies that have been obsoleted, but it will always seed movies that have the most urgent need for seeding.
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
Blechy wrote:
I'm not quite clear on that obsolete movie deleting idea, if it's what I think it is it seems a little unnecessary... usually the filenames have v2, then the new one is called v3, etc, but I guess that's not very reliable as frenom's megamanx video is labeled v3 and wodball's newest is v2. The best way right now to do it would probably be to go thorugh the movie list on the site and compare the file size, author name, and length to the different versions of the appropriate game. But anyway.
It's not a good idea because all he want is to seed without taking care of manually erasing old files, which is long and annoying like it's currently doing on my machine and didn't take the time to erase those old movies.
Former player
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York
I made that page because midnight candidate asked me on instant messenger the best way to get a list of all obsoleted movies. I gave him a list of all movies published on the site, so he could see both obsoleted ones and new ones. That was the easiest way I could think of of getting a list of all obsoleted movies for him with what I already knew. I put it on his page because it was only intended for him, and because once he created an account he could get rid of it and edit it to how he liked.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Maybe I should add an option to delete AVI files that no longer are supported by the tracker to btfriend.py.
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
Bisqwit wrote:
Maybe I should add an option to delete AVI files that no longer are supported by the tracker to btfriend.py.
Good idea ;)
Post subject: btfriend.py v1.5.0
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Phil wrote:
Bisqwit wrote:
Maybe I should add an option to delete AVI files that no longer are supported by the tracker to btfriend.py.
Good idea ;)
Done! btfriend.py version 1.5.0 is now available at: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/src/btfriend.py
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
ok now it's good
Deleting  youkai-timeattack-morimoto.avi
Deleting  talesofphantasia-finnish-intro-long.avi
Deleting  chronotrigger-finnish-intro-long.avi
Deleting  littlenemo-timeattack-sleepz.avi
Deleting  bioniccommando-timeattack-feitclub.avi
Deleting  bubblebobble-2players-alonev2-mattiasb.avi
Deleting  hinotori-timeattack-morimoto.avi
Deleting  supermariobros2j-timeattackv2-mfried.avi
cool more space disk available.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Phil wrote:
cool more space disk available.
Those were not the unsupported files :) It was the IGNORE_FILES setting which you can use to exclude selected files from sharing. Use it to show your (un)support or just to prioritize your disk space.
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 10
Location: East Bay, California
Thanks Bisqwit, that's actually where I was going with this. I look forward to saving some space for new files! :)
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
Bisqwit wrote:
Phil wrote:
cool more space disk available.
Those were not the unsupported files :) It was the IGNORE_FILES setting which you can use to exclude selected files from sharing. Use it to show your (un)support or just to prioritize your disk space.
It's true but when it is supposed to delete old files? I have 3 versions of Frenom Super Metroid movies and they are still there. Or do I misred something?.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Locate these lines and change False to True.
# Do you want to automatically delete unsupported files?
DELETE_UNSUPPORTED = False
DELETE_FILE_EXT    = 'avi'
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
That's better
Deleting unsupported file blackmanta-timeattack-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file darkwingduck-timeattackv3-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file darkwingduck-timeattackv4-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file dejavu-timeattack-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file dkc-speedrun-alexisneuhaus.avi
Deleting unsupported file doubledragon3-timeattack-phil.avi
Deleting unsupported file dragon'slair-timeattack-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file felixthecat-timeattack-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file megaman4-timeattackv2-kopernical.avi
Deleting unsupported file megaman5-timeattack-kopernical.avi
Deleting unsupported file megamanx-timeattack-wodball.avi
Deleting unsupported file metroid-timeattackv5-jeffc.avi
Deleting unsupported file miketyson-playaround-phil.avi
Deleting unsupported file powerblade-timeattack-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file rushattack-timeattackv2-jeffc.avi
Deleting unsupported file shadowgate-timeattack-caitsith2.avi
Deleting unsupported file superc-timeattack-genisto.avi
Deleting unsupported file supermarioworld-timeattackv2-bladegash.avi
Deleting unsupported file supermetroid-speedrunv2-frenom.avi
Deleting unsupported file supermetroid-timeattack-frenom.avi
Deleting unsupported file superpunchout-timeattackv3-videogamefreak.avi
Deleting unsupported file umiharakawase-speedrun-blechy.avi
Deleting unsupported file uninvited-timeattack-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file uninvited-timeattackv2-walkerboh.avi
Deleting unsupported file wizwarriors-timeattackv3-walkerboh.avi
Now it looks better with that ~1.5Gb erased :)
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Not sure if this might be the wrong thread. But it was mentioned earlier in this topic. About version numbers on movies. When makers of the movies makes their runs, they will make it their version number, ie. Zurreco's Mega man speed run V3. If someone else wants to compete it can be rather confusing making it Bisqwit's Mega man speed run V1. In my oppinion it would be better if there was an offisial version number set by someone who's administrating all of this. Making the last mentioned run Mega man speed run V4 - By Bisqwit or something like that. Or atleast something more significant what file is latest. Many files do circulate on DC and Emule etc. Could be fun to clear out some parts. Allso.. To help out more, I'm ready to set up an official FTP site were poeple could download without Torrent. There are probably split thoughts about this "Yeah, but we need more seeders on torrent". Sure. But I know a whole lot of people who would never even install torrent. Maby they want but they can't for some reason. It still would be avalible in a second way to them. I could allso host on Emule (E-Donkey network) or HTTP). Making some sort of download mirror. Sure, the speed would be very limited. Not capped, but limmited because of heavy load. But it's an alternate way. What do you guys and gals think of it?
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Highness wrote:
About version numbers on movies. When makers of the movies makes their runs, they will make it their version number, ie. Zurreco's Mega man speed run V3. If someone else wants to compete it can be rather confusing making it Bisqwit's Mega man speed run V1. In my oppinion it would be better if there was an offisial version number set by someone who's administrating all of this. Making the last mentioned run Mega man speed run V4 - By Bisqwit or something like that.
I have been thinking this same thing since the first time I forgot what version number to put on an author's comeback movie. However since the site now lists "obsoletes xxx", "this movie is obsoleted" and such, I don't think there is much need for it anymore.
Highness wrote:
I'm ready to set up an official FTP site were poeple could download without Torrent.
Sure, go on, but please don't keep obsolete movies there unless you also provide the newer versions and show clearly which one is newer.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Well.. I still have a problem with obsolete movies. I always forget to delete obsolete versions. So now I have a couple of gigabytes with movies which I don't know if they are new or obsolete. Thats why I thought it would be better to start a new system. It's never too late to do that. We could to it by a scheme saying <Date released, Game name, Version number, author> or something like that. For the FTP/Http etc. Will that be put on the site as an official mirror? Because then I would very much like to ask for someone to upload that movie the same time as it get posted on the site, or as soon as the encoding is done. So that the mirror is up to date the same hour the official site posts. Otherwise poeple could get cranky saying "Hey! This shit is not up to date. What a rip-off". I want some automated system. Allso.. I was thinking of keeping obsolete files, but in a subdir or something like that. Most recent files will be in a folder called "New runs" or something like that. Older files (not obsolete) would be stored in a separate folder. And last but not least, obsolete files. I was thinking of having "New files" for a month before they go into the archive. Could be discussed.
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
You can always create something that automatically gets the list of valid movies from data.xml. This file contains most of the information you'd need to construct a mirror site, movie descriptions and text page contents excluded.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
I'm not handy with making stuff on my own. I'm not good at programming, I'm not good at HTML. I manage to do stuff with it. But I'm not good at it. But if anyone wanna help out, I'd be delightful. The FTP part is no problem though. But I suppose it would be fun to generate some statics for the HTTP thing.
Former player
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York
About versions in filenames, I was one who searched for the phrase "time attacks" on DC++, and naturally a lot came up. I saw a whole bunch of different versions for each game, many people still having two or more versions of a same game. While many take good care of their collection, reasoning that there's no need to keep obsolete versions around, many also don't take good care of their collection, either keeping the obsoletes for some reason(I've kept some obsoletes in fact- mega man x followed massive improvements, and I wanted to keep morimoto's smb3 and rockman) or just being too lazy to delete them. At any rate, I think that naming convention would be superior. Also, an FTP site would probably be wonderful, I just wonder how long the bandwidth would last.
Former player
Joined: 3/19/2004
Posts: 710
Location: USA
Is he hosting them himself, or on some site? It would be unrealistinc to host them on someother site because there would be a total of 500ish downloads before it runs out. And if he is hosting it on his machine, it should last forever.