nothing to do with anything

offtopic:

Do you want to donate me some money so I can buy more games? ^_^

ontopic:
You have to make a trade-off for people with older computers, as they cannot use the highest compression modes available. Especially RAM is the issue.

thanks

www.ebay.com

well, this site might be - on the paper. but when you look at it, what's really happening -
ther's no way to trace back those images to actual CDs - how is this an preservation? it's an charade.
it has been discussed a lot among staff, and nothing has changed
since talking is useless, being an 'Dumper' mysel like you are,
that's about only other option i have left to try to influence anything here.
but i wouldn't want to hijack this thread with this, it has nothing to do with Merged Compression

it has nothing to do with BadSector. i personally have a great respect for him.
i'm not uploading for a while, just said it now.

Can you tell me any side that does correct "preservation"? :x

There is an interesting article on english Wikipedia that outlines most things what preservation is about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation

Currently the redump.org project does only two of the strategies mentioned there: migration and replication.

Migration from the physical media to one or more binary files and a cue text file that represents the TOC of the disc. This is done using more or less accurate steps (offset detection and that).

Replication for this information gotten by migration by "spreading" it over the world to other people. Since all of the data is copyrighted and the project has no permission to replicate it (yet), this could be called a copyright violation or piracy. (The difference to actual preservation done by the various 'institutes' is that we do the replication publically, which means that everyone could be a preservation mirror.)

What is missing for actual preservation is the attached metadata with more information. This is currently implemented on the redump.org website in a limited way. Ideally this data should be included with the binary copies that were migrated and should be replicated.
Also everything else that were with the physical media should be preserved (Cover, Manual).

One has to note that even the SPS (Software Preservation Society), which is actively archiving the contents of various (floppy) disk formats since 2001, is not able to accurately write back their IPF images to physical media (at least they have not released any piece of software/hardware able to do that yet).

So what should be done to make it "real preservation" for you? For myself, including metadata that has more information how the dump has been obtained would be a good starting point.

Addendum: Just to add, you cannot force people to actually help preserving. Most people do not really care about it, they just think redump.org is a good way to get clean images for playing the games with an emulator. Having a dat file available to everyone just implies that you want to have the images spread for everyone (else the checksum information on the site would be enough for people to verify they have a good image).

dont worry about it , Im constantly working on a project which will provide proper grouping/relations between game/edition/dump and many other stuff for best preservation of information
f.e. various naming scheme for generating dats, private lists etc..

you guys can check early alpha version of this project at:
http://vg-database.com

and dont just look, but browse some stuff , because user interface is currently completely non intuitive
no documentation yet... etc , but gimme some more time and all will be ready

PS.
oh, and registrations are open if anyone would like to check forms for adding stuff, all data on the site is managable by users, using submition system for normal users and immediate change for users with priviledges...

I guess, it would be better to include all the metadata in the dat.

This type of thing has been discussed before over at No-Intro http://forums.no-intro.org/viewtopic.ph … amp;t=1331 and I'm sure in other dumping groups as well. Unless you want to make "themabus dumping project" where the only member is yourself that is the only way to guarantee that every image was dumped from an actual retail disc. FitzRoy from No-Intro said it best "The only person you can trust 100% is yourself."

A friend of mine brought up a great point when he said a lot of people could care less about where a dump came from or how the dump is tagged they just want a clean copy of a game to run in a emulator. The dumping community will always be small it always has been this is not a hobby most people want to get involved with because it either takes special hardware, it's expensive, it's "too hard", or simply the desire to do so is not there. So holding back dumps from your fellow dumpers just because you want more people to dump or you don't agree with the naming scheme is just low. This hobby will never be mainstream and it will never be perfect. Accept it for what it's trying to do and continue foward.

kiczek brings up some really vaild points and I agree 100% when he said "If you arent planning on sharing your dumps why share your hash information?." Dumping disc based media is tough because a lot of the discs we purchase and dump are used and rarely if ever in new condition. Sometimes I have to buy multiple copies of a disc to get a good dump because the previous discs weren't suitable for dumping do to scratches or abrasions. Consider yourself lucky themabus that you have been so successful in getting complete dumps from import media.

Throwing up a ebay link is laughable give me a break man my point was that dumping imports is expensive and it's not guaranteed that the disc you purchase from ebay will be suitable for dumping. It seems that the only reason your holding this little protest is because you have dumped some games that are hard for people to obtain and your using that as leverage to get what you want. Pretty sad man it definitely says a lot about your character. Oh well your going to do what you want to do and everything said here is just my opinion. If you take a step back then that's fine there will always be someone there to replace you.

the great thing about an open database like this is that ANYONE can challenge the results by simply buying the game and comparing.

it reminds me of scientific evidence, no matter how much evidence you accumulate (in this case the amount of dumpers with matching checksums), you can never have 100% PROOF unless you do it yourself. thats why a database is not about absolutes, but credence. redump.org provides credence that an image has been dumped properly, thats all that it can do. but considering we're all going to be dead one day, the amount of effort put into ensuring a correct dump has been done as happens on redump, makes us look like professional archivists. on UG, there used to be complaints about images that were incorrectly dumped, this hasnt been the case with the redumps sets and i think that says something, especially when you look at how popular they have become on that tracker (the thread is almost 40 pages long!).

if you ever expect redump to be as popular as no-intro, then the only way to accomplish this is keep on keepin on, dump images and spread sets.

When you obtain dumper status you can use the 'New Disc' function which has exactly that

ps. could anyone tell me what this topic is about? I seem to have missed something.

The same issue I mentioned here is in the other thread about the missing games list on UG wiki. (The US/PAL lists are title only and don't correlate with the editions dumped)

Maybe a hand-edited clrmame dat would be sufficient for most info that is now only available on the website.

But still dat and images go a different way. Ideally each image needs to have a file with it that explains what it is, where it is from, additional info about the file and much more.
Even the scene gets this right nowadays with their nice-looking nfos (just look at some nfos from DS roms). Though scene is not about preservation, their NFOs provide good information.