When I read the news that Model Railroader was finally going to transfer the old issues to CD I thought I would purchase a set when they are released.
However, during the interim I have had the opportunity to read the Model Railroad News on line edition for June. I have a new subscription and have had some problems obtaining the magazine. I do not know if the online edition will be the same price as a subscription but if I had to pay the same I would opt for the paper editions. I received a note that they moved the date forward for their on line edition and they are now testing it with their subscribers.
I find the paper issue to be more desirable than the on-line issue. Tabbing through the issue on line is much more cumbersome that what I thought. A single page will not fit on the screen and advancing the page to the next section often takes one to the next page and your have to go back.
I am now undecided about purchasing the Model Railroader CD collection.
When I come across something that won’t fit on the screen, I hit the CTRL key and the “hyphen” key at the same time, and everything appears a bit smaller…you can do that again and again, to make it the size you deem easier to work with. (The “plus” key takes things the other way)
Singing: One key makes you larger, one key makes you small…
It will probably work similar to the Trains on DVD collection.
When you open a magazine the cover appears , sized to fit within the height of the screen.
Buttons allow selection of a two page view (same size pages as the one page view), thumb nail view (clickable thumbnails), or list view (clickable index). .
Everyone likes their wide screen for movies - but for reading/typesetting, a vertical (portraint) alignment is better. Some monitors can swivel. and depending on your operating system, the display can be adjust for such. In some cases a 4:3 ‘square’ screen is better than a wide screen - a 19" diagonal 4:3 screen usually has a better vertical resolution than a 19" or even 20" 16:9 wide screen.
Since no one format is ideal for all situations, the flip monitors are probably the best. Next time I’m thinking of getting one. That way I’ll have a nice landscape wide screen to watch movies on, or a nice tall portrait format to read on.
Sure, they could do that, but are you willing to pay $100 per decade?
Producing multiple sets on multiple discs will have a large influence on the final price. It is a lot cheaper to press the whole series as a set than to invest the time in breaking it up and mastering 6 or 8 individual volumes.
People who are already complaining about the $200 price tag will certainly have something to say when the 3 decades they want cost more than $200.
Then you get the problem where some volumes will sell well, others won’t, as people cherry pick the issues they want. Five years from now we’ll hear the howls when they can’t get the volume they want, because it isn’t being produced due to low demand.
Sort of like people who complain about how much is costs to put DCC decoders in locos won’t buy a 10 pack of D13SRJ decoders for $120 ($12 per) but will convert 10 locos one at a time with a $25 decoder. Forego the instant gratification and you cna save significant money over the long term.
The price of the MR DVD is more than reasonable. It’s less per YEAR then they charge for most SINGLE back issues. Even if you are only interested in the most recent 10-15 years and not the older ones, it’s STILL way less expensive than they charge for individual issues.
Curious what they’ve been saying on the Atlas forums, I’m not about to join there as I’m already on too many forums and I have little reason to be on Atlas’ or Bachmann’s since outside of Atlas track I use very few of either of their products.
Well, I’ll save you the trouble of reading the Atlas forums: It is the same moaning about the cost, speculation about features and content, and more moaning about the cost from people who wouldn’t buy it anyway. Plus those who won’t buy it until it shows up on the shelf at a hobby shop, and probably won’t in the end anyway.
After all these years of asking, and being told there was no plan to produce an archive on DVD, seems no one wants it after all.
Your comparison with DCC is pretty close to the mark too. The biggest excuse seems to be “but I have to install Tsunamis in all my locos within a week of going DCC, and that would cost too much for my 200 unit roster.”
I ordered it and I’m glad I did. I can’t wait until I can browse through some of those old issues that I read in my far away youth. For those who prefer to kvetch please do so and enjoy yourselves. I’m sure that if it was issued with a set of gold medallions there would be some who would complain that they were not platinum.
I’m pretty amazed about the moaning and groaning from a select few about the price, format, size, shape of the box, etc. of this product. It all offers further proof that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. At the end of the day, the product will either sell or it won’t sell. In the meantime, given the multiple threads I’ve read on the subject both here and elsewhere, there will be plenty more hot air expelled from a few folks who think they know a lot more about modern day publishing than they really know. In the end, Kalmbach Publishing has been around for some 85 plus years and I suspect they’ll probably be in existence for quite a few more with or without the self appointed “experts” on the subject.