I purchased the dvd when it first came out and am overall very happy with it. It is worth the price.
I had no issues loading it onto my Windows machine.
The Magazines in general:
With few exceptions the magazines prior the 1950's are more of historical interest than of practical use to the model railroader.
Not unexpectedly there is a lot of repetition of information, on basic layout design and track configurations, benchwork construction, scenery terchniques and some modeling techniques. It is intersing to see how the quality of scenery has improved, particulary in the more recent years.
The Search:
TheTitle/Keyword Search does not always bring up articles that I know exist, and the Author often doesn't find an authors articles. I have found many of the articles using the Full Text search. When that fails I restort to dearching several on-line indexes like the one on this site.
The Scans:
It would be nice if they were at a higher resolution. However given file size limitations the resolation used may have been the best compromise. Larger files would also load much slower. There are some pages or parts of pages (particulary in older issues the become too blurrly to read when zoomed to a readable size. For instance an approx 1/2 page filler on prototype couplers in one issue from the 1930's. There are small drawing of procably around 100 couplers with their names written in script. It is not readable at any zoom level.
In some cases portions of articles or plans or photographs were not scanned when they were printed on fold out pages. For example:
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
I too have the DVD and feel it was worth the price.
The Search function really could have been better though!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
I had been saving my MRs since the middle 1950s and was happy when the DVD came out. I loaded the whole library on my laptop and was very pleased with the results. I was able to finally get rid of those old moldy boxes of MRs that have followed me since junior high school. I've found the search function to be a little lacking but sometimes it takes me to a place that I had forgotten and that leads to some pleasant reading. All in all I'm happy with the DVD.
Joe
Thanks for the kind words on the DVD set. It was a fun project (as was the newest set, the Special Issue And Archive Collection, which includes a lot of great magazines plus some other items, including several movies). You can click here to learn more about it:
http://www.kalmbachstore.com/15140.html
As far as the search, we did the best we could. It's actually based on the latest version of the trains.com magazine index (only the MR part, of course). Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to check every index entry, or to make sure every article is indexed correctly.
Yes, the screen resolution was a compromise between readibility and file size. We wanted to make sure the text was legible without making the files so large that they would take up a huge amount of space. As it is, the package is pretty large.
Thanks for reading MR,
Terry
I'd like to have it but can't prioritize the price. Any chance it will ever go on sale? It's a personal decision, and I'd go $100 but not likely $200. Not saying it's not "Worth" that but I've got to pace purchases (construction, rolling stock, DCC, etc). Kinda wish I had it when I start scenery, but bought some reference books.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
As the original poster indicated, in a few instances there was some carelessness when it came to reproducing fold out plans (of which there were a fair number even back in the 1930s and 40s).
Speaking personally, I think one area where a screen does not replace paper is in the plans and drawings. And printing off your own computer from the DVD raises its own issues of scale, resolution, distortion in the scanning, and so on.
I am surprised that Kalmbach has let the Cyclopedia vol 2 on diesels go out of print, given how often they refer to it in their product reviews, or update it a little with the (relatively few) subsequently published locomotive drawings. Because it is an example where paper versions retain value, I cannot help but wonder if there would be a market for plan books. MR used to sell plan packs years ago, and back in the 1940s every few years they'd gather the plans they had published into smaller but very meaty Cyclopedias. And some of those older plans in the 1940s were very good quality drawings.
MR mostly publishes structure plans now (if any plans at all) so it is not like large number of freight car, passenger car, and locomotive plans are being added to the total. So a plan book would not go out of date.
Dave Nelson
DSchmitt It would be nice if they were at a higher resolution. However given file size limitations the resolation used may have been the best compromise. Larger files would also load much slower. There are some pages or parts of pages (particulary in older issues the become too blurrly to read when zoomed to a readable size. For instance an approx 1/2 page filler on prototype couplers in one issue from the 1930's. There are small drawing of procably around 100 couplers with their names written in script. It is not readable at any zoom level.
Could you please also show some screen shots of this problem? Also, maybe a screen shot of part of a more typical page?
While loading time may or may not be a problem, depending on one's computer, it's only going to get better over time.
Perhaps it might be wise to wait to purchase this item until they re-scan to a higher standard. Then they can also catch the missing foldouts, too.
I would really like to buy this product; but if it's not fully readable and complete, I think I might just keep all my old copies. I CAN read them.
Ed
I've not seen any such issues except witht he very oldest of the magazines. Once a better press was in use, the quality of the printing on the page went way up, and the scans of such pages are also much better than the old issues. Note also that until the 40's the magazine was in a much smaller format.
My biggest problem is with pages that were printed sideways. Since the app is only a subset of the real Adobe reader, it doesn;t have a convenient rotate option. Short of physically picking up my monitor, there's no way to read them.
The other issue is with the way the content is protected. That renders it impossible to copy a year or two's worth of issues to my tablet and read there - I'd probably be completely through rreading every issue ever by now if I wasn;t restricted to my desktop.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Just discovered , I was wrong about problem with fold out pages. I usually use dual page view . Screenshots in original post are from dual page view. With single page view you get::
Actually the resolution is more than adequate for reading the pages on the computer. I have also printed some pages using my Brother color laser printer. They are not as good quality as the hard copy magazine, but are readable.. Plans scaled 4% undersize. While all the plans on the pages I printed were readable some came out light which made them harder to read than others which printed darker..
Zoom level 1 - one click on page with ZOOM IN TOOL - This is a higher zoom than necessary to make page readable:
Zoom level 2 - Two clicks on page with ZOOM IN TOOL - + and - buttons zoom im oe out in smaller increments
Thanks for the shots!
It looks OK to me. I think I'll "plop" for a copy.
Here is a suggestion for what its worth.
MR should either consider a price decrease or perhaps breaking up the magazines by decades.
Some simply do not want to pay 200 dollars. Others may only be interested in certain eras. The MR history buffs might want the 30s 40s and 50s. Others could be interested in their childhood era of the 60s and 70s. Still others may want to make a small investment and do a test drive, so to speak.
I thew out 25 years of magazines because of the sheer size. Digging through them was a task so I rarely searched out any information.
Personally I would begin with replacing the issues I discarded, and then work backwards if MR would break up the collection into decades or even eras.
Jim