Retro Gamer eMagâ„¢ now available

tomfax · Post by **tomfax** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:19 pm

Great news ! I can't afford the overseas subscription so this is quite cheap.

Could you just simply upload a sample page or two so we could stop asking (ourselves) questions about resolution and stuff

And, please, promise it won't be given away as a coverdisk in one year's regular issue

lemon-rev · Post by **lemon-rev** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:02 am

Hello welcome me back please i wont stay long, lol, ok i came back to find out what was happing in the rg scene as it seems it is called since i've seen it being sold about 15 mins walk from where i live, and have happend to come across it.

Anyway i came back to the site and found that the 30 first issues of rg where on a disk and i thought what the hell, ill buy it just for the sake, and see what else i can find on it, since its being an eletronic version of the mag, i can zoom and unzoom how i like, appart from this i hate pdf's lol.

Dear Darren at rg,

Im writing this to you in hope that you hear this clearly, I HATE YOUR BLOWN UP PICTURES THAT LOOK FAR TOO FAR OUT OF FOCUS. please stop this if possible to fill in space. i like the small blown up material to a degree. I know im the one who was always harsh at things and still am, sorry about that. Ok Darren livepublishing did try serveral times to make its mark on the old style computer mag's and then just gave them up, which is sooooo verry disspointing because some of what they did was brilliant on anyones terms.

I've read so far your interview you did with martyn and im more or less take pitty on you now that you've come out and said what you have in that you've been just like almost everyother old computer mag thats come out and had verry little resources to do so. Ill try not to give too much away, sorry readers you'll have to buy 30 first issues on cd to find out what im talking about. Ill check my inbox hopefully untill the next week if anyone else wishes to say something on this post.

good luck with mag ill check back once a blue moon, catch you later.

ps. I found a c64 in good nick with out orgional tv but casset games, joysticks lovely to think what it did, just need to plug the damm thing in to test it haha. Later people, have fun.

mrCustard · Post by **mrCustard** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:31 pm

Just looked at the Disc! Not bad at all! It's great to finally get a look at the magazines i could not buy here in the Netherlands (and before i got a subscription).

Like some ppl already mentioned, the only real downer is the low quality bitmap images in the magazine PDFs. However, all the articles in the Quicksearch folder have high resolution bitmaps. Is this a quality control issue ?

Oher than that, great work!

Ikrananka · Post by **Ikrananka** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 2:56 pm

Got mine here in Canada yesterday - was posted on 27th July - so took over one month to get to me!!!! As there was no customs declaration on the package Canadian customs took it off to one side, sat on it, placed very heavy weights on it, threw it off a bridge just as a train was passing underneath, opened it and said whoops when they saw the damage they had done to the DVD case, and then quickly resealed the package with a small piece if tape and then sent it on to me.

Imagine Publishing - please, please, please send international packages with a customs declaration. In particular, Canadian customs are extremely zealous when it comes to checking incoming packets and parcels.

Impressions with the disc so far are good. Tried the advanced search, got results but then errors when clicking on the links. Could be a problem with my office computer so will try at home.

Quaid · Post by **Quaid** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 4:49 pm

Ikrananka wrote:
Imagine Publishing - please, please, please send international packages with a customs declaration. In particular, Canadian customs are extremely zealous when it comes to checking incoming packets and parcels.

Impressions with the disc so far are good. Tried the advanced search, got results but then errors when clicking on the links. Could be a problem with my office computer so will try at home.

We'll look into the customs declaration, Ikrananka. Apologies for the state of the package, hope you enjoy the disc.

rainbird rich · Post by **rainbird rich** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 4:05 am

Out of interest, what is the legal situation with Imagine Publishing reprinting articles (electronically or otherwise) that were originally contracted to Live Publishing? Should the original authors have been consulted in any way first?

Darran@Retro Gamer wrote:A few articles have been lost due to various reasons, so I wouldn't recommend selling all your original issues.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:16 am

When we signed the contracts for writing for Imagine, we also gave them permission to re-use our work from Live. So anyone who is currently writing for RG will have allowed their old work to be included.

rainbird rich · Post by **rainbird rich** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:20 am

Mayhem wrote:When we signed the contracts for writing for Imagine, we also gave them permission to re-use our work from Live. So anyone who is currently writing for RG will have allowed their old work to be included.

Well, that's a bit of a sweeping statement as I have my Imagine Publishing Freelance Contract right here and that certainly isn't the case for me.

I have never signed anything or been asked for permission to reproduce the articles I had published under the old Retro Gamer regime. So, is this something I should be getting annoyed about?

I have it in writing (as an email from three years ago) that Live Publishing weren't necessarily the owner of the articles I had written, so what makes Imagine Publishing think they are?

cjwalker · Post by **cjwalker** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:22 pm

Do the eMags have porn ads at the back too?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:18 am

I've replied to Rich privately regarding this issue, we writers had exactly the same discussion at the back end of 2005 when RG was starting back up...

Dudley wrote:And just to stir this one further, what about articles for Live issue 18 where the author was never paid, surely the contract doesn't apply in those cases.

Issue 19... as we were never paid, they were automatically ours still anyhow. However, when Live went kaput because none of us had signed contracts, rights to all the articles reverted back to us. Part of signing the Imagine contact meant it could re-use our Live stuff. So anyone not signing the new Imagine contact (ie. not now writing for the magazine) should not have any of their stuff on the CD...

Darran@Retro Gamer · Post by **Darran@Retro Gamer** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:55 pm

If you have a query with your contract Richard, please actually contact me about it, either by my usual address or via pm, instead of just posting on the forum where I may not actually see it.

If you want an answer about anything it makes more sense to contact me directly about it.

woody.cool · Post by **woody.cool** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:35 am

I will have to buy that! It will save have to tke my RG mags with me when I'm away with work.

Japster · Post by **Japster** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:59 pm

The Master wrote:OK, overall the execution of this is splendid, full of nice little touches that make you feel warm inside, and being able to search in so many weird and wonderful ways will prove very useful, I'm sure.

My only real complaint is the image resolution on some of the smaller pics (especially evident on the multi-screenshot pages, for instance) - the pics seem to be saved in preview quality, which makes details pretty hard to make out - also check out the "from the forum" screengrab on issue 20 page 21 for a more extreme example. Being as there's still quite a lot of unused space on the DVD, I would have hoped for slightly better. Most of the larger "main" images are fine, though.

Or is this just my PC playing silly buggers? Not had a chance to check it out on another machine yet. Can anyone else comment?

I have to agree - Love the little touches, and the way it's all been put together, but yes - the bitmaps are Waaaay bad - Given that this is on a DVD, with plenty of space left over, it's a shame someone got zealous with the compression/quality ratio....

I now find myself referring to my actual back issues anyway at some points, simply because of that... shame, as part of the nostalgia is looking at a nice crisp retro screenshot!

Can this not be re-cut with higher-def images? - I'd buy it again, as it's a shame as it stands! (My, aren't we a picky bunch!)...

Other than that - a GREAT idea, and MORe than welcome to have it all to hand, and SEARCHABLE?! - Genius.

Den.

Post by **ImagineForumAdmin** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:21 am

Dear all,

After reading your posts we just wanted to give you a quick explanation as to why you are experiencing this problem with low resolution images.

On creating our eMag format (the PDF files that contains every page that appears in an issue of the magazine) we found that if we left all the images at print resolution it took far too long to load each eMag in Acrobat Reader. Post testing we took the decision to reduce the resolution of images in the eMag to 72dpi so that the files opened as quickly as possible.

We then realised that some images may be effected by this compression to much (such as the your examples above) which is why we have included the 'Quicksearch' Section on the disc. This section allows you to search through the articles of the magazine as individual PDF pages which have not been compressed to such a high level. These files are to a standard that you can print out.

Hope that clears a few things up

Jango

driver695 · Post by **driver695** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:58 am

Hi All,
Just a few questions re. the eMag...

* Does the eMag contain the covermount CDs?

* Does it incl. the info pages about the CD - ie. how to get the emulators running, etc?

* Can anyone tell me what articles of note have not been included?

Many thanks,
Andy

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