The Complete National Geographic (released Oct. 30)

Syniurge · 10-27-2009, 07:56 PM

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/completeng/

This has surprisingly not received any coverage anywhere

In three days will be the first time since 2004's withdrawal decision due to copyright infringement claims (Greenberg vs National Geographic) that National Geographic will be releasing a six DVD box-set resurrecting every issue of the magazine from 1888 to december 2008 in high resolution.

Now unfortunately for us victims of the artificial scarcity age, while 120 years of National Geographic may sound appealing to explore the archives will be browsable via an Adobe AIR application and may not come in open formats, nowhere the site mentions whether the scans can be extracted, for example to be converted into ebook formats.
Printing is allowed according to the FAQ though, which means articles could still easily be retrieved as PDF, I hope.

I'll ask their support if this isn't clarified in the coming days.

brecklundin · 10-27-2009, 08:18 PM

WOW...if only we had color readers...still what a pure joy to buy for your kids, or heck even yourself!!

Ervserver · 10-27-2009, 09:42 PM

would make a great Christmas present

fugazied · 10-27-2009, 10:01 PM

Adobe Air doesn't necessarily mean it will be wrapped up in some shoddy proprietary wrapper. Sometimes the apps that run in Air are just HTML and PNG/JPG Images with Air used to provide navigation and structure to the materials.

So hopefully that will be the case here. What an incredible christmas present for the family! Reasonably priced too!

ardeegee · 10-27-2009, 10:08 PM

The old version of this was just a huge number of low-quality jpegs with a clumsy piece of custom software for viewing them. I would search for the subject I wanted in the index and then go to the folders and grab the jpegs I wanted. (I have the old version that is on 31 CD-ROMs-- found the box set at a Goodwill store for 7 bucks.)

I just did a search and I still have on my HD some images I extracted from the old CDs years ago. If it is okay to post, you can see the low quality of the jpegs (which I didn't alter in any way from the originals.) Hopefully, this set is all new scans.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/69esdl

Edit to add, I see the price is just 60 bucks! The original was IIRC $200 (which is why I never bought the DVD set before they went out of print.)

Nate the great · 10-27-2009, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardeegee

The old version of this was just a huge number of low-quality jpegs with a clumsy piece of custom software for viewing them. I would search for the subject I wanted in the index and then go to the folders and grab the jpegs I wanted. (I have the old version that is on 31 CD-ROMs-- found the box set at a Goodwill store for 7 bucks.)

I just did a search and I still have on my HD some images I extracted from the old CDs years ago. If it is okay to post, you can see the low quality of the jpegs (which I didn't alter in any way from the originals.) Hopefully, this set is all new scans.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/69esdl

Edit to add, I see the price is just 60 bucks! The original was IIRC $200 (which is why I never bought the DVD set before they went out of print.)

Do you still have the CDs? If so, would you mind posting everything before 1923? It's in the public domain, so MR can host a copy.

Verencat · 10-27-2009, 10:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardeegee

The old version of this was just a huge number of low-quality jpegs with a clumsy piece of custom software for viewing them. I would search for the subject I wanted in the index and then go to the folders and grab the jpegs I wanted. (I have the old version that is on 31 CD-ROMs-- found the box set at a Goodwill store for 7 bucks.)

I just did a search and I still have on my HD some images I extracted from the old CDs years ago. If it is okay to post, you can see the low quality of the jpegs (which I didn't alter in any way from the originals.) Hopefully, this set is all new scans.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/69esdl

The video on the page linked in the first post indicates that the search methods now include year and/or month of publication, region (by clicking on a region on the globe) and subject, and they also have suggested reading lists. It looks fairly interactive and even includes a trivia (now who can resist a trivia!). They speak of high resolution scan, so I'm guessing it's been rescanned.

Quote:

Edit to add, I see the price is just 60 bucks! The original was IIRC $200 (which is why I never bought the DVD set before they went out of print.)

A new need was just created!

If only the articles could be adapted to e-book format...

ardeegee · 10-27-2009, 11:34 PM

I was thinking about a project I attempted with the old CD-ROM set where I tried to transfer them all to a few DVDs. It could have worked, if how the software looked up the pages needed was by the folder names (they were sorted into folders named after the year and month of publication.) That didn't work, but I found that there was lots of unused space on each of the 31 CDs, and a copy of the database and software was stored on every CD-- so there was around only 350 MB or so (as best as I can recall) of actual data on each CD, and all the data could fit on around 3 single-layer DVDs (DVD-5s.)

This new set comes on 6 DVDs. I doubt that they would put it on 6 DVD-5s if they could have fit it on fewer dual-layer discs (DVD-9s), so I assume this is 6 DVD-9s, or around 48 GB of space-- around 4x the space that is used by the old 31 CD-ROM collection. So that would imply new, better scans. It'd be great if they included all the multiple-page maps and the audio recordings that came with a few issues, too. (None of that was included last time.)

CleverClothe · 10-28-2009, 03:36 AM

Amazon has this for $45:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Natio...6711459&sr=8-1

Sweetpea · 10-28-2009, 07:49 AM

What a coincidence! I was just looking at those CD's yesterday and wondered if there was a new version out, with better quality scans. And as mine don't go beyond 1997, I'm very interested in this one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Do you still have the CDs? If so, would you mind posting everything before 1923? It's in the public domain, so MR can host a copy.

It's large... There are about 8 CD's worth (1888-1909 4 CD's, 1910-1919 3CD's and 1920-1923 1 CD.

(oh, and I was thinking of buying this edition: http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/n...-gb-hard-drive)

Abecedary · 10-28-2009, 10:51 AM

I had a chance to play with this briefly a few days ago, and I can confirm that they are new scans. However, I'm not sure what resolution they were done at. But I can assure you that they are much improved from the older sets that were available (low res where you could barely make out the text on some pages). Also, I was looking at one of the maps in the set, and it appeared that at least the newer ones utilize the vector source files (I was able to zoom in pretty far while still retaining nice crisp lines). No idea how the older ones were transferred, though. I should have a set within a few weeks to fill in any more details.

ardeegee · 10-28-2009, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

It's large... There are about 8 CD's worth (1888-1909 4 CD's, 1910-1919 3CD's and 1920-1923 1 CD.

Yeah, I pulled the files from 1888 to 1922 from the CDs just to see how big it would be, and it is 1.45 GB zipped up.

Quote:

(oh, and I was thinking of buying this edition: http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/n...-gb-hard-drive)

An extra 150 bucks for a 160 GB HD is highway robbery. That version should be at most $50 more than the DVD version, and even that is stretching it. Buy the DVD version, and get your own 160 MB external drive for under 50 bucks:

http://www.pricewatch.com/browse/har...s/pocket_160gb

What I want is a version on a USB flash drive when the 64 GB (the probable size that would be needed) get cheap. For no other reason than that it'd be cool to have 120 years of National Geo on something that you can close in the palm of your hand.

Sweetpea · 10-28-2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Buy the DVD version, and get your own 160 MB external drive for under 50 bucks:

But, I won't get the cool print then!

Also, an external HD (of 160GB) here is about $100 (depending a bit on the brand).

HarryT · 10-28-2009, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Do you still have the CDs? If so, would you mind posting everything before 1923? It's in the public domain, so MR can host a copy.

Does that fact that the pre-1923 magazines are in the US public domain necessarily mean that these scans are? If I take a photograph of the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre, it's my photograph, and I have the right to control its distribution, even though the image in the photograph is in the public domain.

acidzebra · 10-28-2009, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But, I won't get the cool print then!

Also, an external HD (of 160GB) here is about $100 (depending a bit on the brand).

I don't know about stores in the north but most of NL you can get external 1 TB drives for something like less than 90 euro.

http://www.mediamarkt.nl/webapp/wcs/...ntryId=1508677

(unless you want the itty bitty ones, those are more expensive)

10-27-2009, 07:56 PM	#1
Syniurge Enthusiast Posts: 47 Karma: 18498 Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: France Device: PRS-650	The Complete National Geographic (released Oct. 30) http://www.nationalgeographic.com/completeng/ This has surprisingly not received any coverage anywhere In three days will be the first time since 2004's withdrawal decision due to copyright infringement claims (Greenberg vs National Geographic) that National Geographic will be releasing a six DVD box-set resurrecting every issue of the magazine from 1888 to december 2008 in high resolution. Now unfortunately for us victims of the artificial scarcity age, while 120 years of National Geographic may sound appealing to explore the archives will be browsable via an Adobe AIR application and may not come in open formats, nowhere the site mentions whether the scans can be extracted, for example to be converted into ebook formats. Printing is allowed according to the FAQ though, which means articles could still easily be retrieved as PDF, I hope. I'll ask their support if this isn't clarified in the coming days. Last edited by Syniurge; 10-29-2009 at 12:54 PM.

10-27-2009, 10:08 PM	#5
ardeegee Maratus speciosus butt Posts: 3,292 Karma: 1162698 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-350	The old version of this was just a huge number of low-quality jpegs with a clumsy piece of custom software for viewing them. I would search for the subject I wanted in the index and then go to the folders and grab the jpegs I wanted. (I have the old version that is on 31 CD-ROMs-- found the box set at a Goodwill store for 7 bucks.) I just did a search and I still have on my HD some images I extracted from the old CDs years ago. If it is okay to post, you can see the low quality of the jpegs (which I didn't alter in any way from the originals.) Hopefully, this set is all new scans. http://www.sendspace.com/file/69esdl Edit to add, I see the price is just 60 bucks! The original was IIRC $200 (which is why I never bought the DVD set before they went out of print.) Last edited by ardeegee; 10-27-2009 at 10:12 PM.

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10-27-2009, 08:18 PM	#2
brecklundin Banned Posts: 1,906 Karma: 15348 Join Date: Jun 2007 Device: mine	WOW...if only we had color readers...still what a pure joy to buy for your kids, or heck even yourself!!

10-27-2009, 09:42 PM	#3
Ervserver Wizard Posts: 2,624 Karma: 1008294 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Iowa, USA Device: Nook Simple Touch	would make a great Christmas present

10-27-2009, 10:01 PM	#4
fugazied Wizard Posts: 1,305 Karma: 1958 Join Date: Jan 2009 Device: iPod Touch	Adobe Air doesn't necessarily mean it will be wrapped up in some shoddy proprietary wrapper. Sometimes the apps that run in Air are just HTML and PNG/JPG Images with Air used to provide navigation and structure to the materials. So hopefully that will be the case here. What an incredible christmas present for the family! Reasonably priced too!

10-27-2009, 11:34 PM	#8
ardeegee Maratus speciosus butt Posts: 3,292 Karma: 1162698 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-350	I was thinking about a project I attempted with the old CD-ROM set where I tried to transfer them all to a few DVDs. It could have worked, if how the software looked up the pages needed was by the folder names (they were sorted into folders named after the year and month of publication.) That didn't work, but I found that there was lots of unused space on each of the 31 CDs, and a copy of the database and software was stored on every CD-- so there was around only 350 MB or so (as best as I can recall) of actual data on each CD, and all the data could fit on around 3 single-layer DVDs (DVD-5s.) This new set comes on 6 DVDs. I doubt that they would put it on 6 DVD-5s if they could have fit it on fewer dual-layer discs (DVD-9s), so I assume this is 6 DVD-9s, or around 48 GB of space-- around 4x the space that is used by the old 31 CD-ROM collection. So that would imply new, better scans. It'd be great if they included all the multiple-page maps and the audio recordings that came with a few issues, too. (None of that was included last time.)

10-28-2009, 03:36 AM	#9
CleverClothe Guru Posts: 618 Karma: 493394 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Seattle, WA Device: iRex iLiad, Onyx Boox 60	Amazon has this for $45: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Natio...6711459&sr=8-1

10-28-2009, 10:51 AM	#11
Abecedary Exwyzeeologist Posts: 535 Karma: 3261 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: :PRS-505::iPod touch:	I had a chance to play with this briefly a few days ago, and I can confirm that they are new scans. However, I'm not sure what resolution they were done at. But I can assure you that they are much improved from the older sets that were available (low res where you could barely make out the text on some pages). Also, I was looking at one of the maps in the set, and it appeared that at least the newer ones utilize the vector source files (I was able to zoom in pretty far while still retaining nice crisp lines). No idea how the older ones were transferred, though. I should have a set within a few weeks to fill in any more details.

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