New Release: Super Play Issues 19 (May 1994)

[Depressor]

Retromags Presents!

Super Play Issue 19

May 1994

Database Entry!

Download Directly!

Thanks to Marktrade for scans and for me to editing them)

[aloram]

Thanks Marktrade and Depressor.

[kitsunebi]

While I'm grateful Depressor is editing these SuperPlays, shouldn't the files be resized a bit? They're all over 3500px high. That's a bit extreme for a Retromags release, don't you think?

[marktrade]

While I'm grateful Depressor is editing these SuperPlays, shouldn't the files be resized a bit? They're all over 3500px high. That's a bit extreme for a Retromags release, don't you think?

I've been wondering the same thing myself, but the file sizes are still well below 400mb, which I'm told is a reasonable limit because that's where today's mobile devices start to slow down noticeably handling the file.

Anyway, they are large format magazines, which is typical of UK gaming mags. Physically they are of larger dimension both in height and width from US mags. So at 300 dpi they will have larger dimensions. At some point 300 dpi will be an acceptable standard for all releases, as technology improves. It seems we're getting closer to that point. And I mean real 300 dpi, with dimensions intact. Not pseudo-300-dpi where you change the pixel height, which has been the norm.

[kitsunebi]

Well, I vote for resizing, if not to 2200 then to 2500 max. Speaking as someone with 18 TB of storage on 6 external hard drives, I can assure you that even THAT isn't enough space for long, so I might as well benefit from smaller file sizes on short magazines like SuperPlay. As time goes on, storage gets cheaper, but file sizes increase, and hard drives fill up just the same. With some stuff it makes sense to go higher def, but I don't anticipate ever reading a magazine on a 6-foot-wide 4K display, so I'm pretty sure the file sizes we're currently using will stand up for quite a while. Especially as more and more computing moves into the handheld tablet arena, there simply won't be a need for these images to ever be blown up to giant sizes. At any kind of "reading size," those 3500px mags shouldn't look any better than the same thing saved at 2500px, or even the Retromags' 2200px baseline.

Anyway, just my point of view. I realize I'm free to resize them myself, it's just that (a) I'm too lazy to do that, and b ) I try to avoid compressing compressed file formats when I can (making a smaller jpg of a jpg is like making a smaller mp3 of an mp3 - lossy from lossy = lossier.)

Edited June 6, 2016 by kitsunebi77

[Depressor]

For my needs i convert them to 2500 height (with 80% jpg compression), it's about 90-120 Mb on issue. But here, i think, better store them in so high quality in what possible. Reasonably, of course.

P.S. I save edited files with 90% jpg compression (75% for adverts).

Edited June 6, 2016 by Depressor

[dan]

This is awesome, many thanks for making these available here! Great to read about the predecessor to N64 Magazine (my favourite mag).

I presume since we've skipped to issue 19 that you don't have issue 18?

Dan

[kitsunebi]

I presume since we've skipped to issue 19 that you don't have issue 18?

Yes, that issue wasn't in the batch scanned by Marktrade.

Btw, they aren't as nice-looking as the ones offered here or at outofprintarchive, but just about every issue of SuperPlay is available at the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/superplaymagazine

[KiwiArcader]

Those are Mort's old scans I believe and while they are nice to have if nothing else exists, compared to the new scans the lack of quality is obvious. Great seeing these new scans relegating those old scans to the scrap heap IMHO

[RetroDefense]

I remember E-Day discussing a similar subject a good while ago - cbr file size vs. px. I believe he decided to begin saving his original raw scans so higher rez versions could be released in the future as tech and Internet speeds improved.

With ISP data caps making headway in the states and slow Internet connections still a thing (the horror stories I could tell), I'm willing to compromise.

[kitsunebi]

Yeah, I have no doubt that technology will continue to improve, storage will be cheaper, and monitor resolutions will get better. But the magazines being scanned aren't gonna change. They're stuck at the size and resolution they were printed at. The technology of right now is fully capable of capturing the images on those pages. So unless you think that the scans we are currently making look bad, there's really no room for or need for improvement. The only way a higher resolution is going to matter is if you want to view the magazines on an enormous monitor, or need them blown up for some other purpose, like printing a poster or something. Of course, blown up to those sizes, it will only highlight the limitations of the source material and accentuate it's flaws, rather than provide a better-looking image, since the magazine itself was printed at a resolution to be viewed on a much smaller scale. I just don't see those higher resolutions ever being necessary for the purpose of reading.

[marktrade]

Yeah, I have no doubt that technology will continue to improve, storage will be cheaper, and monitor resolutions will get better. But the magazines being scanned aren't gonna change. They're stuck at the size and resolution they were printed at. The technology of right now is fully capable of capturing the images on those pages. So unless you think that the scans we are currently making look bad, there's really no room for or need for improvement. The only way a higher resolution is going to matter is if you want to view the magazines on an enormous monitor, or need them blown up for some other purpose, like printing a poster or something. Of course, blown up to those sizes, it will only highlight the limitations of the source material and accentuate it's flaws, rather than provide a better-looking image, since the magazine itself was printed at a resolution to be viewed on a much smaller scale. I just don't see those higher resolutions ever being necessary for the purpose of reading.

Forgive me but this sounds like "640K ought to be enough for anyone."

600 DPI may not be necessary, but it sure helps.

I mean look at all those pages in Dengeki PlayStation with all those tiny fanart pictures with handwritten text. You can't tell me a 600 DPI scan wouldn't make that easier to read.

[kitsunebi]

I mean look at all those pages in Dengeki PlayStation with all those tiny fanart pictures with handwritten text. You can't tell me a 600 DPI scan wouldn't make that easier to read.

Well, the reason i say it is because I can't read any of that text you mention when I'm looking at the actual magazine with my nose pressed up against the page. The size is too small and the print fidelity simply isn't there (seriously, they are ridiculous tiny). To be fair, they're printing people's fan art - you aren't meant to read whatever fan letter or whatever else the reader put on the page, and even the art is barely visible since they seem to be trying to fit 10 pages worth of fan art on a single page. Unless the infamous "ENHANCE!" function so prominently featured in just about every movie involving a computer ever becomes a reality (you know, the one where a computer magically allows the police to see some detail in a blurry photo that was never actually captured on film in the first place), I don't see that changing much.

Your example is interesting, but looking through the mags I've made personally, I can't find any instances where the scan isn't easier to read than the mag itself. Full disclosure, my mags are all scanned at 600dpi and resized to 2300px high from there (I don't change them to 300dpi first, but my file sizes are still reasonable, I think.) And if it matters, I've got my cbr reader set to single page display at a constant height of 2200 (nothing to do with the Retromags standard - that's the height I always read my comics at). I would have to say that any text that might be hard to read in one of my scans would be nearly impossible to read in the mag itself, so I can't imagine it would be anything important. At any rate, even if zooming in to the degree you've zoomed in on that example actually had similar results, I don't imagine I would ever have the reader set to that kind of magnification, as it would make reading unwieldy.

Not trying to start a fight, btw, just saying that in the case of a scan of a physical magazine, I believe there are limits to how much fidelity can be captured, just as a 1080p blu-ray transfer of a 480p DVD master isn't going have the clarity of actual HD video. You're always limited by the source.

Anyway, no one but me seems to be bothered, so no worries on the file size. I seemed to recall some people saying that some of Kiwi's stuff was unfit for Retromags unless first resized, but maybe I was mistaken, since now that I look at the editing FAQ, it says that submitting full-sized scans (an example of 3200px is given) is acceptable. At any rate, this discussion seems to be drawing too much attention away from the bottom line which is THANK YOU MARKTRADE AND DEPRESSOR FOR MAKING THESE AVAILABLE!

edit: I just noticed something interesting. CDisplay (the reader I use) isn't capable of displaying anything bigger than 4096px high and will resize to that height if you try to set it higher. Neither here nor there, I was just trying to see how far I had to zoom in before I could see anything blurry at the size of that compressed image above. Didn't actually get there, so I guess I'd need a different reader capable of zooming in more.

Edited June 7, 2016 by kitsunebi77

[Sb20]

Skimming though individual pages, I couldn't help but laugh at the page break on 59. "Good, bad or ugly?" indeed.

[marktrade]

There is something else I think about, which is that in the future these magazines will be read less by human eyes and more by computers used by people searching queries. 300 DPI is the recommended standard for OCR and 600 DPI is recommended to OCR asian text.