Why .cbr?

[E-Day]

I am just curious as to why RetroMags decided to make the files CBR files instead of PDFs? I almost never see .cbr files unless it's a comic book. It's always PDF.

Just curious

[Phillyman]

I am just curious as to why RetroMags decided to make the files CBR files instead of PDFs? I almost never see .cbr files unless it's a comic book. It's always PDF.

Just curious

I don't think its a decision of one over another, Most people asked for .cbr releases.....If we had more people that could help out we would do dual format releases. I even expressed this fact in the "Positions Available" thread

http://www.retromags.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2234

[meppi]

I'd say the overall quality and ease of use.

Since CBR files are simply image folders which are zipped or rarred and renamed to .cbr it's easy to extract the files and get to the jpegs.

A lot of the time there are problems with compression when jpegs are turned into a PDF, which doesn't happen in a CBR.

I could write a whole page of examples why I prefer CBR over PDF, but to be honest, I'm pretty lazy. :tongue:

I just think of it as a much cleaner format.

[kbf_private_joker]

I agree with meppi. Being able to extract the jpegs without difficulty is great. I also think PDFs are a bit larger in MB size. Seems I remember way back checking that out before joining this site.

My only wish was that the CBR was searchable, but that just gets complicated, so I will settle and be glad for just having hard copies.

I'd say the overall quality and ease of use.

Since CBR files are simply image folders which are zipped or rarred and renamed to .cbr it's easy to extract the files and get to the jpegs.

A lot of the time there are problems with compression when jpegs are turned into a PDF, which doesn't happen in a CBR.

I could write a whole page of examples why I prefer CBR over PDF, but to be honest, I'm pretty lazy. :tongue:

I just think of it as a much cleaner format.

[E-Day]

Interesting. I know almost nothing about CBR files except that they are compressed archives with their extension changed.

I only asked because PDF is a more universal file type. I can always extract the JPEGS from an issue and make a PDF out of them and see what happens. Ultimately the best quality and smallest file size is the most important thing . Making a PDF from JPEGS is easy peasy, so if dual formats were wanted, it would be a breeze to do.

[Phillyman]

Interesting. I know almost nothing about CBR files except that they are compressed archives with their extension changed.

I only asked because PDF is a more universal file type. I can always extract the JPEGS from an issue and make a PDF out of them and see what happens. Ultimately the best quality and smallest file size is the most important thing . Making a PDF from JPEGS is easy peasy, so if dual formats were wanted, it would be a breeze to do.

I have no problem with anyone creating a .pdf release from one of the .cbr releases. I know its kinda easy to just import images into Adobe, but the one thing I did like about .pdf's is that you could hotlink the table of contents to the corresponding page number.

Also since .cbr format almost always comes out first, all you need to do is change maybe 3 lines of the .nfo release file.

Filesize

File Format

Release Date

-Phillyman

[E-Day]

I just gave it a whirl. I tried with EGM Issue 33, which is 116 megs. The PDF with compression set to best quality was 120 megs. So it's almost the same size.

[Schloss Ritter]

I like cbr because they don't take a bloated, resource hogging Adobe program to open and peruse them.

[E-Day]

Adobe Reader isn't bloated. Nor is it resource-hogging.

[Schloss Ritter]

It is when you need Reader 6.0 or better and you're still running an old computer like I am.

[E-Day]

That's not bloatedness though. That's outdatedness . Or something. CBRs seem easy to deal with, but from what I can tell, I can't jump to a certain page number like I can with Adobe Reader.

[Phillyman]

That's not bloatedness though. That's outdatedness . Or something. CBRs seem easy to deal with, but from what I can tell, I can't jump to a certain page number like I can with Adobe Reader.

I think each has its pro's and con's

Again I am not against .pdf files, I just dont personally have the time to create 2 releases for each magazine I scan.

If anyone wants to take it upon themselves to create .pdf files of each magazine, I will give them the information needed to upload the pdf's to this website.

I have enough room for 1000 magazines to be stored

[meppi]

That's not bloatedness though. That's outdatedness . Or something. CBRs seem easy to deal with, but from what I can tell, I can't jump to a certain page number like I can with Adobe Reader.

Well, actually you can. Simply open a cbr, then right-click on it and choose page movement control.

From there you can go to thumbnails or use the slider to go to a specific page.

I wish the thumbnail option would work faster though, or at least be able to save them once you've loaded them before.

I also use a couple of settings which I like, such as :

-Image sizing options:

Fit Width (C+W)

Rotate Scroll Functions

-Color Balance:

Everything off. (otherwise everything looks washed out)

-Yellow Reduction:

set to off

-Program settings:

Forward 2 pages in 2 page mode

backwards 2 pages in 2 page mode

Page buffer size: 8 (improves loading new pages)

You can also push F1 when you have CDisplay open to view a help page which explains all the settings.

Oh, and when I have to use PDFs, I use Foxit reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/), which works much faster on my system, as I also have lots of trouble with Adobe Reader.

[Schloss Ritter]

Oh yeah, I keep meaning to look up Foxit, but I can never remember to when I have the time (like now I'm on my way out).

I'm going to try those settings in CDisplay too. Even though I usually use PicWalker, it doesn't handle large volumes very well and sometimes crashes. I've tried GonVisor too, but my computer doesn't always like that one either.

[E-Day]

That's pretty awesome. I didn't know CDisplay had those functions. Personally I see no change with the colour settings, but that thumbnail function is great

[Spy_Smasher]

Gonna jump on the CBR bandwagon here. I've used both CBRs and PDFs for reading comics and i much prefer the CBR format. It's a bit sleeker resource-wise, you have access to the jpegs and I like the CDisplay interface better too for most uses.

[Gnash]

I rather view using the default winxp viewer. For all you PDF users, Foxit really helps in viewing, loading times are so short that overall it's a better viewer than Adobe. I do get some glitches when viewing texts sometimes, but for images in PDF format it's great.

[mauro]

I think each has its pro's and con's

Again I am not against .pdf files, I just dont personally have the time to create 2 releases for each magazine I scan.

If anyone wants to take it upon themselves to create .pdf files of each magazine, I will give them the information needed to upload the pdf's to this website.

I have enough room for 1000 magazines to be stored

I interested in helping with the conversion from .cbr to .pdf.

How do I have to proceed?

[PeeCloud]

I was wondering why CBR format too, I thought PDF would be much better suited..

If anyone knows about PDF readers, what is the best one?

I've read that Foxit Reader is faster and lighter than Adobe Reader or Acrobat Professional. It doesn't seem any faster with the things I'm viewing, but it's definately quicker to install. Adobe takes ages.

I would switch from Adobe but something's keeping me from doing that.

I've got them both set up to view pages facing. Adobe Acrobat puts the first page at the top-right and the following pages (2 and 3) on the left and the right. That setting looks best for magazine scans.

Foxit doesn't do that (or doesn't seem to be able to as there's hardly any options) and puts the 1st page (the cover) on the left and page 2 to the right of it. This buggers up the look of the whole magazine.

What can I do?

[wildlele]

Please keep these as CBR, PDF is horrible

[meppi]

Please keep these as CBR, PDF is horrible

Don't worry. All magazines will continue to be released as CBR first and perhaps PDF secondary.

The reason why we're not doing it the other way around is because when you try to make a CBR out of a PDF file, there will always be loss in quality, even though in some cases it might be small, the lost would still be there.

JPGs already have a lossy compression format, so focusing on PDFs first would result in a drop in quality which we're not willing to take. :wink:

[wildlele]

Don't worry. All magazines will continue to be released as CBR first and perhaps PDF secondary.

The reason why we're not doing it the other way around is because when you try to make a CBR out of a PDF file, there will always be loss in quality, even though in some cases it might be small, the lost would still be there.

JPGs already have a lossy compression format, so focusing on PDFs first would result in a drop in quality which we're not willing to take. :wink:

Phew keep up the great work it is truly appreciated!

[PeeCloud]

Please keep these as CBR, PDF is horrible

I don't expect them to change I'm really not bothered..

Why do you think PDF is horrible? Do you dislike acrobat?

[PeeCloud]

Don't worry. All magazines will continue to be released as CBR first and perhaps PDF secondary.

The reason why we're not doing it the other way around is because when you try to make a CBR out of a PDF file, there will always be loss in quality, even though in some cases it might be small, the lost would still be there.

JPGs already have a lossy compression format, so focusing on PDFs first would result in a drop in quality which we're not willing to take. :wink:

I don't want to bash your heads in about this, but I've done some tests..

I convert all of my downloaded CBRs to PDF. I extracted the jpegs from a couple of these and compared to the original jpegs from the CBRs. They were exactly the same size. The PDF weighed a few more MBs but that's OK, I'll trade that for the performance I get from opening that compared to CBR - it seems the RAR compression of CBR makes the pages slower to open?

I also dislike the page blur/transition with the CBR readers I've used. Someone pointed out a reader that would display pages side-by-side. I tried it and used up a quater of my RAM! A hundred MB scan used up that ammount of memory and Acrobat was less that half of that..

[meppi]

Depends on what settings and program you use to create the PDFs I guess...

But that's a very interesting point you make about rar files.

I have recently noticed that zip files pack and unpack much faster than rars. Never noticed that before...

Just tested it out with a CBR vs a CBZ as well, and the pages load much more smoothly.

We should make a note of this and from now on zip the image folders and rename them CBZ. I might even start redoing my own CBRs since I always used rars up till now.

the only place where I still need to use rars is to upload multi part magazines to rapidshare since they won't take files larger than 100MB and I can't seem to create multi part zips for some reason.

But still, inside those rar files would still be a CBZ which is just a renamed zipped image folder.