How Do I Upload My Scan?

[Raspoutine]

Hi all,

I just finished to scan the Nintendo Final Fantasy III Player's Guide. It's already in PDF format and ready to enjoy but I don't know how to upload the file. Could someone give a hand?

[Thor]

Sorry but we don't use that format. Is this something you scanned yourself?

If it is please take the scans and make sure that you have set the resolution for each page to 1280x1800 and number each file in some kind of order that will obviously keep them in the correct order ie; 000, 001, 002 and so on.

Put them into a folder and archive them as a .RAR Once that is done change the RAR extension to CBR. Then zip or rar that cbr file, lastly upload it to mega share or some other file sharing site and let us know.

After that we will get it uploaded to the server and give you the credit for the work you've done.

[Raspoutine]

The original scans were 2301x3030 pixels @ 300 dpi. Most pages were saved directly in pdf format using the Epson scanning tool and end up 194.8x256.6 mm (about 700 KB each). Some damaged pages were saved in tiff format, cleaned up and converted to pdf using Adore Pro 6.0. Unfortunately I made all this before sneaking in the forums, so for most pages I don't have the individual tiff images. Instead I have only bunches of pdf files (10 pages per file). I'm not going to rescan the whole thing a second time, you know how long it is. I understand that by uploading the individual pages, people can manipulate them at will and ameliorate the final product, but this is my first time and I did not use the correct way. The final result is nevertheless very good so I hope it's going to be uploaded on this site. After all, I'm giving it to you. Should I upload it on MegaShare or is it a waste of time?

[triverse]

Sorry but we don't use that format. Is this something you scanned yourself?

If it is please take the scans and make sure that you have set the resolution for each page to 1280x1800 and number each file in some kind of order that will obviously keep them in the correct order ie; 000, 001, 002 and so on.

Put them into a folder and archive them as a .RAR Once that is done change the RAR extension to CBR. Then zip or rar that cbr file, lastly upload it to mega share or some other file sharing site and let us know.

After that we will get it uploaded to the server and give you the credit for the work you've done.

Um, there have been several releases in PDF format. EGM has a PDF sub category available. I think it is safe to say that the format is accepted, may not be the ideal format that most members want but still, it is being used for some releases. Besides, it is not hard to take a PDF and save the individual pages as seperate files and to re-release it in the preferred format here, along with the PDF.

Raspoutine, go ahead and upload it to something like Rapidshare or megaupload so that someone can get to it and have it added (I can volunteer to try and convert it over to cbz for an extra release for you).

[Raspoutine]

Ok, I played a bit with the Gimp and found out that I can pretty easily convert back the images. I will upload them as separate files. After searching around I found out that the width of the images should be 1280 OR 1440, which one should I use? From the height/width ratio of my original files, the final height might not be exactly 1800 as expected, does that matter? Is JPEG an acceptable format?

[triverse]

Ok, I played a bit with the Gimp and found out that I can pretty easily convert back the images. I will upload them as separate files. After searching around I found out that the width of the images should be 1280 OR 1440, which one should I use? From the height/width ratio of my original files, the final height might not be exactly 1800 as expected, does that matter? Is JPEG an acceptable format?

I use Gimp for my editing, after getting used to it, it isn't so bad, but it is a steep learning curve.

Ok, for the height, don't worry about that, the thing to look at is the width, which is going with the 1440 (for widescreen compatibility really, still looks fine on regular monitors too). My scans, the height is all over the place (my scanner misses the very edge, about 1/8th of an inch if the page is butted up so I have to rotate and cut each one individually). Just do the resize and make sure the height and width are connected in gimp and type in 1441 or something then press the down arrow once, it will automatically resize the height to be in proportion.

JPEG's are what almost every release on here is, download a release or two, unzip, rename the cbz (to zip) or cbr (to rar) and unzip that, there are all of the individual files for viewing.

Hope that helps.

[meppi]

Yeah, I'd go with 1440 without a doubt.

As for the PDF thing, there are indeed quite a bit of pdf files on the site, but that's only because certain people prefer that format for whatever reason.

And it must be noted that those are all secondary copies. So when accepting new issues we'd take cbz and cbr files only, since 95% of people around here use those and only those.

If others want to convert them to PDFs and put them up as secondary versions, that would be fine.

At least as long as we don't get into trouble with storage capacity or anything like that. If we ever do, I'm afraid the PDF version would be the first ones to go, since they are just that, duplicates of the original CBZ files.

[E-Day]

It is also safe to go with a width of 1600, which is what I do. But 1400 seems to be the new standard. I like to stay ahead of the curve

[triverse]

It is also safe to go with a width of 1600, which is what I do. But 1400 seems to be the new standard. I like to stay ahead of the curve

When I get to my new place and have a faster upload rate (hate being on 5 to 10k a second uploads) I am going to take a look at the 1600 width settings. Can't really do it right now because it does add quite a bit to the file size.

[meppi]

When I get to my new place and have a faster upload rate (hate being on 5 to 10k a second uploads) I am going to take a look at the 1600 width settings. Can't really do it right now because it does add quite a bit to the file size.

Yeah, I did that myself when I got my new computer. But at this time it seems a bit like overkill.

I weighed the pro's and con's of 1280,1440 and 1600 and thought that 1440 was the best solution when comparing overall quality to size.

Obviously 1600 is superior but the file size becomes huge at that point and with the current technology it's not very feasible yet. Might be in 5 years or so when we all have blue-ray writers as standard and download speeds of 256MB/sec and HDDs of 500TB.

There is naturally a way to keep down the file size of a 1600 scan, but that would mean saving the JPGs at lower quality settings then a 9 in Photoshop (might be a 10 in Gimp) which would actually be counterproductive as you'd be losing the exact same thing you'd hope to be gaining: detail and clarity.

[E-Day]

Saving a JPEG at a setting of 8 in Photoshop still gives you an excellent image, and the file size is a decent chunk smaller.

[triverse]

Yeah, I did that myself when I got my new computer. But at this time it seems a bit like overkill.

I weighed the pro's and con's of 1280,1440 and 1600 and thought that 1440 was the best solution when comparing overall quality to size.

Obviously 1600 is superior but the file size becomes huge at that point and with the current technology it's not very feasible yet. Might be in 5 years or so when we all have blue-ray writers as standard and download speeds of 256MB/sec and HDDs of 500TB.

There is naturally a way to keep down the file size of a 1600 scan, but that would mean saving the JPGs at lower quality settings then a 9 in Photoshop (might be a 10 in Gimp) which would actually be counterproductive as you'd be losing the exact same thing you'd hope to be gaining: detail and clarity.

I see your point there. At the current rate, I am able to save about 35 to 40 releases to one DVD (the biggest removable media I have available right now-need to just get a terabyte hard drive or something and stop relying on this 40 gig hard drive).

About Gimp, a setting of 10 (actually 100) when saving makes the picture enormous (sometimes, somehow, bigger than the file I started with), a setting of 90 (which I use on my releases) brings the files down to about a meg a page for 1440 width and still looks good.

[meppi]

Saving a JPEG at a setting of 8 in Photoshop still gives you an excellent image, and the file size is a decent chunk smaller.

That's what I mean, the file size comes down, but when you look very carefully you will be able to see small artifacts start to form in the JPGs at level 8.

Best noticeable in full color pages. I tested it extensively before I took the jump and decided to start redoing all my issues since the change was very noticeable.

Naturally not only from saving at 9, but it does play an important role.

I see your point there. At the current rate, I am able to save about 35 to 40 releases to one DVD (the biggest removable media I have available right now-need to just get a terabyte hard drive or something and stop relying on this 40 gig hard drive).

About Gimp, a setting of 10 (actually 100) when saving makes the picture enormous (sometimes, somehow, bigger than the file I started with), a setting of 90 (which I use on my releases) brings the files down to about a meg a page for 1440 width and still looks good.

Ah, then it must have been something else. I remember someone saying that he converted the files to JPGs at a quality of 10 and that it was pretty much like CS3 quality 9. Was a while ago though.

I think anything between 1-1.5MB (more or less, doesn't have to be too precise) is an excellent size for a great quality JPG page scan.

It already is quite a lot higher then the ones we used to do in the beginning at 1280 which were around 300-700kb per page.

[Ferneu]

I for one still think we could experiment a little with lossless compressions.

In the matter of fact I think the whole preservation idea call for that. Near

perfect copies without lessy artifacts.

I've just read somewhere on this forums someone saying that on this day

and age of Blue-Rays, terabyte HD and fast internet connections, size is

not a constraint anymore and I agree with that.

That of course does not mean start uploading bitmaps, but we I think we can

try some lossless formats or even abusing that whole "stuff everything inside

a RAR file and call it CBR" and see how it fares against the might lossy jpeg.

In the matter of fact I'll do just that. I'll extract the jpeg from the last EGM,

convert them to plain bitmaps and rar / 7z them. Lets see what I can achieve

[triverse]

I for one still think we could experiment a little with lossless compressions.

In the matter of fact I think the whole preservation idea call for that. Near

perfect copies without lessy artifacts.

I've just read somewhere on this forums someone saying that on this day

and age of Blue-Rays, terabyte HD and fast internet connections, size is

not a constraint anymore and I agree with that.

That of course does not mean start uploading bitmaps, but we I think we can

try some lossless formats or even abusing that whole "stuff everything inside

a RAR file and call it CBR" and see how it fares against the might lossy jpeg.

In the matter of fact I'll do just that. I'll extract the jpeg from the last EGM,

convert them to plain bitmaps and rar / 7z them. Lets see what I can achieve

If you take a JPG and convert it to BMP then you are not getting the full effect of the quality of a BMP. That is not the way to go if you are trying to prove to natsayers about the quality loss of JPG vs BMP. You should scan a page, save it as a BMP and also save it as a JPG. That would be a more equal comparison.

[Ferneu]

If you take a JPG and convert it to BMP then you are not getting the full effect of the quality of a BMP. That is not the way to go if you are trying to prove to natsayers about the quality loss of JPG vs BMP. You should scan a page, save it as a BMP and also save it as a JPG. That would be a more equal comparison.

I think you've missed my point or I did not make my self clear enough (the latter is

probably right hehe). What I meant about extracting and converting the images was

just a way to quickly be able to have a real sample to work with. I'm not going for

quality here, I just wanna know how much bigger a full magazine in BMP would be

(compressed with win rar, of course). And then I'll also use some other lossless

format and see the results. Then, if its really worthwhile, we can do some tests with

real BMP sources.

I'm really expecting a negligible difference. But hey, I might be wrong. We'll see.

[meppi]

Yeah well, that's not gonna work out very well.

When I save my scans as BMPs for instance they end up being around 8MB per page compared to 1MB for a JPG.

There is indeed a tiny bit of detail that gets lost in the JPG compression, but if you keep the JPG compression to a minimum then all you'll lose is a tiny bit of detail in the fiber of the paper and such.

Certainly nothing that would make it worth it to upload a 100 page cbz file that is 800MB large.

After all, bandwidth still costs a lot of money.

Not just for the people downloading the files but also when you want to host them.

Not to mention the kind of stress we would be putting on the server if the magazines were all of a sudden 8 times as big as they are today.

Also the rapidshare files would have to be at least split into 4 files of 200MB each, and that's for a medium sized magazine.

So for a big EGM issue of over 400 pages it would come down to downloading a full DVD.

In the end it's just not worth it.

[Ferneu]

Yeah well, that's not gonna work out very well.

When I save my scans as BMPs for instance they end up being around 8MB per page compared to 1MB for a JPG.

There is indeed a tiny bit of detail that gets lost in the JPG compression, but if you keep the JPG compression to a minimum then all you'll lose is a tiny bit of detail in the fiber of the paper and such.

Certainly nothing that would make it worth it to upload a 100 page cbz file that is 800MB large.

After all, bandwidth still costs a lot of money.

Not just for the people downloading the files but also when you want to host them.

Not to mention the kind of stress we would be putting on the server if the magazines were all of a sudden 8 times as big as they are today.

Also the rapidshare files would have to be at least split into 4 files of 200MB each, and that's for a medium sized magazine.

So for a big EGM issue of over 400 pages it would come down to downloading a full DVD.

In the end it's just not worth it.

Still not what I meant, but we are getting there eheh.

What is the standard way of doing thing here? It is to scan each page and then

stuff them all inside an archive, be it PDF, ZIP, RAR, etc. What I am proposing

here is to continue using that, but using BMPs instead of JPEGs.

Since we are going to compress the scanned pages in order to create the CBZ /

CBRs, we might use the compressor (winzip, rar, whatever) as it was intended

to be used, as a tool to compress files. When compressed with a lossless algorithm

a BITMAP might not become as small as a JPEG, but what I'm trying to say is that

the difference will be (for today standards) negligible

a

Edited March 1, 2009 by Ferneu

[meppi]

No no, that's exactly what I did.

I took some fully edited uncompressed and full sized PSD scans and run them through the same resizing batch, but saved the first at JPGs at a quality of 9 in Photoshop and the same scans also as BMP files.

That's why I said the JPGs turn out to be around 1MB per file and the BMPs of the same files are 8-9 times larger with very little improvement in image quality.

If you mean we should take the BMP files and RAR or ZIP them with an aggressive algorithm, then that would probably create quite a bit of trouble for the comicbook readers to open these cbz's.

As well as negate the positive effects that would be created by using BMP files in the first place.

[Ferneu]

If you mean we should take the BMP files and RAR or ZIP them with an aggressive algorithm, then that would probably create quite a bit of trouble for the comicbook readers to open these cbz's.

As well as negate the positive effects that would be created by using BMP files in the first place.

That is exactly what I meant. I've just did some testing. It still isn't totally valid since

I did not start with the raw image data. I did not scan a full magazine. What I did was

to look into my EGM collection and then I took the biggest one. It was one of the latest

issues and its total size was 55MB (most of them have 22MB, but this one, for some

reason was scanned with greater quality).

I've extract all images and converted them to BMPs. Remember that we are not looking

into the quality aspect yet, just size. So now I have something like 90 images. First I've

tried known lossless image formats:

- PCX: no good. Its RLE encoding is not very good for this kind of image. Perhaps I would

get better results with raw BMPs instead of the ones I had which were already tainted by

JPEG artifacts. But I doubt it would be much better

- TIFF: better, but still not very good. Using LZW encoding I got a better size but it still was

something like 300% bigger than the JPEGs

- PNG: the winner (so far). Using its DEFLATE encoding I got the best overall size so far,

92MB. Its bigger? Yes. Bigger than what I expected? Yes. But I still think it is an accpeted

size.

And then I've tried simply compressing the BMPs:

- 7Z: good. It's created an 95MB archive

- RAR: the winner. Created a 90MB file. Internally it's probably used the DEFLATE algorithm,

the same as PNG. The gain was probably due to the 90 files header overhead being

compressed

- ZIP: I haven't tried, but I known it uses (at least used to use) DEFLAT, so the results should

not be neighter siginificantly bigger nor smaller

Well, I still must take some time, use the exact recomended scanning setting and do it again

with the raw images spat by my scanner. I think I will get better results, but the difference

will probably be less than 1MB. In the mean time, I think it would be worth to start simply

using raw compressed bitmaps. The CBR file would not even reach the 2x bigger mark and

when we are talking about 50MB files, that would not matter so much.

The EGM issues I have here are, with a few exceptions, all on the 20-25MB range. The

biggested one has 55MB. I think it is worth it, at least when we look into the preservation

side. A perfect copy for a few more MBs.

There is, of couse, server bandwidth issues. We could at least start using these "RAW" issues

only on Rapidshare and torrents. This would take some wheight off your servers.

And about the users being unable to read those CBRs, why is that? I think most of you use

CDisplay to read those kind of files. I don't know exactly how it works but I tought it was able

to read from compressed archives.

Currently I use my own image viewer software. I've created it since I don't know how CDisplay

work behind the curtains and I was afraid it would be creating tmp files when reading from

compressed files. Since I have a machine with 2GB of RAM for quite a while not (4 years, if not

more), I did not like the idea of a image view software fragmenting my HDD with temp files.

So I've programmed it to decompress the images straight to the memory. No more fragmentation.

And I don't think that would be a problem for most users. Nowadays I see that the stardard

seems to be having rigs with 4GB of RAM. And I live in Brazil!!! So a think people would not

be having RAM problems today. Unless they've decided using Windows VISTA. Them they

will have all kinds of problems and they deserve it. C'mon! Switch to a decent OS ASAP.

But the best thing about having raw, compressed bitmaps is that, depending of how one would

program it, the image view software would be faster and would use less memory. That is right,

faster and lighter! When dealing with compressed images like JPEG, one would have to fully

decompress it in order to display the image. But hey, the bitmaps are already there, ready to

be used. A plain sequence of RGB bytes ready to be inputed into your video memory.

[kbf_private_joker]

Your software project sounds interesting and you make some valid points about switching to BMP.

I think the main reason we use JPEG is:

1. It creates smaller CBR files

2. Managing 200 BMP files on a hard drive before uploading is a real pain

3. It's good enough for most of us, especially when the scans have a width of 1600, which presents an incredible amount of detail

4. Scanners have been using JPEG for years and our photoshop templates are tweaked for optimum viewing pleasure

5. I also think most comic book readers require JPG inside the CBR files, which is essentially just a container for the files because JPEGs are already compressed heavily.

If I'm wrong, please correct me

[E-Day]

JPEGS are fine for what we are doing. IT's not like we are scanning these magazines for printing, where something other than jpg would be better. But since these are for displaying on a 72 dpi computer screen, you are not going to see any difference between the two unless you are zoomed in 100%. And because magazines are scanned at 300dpi, you will only see a tiny bit of the page at once, so no one would really be zoomed in 100% anyways.

[triverse]

Ferneu, we here at Retromags have been playing around with different things and have come up with a level of quality and size that benefits the most members possible. We use the settings for the JPEG's that we do because the quality is very close to the original and size is small enough that a person on a dial up connection could still enjoy a few releases here and there.

If you wish to use BMP's, then use them. But when uploading to the site make sure the release is in JPG format inside a zip/rar file as a CBZ/CBR file (yes, it is just zipping it, renaming that and zipping it again but it works just fine). If you are set on using BMP's then use them for preservation on your computer so that they will be ready to convert to a smaller format at a later time if the need arises. I keep unscaled but completely edited scans of my releases so that I can just resize them when the resolution is upped in the future. Does that mean I upload the unscaled releases just because I can? No, I upload the recommended size releases so that others can enjoy them without much hassle. The key point is that we are trying to make this site enjoyable and accessable to as many people as we can.

You said that you have some issues available (scanned I hope) but the biggest is something around 55 megs. What are the quality settings you are using? Sounds like you are using 150 DPI, the scans will look oh so much better if you use 300 DPI (why go through the trouble of using a lossless format if the quality of the scan is subpar to begin with?).

As far as computers people are using to access the net, most are not on the latest and greatest thing, I for one am running a computer that was new, oh, about 6 years ago (don't even have a gig of RAM in it). There doesn't seem to be too many people that are using really powerful computers to access the net, or Retromags.

Retromags only has so much storage space available, that stuff costs money. Not to mention the costs for bandwidth, again, more money. Increasing the size of the releases like what you are wanting to do is just going to make it that much harder to get things running smoothly and keeping them there. An increase of just 20 megs for a BMP release versus the normal standard we have going could add up quickly over a few months. Taking the usual size of a normal release being 100 megs, we would lose the space for another release for every 5 releases of your BMP versions. There are currently 640 releases uploaded and available to download, would you care to pick out the 128 releases that would be dropped if storage was a premium to use your method?

The point is, what we have working online is good enough. No one is stopping you from saving your files on your computer in whatever format you choose. All that we are asking is, for uploads please have them set up like the others, 1440 width, CBZ/CBR files and such with currently JPG being the most used format for the size it produces vs quality. Sure BMP's are nice, and later on, may be used but right now they simply are too large. Look at some of the older EGM's that were around 440 pages. That is about 400+ megs for current settings. At your size increase those issues would be almost the size of a DVD (about 4 gigs). That is just unacceptable right now.

[Ferneu]

Ferneu, we here at Retromags have been playing around with different things and have come up with a level of quality and size that benefits the most members possible. We use the settings for the JPEG's that we do because the quality is very close to the original and size is small enough that a person on a dial up connection could still enjoy a few releases here and there.

I totally agree with that

If you wish to use BMP's, then use them. But when uploading to the site make sure the release is in JPG format inside a zip/rar file as a CBZ/CBR file (yes, it is just zipping it, renaming that and zipping it again but it works just fine).

Compressing all JPGs that belong to a magazine once is fine, compressing each page and them compressing it all again is simply a wast of space (the files will probably get bigger) and resources (an image viewer software will have to decompress stuff twice needing more memory to do it. And if it uses temp files it'll get even worse). There might be something I'm missing about this methodology and I'd be glad if you could explain it to me

If you are set on using BMP's then use them for preservation on your computer so that they will be ready to convert to a smaller format at a later time if the need arises. I keep unscaled but completely edited scans of my releases so that I can just resize them when the resolution is upped in the future. Does that mean I upload the unscaled releases just because I can? No, I upload the recommended size releases so that others can enjoy them without much hassle. The key point is that we are trying to make this site enjoyable and accessable to as many people as we can.

Once again, I'm totally OK with that

You said that you have some issues available (scanned I hope) but the biggest is something around 55 megs. What are the quality settings you are using? Sounds like you are using 150 DPI, the scans will look oh so much better if you use 300 DPI (why go through the trouble of using a lossless format if the quality of the scan is subpar to begin with?).

That issue is a "scene" release. I have not scanned it. I don't remember if I mentioned it here, but I have neighter the time, resources nor the skill to scan a magazine. I don't know the proper settings and I would probably ruin the magazine trying to "release" (I don't know the proper term English term here) the pages. Anyway, I don't know what was the used DPI. All I know is that if I was going to do some testing, I might as well use the biggest one I had.

As far as computers people are using to access the net, most are not on the latest and greatest thing, I for one am running a computer that was new, oh, about 6 years ago (don't even have a gig of RAM in it). There doesn't seem to be too many people that are using really powerful computers to access the net, or Retromags.

Forget what I've said about computer processing power. That was just to tell you about my initial motivation when I've developed my own image viewer software. But the point I was also trying to pass was that the less compression "layers" we use, the faster and "lightweighter" a image viewer will need to be. That means we'll need less RAM and we'll spend less time decompressing an image. And that would be a great thing for older computers. The draw back (there is always one, doesn't it?) would be requiring more disk space.

Retromags only has so much storage space available, that stuff costs money. Not to mention the costs for bandwidth, again, more money. Increasing the size of the releases like what you are wanting to do is just going to make it that much harder to get things running smoothly and keeping them there. An increase of just 20 megs for a BMP release versus the normal standard we have going could add up quickly over a few months. Taking the usual size of a normal release being 100 megs, we would lose the space for another release for every 5 releases of your BMP versions. There are currently 640 releases uploaded and available to download, would you care to pick out the 128 releases that would be dropped if storage was a premium to use your method?

That is why I suggested we start to provided this kind of release only on rapidshare and torrents (I think I suggested that, if I haven't then I was going to hehe). If an uploader has enough bandwidth to provide both, the users would be able to choose which version they wanted. If the uploader can only provide the smallest possible one, fine. Thanks god he can and is kind enough to do it.

The point is, what we have working online is good enough. No one is stopping you from saving your files on your computer in whatever format you choose. All that we are asking is, for uploads please have them set up like the others, 1440 width, CBZ/CBR files and such with currently JPG being the most used format for the size it produces vs quality. Sure BMP's are nice, and later on, may be used but right now they simply are too large. Look at some of the older EGM's that were around 440 pages. That is about 400+ megs for current settings. At your size increase those issues would be almost the size of a DVD (about 4 gigs). That is just unacceptable right now.

Dude, I've said it one and I'll say it again. When I first found this site I thought: "Holy f..., I'm in Heaven!!!". I don't know about these sizes you are mentioning since I have not donwloaded a thing yet, but you can be sure of something, I'm very thankfull to be here.

In the matter of fact, all I did was to throw the suggestion in the air.

If you follow the whole history of this topic (which I'm "kind of" responsible

for leading it totally out off the original poster questions), you'll see that

I have not tried it using raw BMPs before, I was not sure about the final

sizes, I was just willing to give it a shot.

I am not able to tell the difference between a good quality JPG and the

source BMP and I doubt there is too many people out there that can.

I was just thinking about the preservation aspect of things. I know that

"good enough" is fine, but if I can choose between "good enough" and

"perfect", I take "perfect" any time. That of course unless some other

constraint come up and I can't take the perfect. Then I would go for the

good enough, but just to be one the safe side of things. Who knows what

tomorrow will be?

You know, just like using MP3 instead of FLAC or another lossless compression.

MP3s are smaller and there probably is just a few number of people in the

world with good enough ears and hardware to listen to the two and tell the

difference, but then again, deep down you know that the lossless one is

the true thing.

It probably does not matter for most people. I don't know if something

like this was ever suggested before. Then again, it was just a suggestion.

If you think it is not worth it, so be it. It'll not make me be any less gratefull

for the work this whole comunnity has been doing so far.

Thanks for taking you time to answer me. And thanks again for this site

[kbf_private_joker]

All good discussion. The more that gets us in the community discussing, the more ways we can improve the site and our project.

The reason most people use JPEG for images is the same reason that everyone uses MP3. They have both been accepted by 99% of people as a media format and are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Also, people in general are happy to consume compressed media because most can't tell the difference and if they can, it is acceptable enough for them to tolerate. I watch tv episodes on hulu and youtube because it is convenient and fast and just works well.

As far as MP3 vs lossless:

1. Most people (probably 99.9%) can't tell the difference between 320 CBR and flac if encoded correctly

2. Most media players don't play lossless formats except for WAV

3. If there is a noticeable difference, most people aren't willing to spend thousands on a receiver + speakers to hear it. I listen to most music on headphones and a Creative Zen player. I can notice a difference when I use nice headphones, but the earbuds are just more convenient.

Also, the reason the files are in a CBR (essentially a RAR container) is not for compression, but so that it can be read as a single file in the comic book readers. Even if it isn't necessary, it's convenient to have a single file represent an entire mag.