So, I have the complete Japanese Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine

[Cuckooguy]

So I own the entire Japanese Dreamcast Magazine save for 1999 Vol.23, and 2001 Vol.8 is missing its cover. I reckon there's roughly 110 issues here. I feel like these should be scanned, but the sheer amount of work necessary to scan all of these deters me from wanting to do so, I imagine that's like half a year of work with my current know-how of scanning and tools. Has anyone ever had success funding their own venture into scanning something of this volume? Or is there someone here of good standing that these can be sent to in order to scan all these? I know it's selfish, but due to the sheer amount of effort on my part I don't really want to scan these myself without some crowdfunding/donation effort to compensate for that time (and programs and technology I'd have to purchase), though I have no quips about sending these to someone else to scan these if that's their passion as long as they have a good reputation and mail them back

[marktrade]

This is amazing. I just registered here so I have no reputation to speak of, but I plan to build one and in time would like to help you. Please check back, stay in touch, and keep that collection safe.

[Cuckooguy]

Hello, I'm back. I'm looking to get rid of my collection sometime within the next couple months as I can no longer afford the space to keep these. I will probably either sell them or donate them to a videogame museum at some point, but before that happens I was wondering if anyone would like to scan certain specific issues, mainly the ones that haven't been scanned yet.

As can be seen on http://segaretro.org/Dreamcast_Magazine_(JP), a majority of them have been scanned. However, as denoted by a note on said page, the following issues do not have scans

Quote

Note: PDF needed: #68/#76/#88/#112 -21:03, 4 May 2016 (CDT)

If anyone would like to scan these missing issues, please contact me here or at my email address cuckooguy84@gmail.com.

Thanks!

[kitsunebi]

The person who scanned every single Japanese mag available at Sega Retro (aside from the Famitsus they swiped from Retromags) is also a member here, but I'm not sure you'd want to be shipping magazines all the way to Japan, even if she was willing.  It ain't cheap.

Looks like you missed your golden opportunity with marktrade (from the post above).  Between the time of your OP and about 4 months ago, he was a scanning machine and would have definitely taken care of those mags for you.  Unfortunately, he's since entered the sweet bliss of Patreon-funded retirement.

[Cuckooguy]

I don't mind the costs, as this is a rare opportunity to accomplish this so i'm willing to foot the bill, if someone could direct me to her Username or contact info, please let me know (I will also try to track this person down, but not sure if I'll find her)

[KiwiArcader]

marktrade uses a Fujitsu document scanner which requires him to debind the magazine to feed the pages through. This essentially ruins the magazine but does allow for amazingly good scans as there is no blurring of the spine edges that you get with a flatbed scanner and holding the magazines onto the plate. I'm guessing if you want these back that isn't going to work for you.

I have the same scanner that he has and I am happily cutting my magazines up to get them scanned at a good speed. With one of these I can literally scan a complete magazine in a matter of minutes. 

[kitsunebi]

Yeah, pretty much everyone is using those these days.  Philly and I are both using the Fujitsu as well.  Which accounts for pretty much 100% of the scanners contributing to Retromags (this year, at any rate).

Bottom line - scanning a mag will destroy it.  Can't be helped - flatbeds suck.

[Cuckooguy]

Actually, when I wrote my original post years ago, I was not okay with it being debinded, but now I am fine with it as long as it can be put back together in a sleeve or package or something (not necessarily has to be stapled back together). I feel like the debinding of a magazine to at least digitally preserve it is more valuable than keeping as is and potentially losing the chance to have something like this scanned.

[KiwiArcader]

I'd love to scan these. Japanese mags are really nice artwork wise and the RetroCDN versions have had the quality kicked out of them so they definitely need good quality re-scans. But if he wants them back, well, I couldn't see their being scanned to be honest, as the time taken to scan on a flatbed is just horrendous. 

[kitsunebi]

1 minute ago, KiwiArcader said:

I'd love to scan these. Japanese mags are really nice artwork wise and the RetroCDN versions have had the quality kicked out of them so they definitely need good quality re-scans. But if he wants them back, well, I couldn't see their being scanned to be honest, as the time taken to scan on a flatbed is just horrendous. 

I could probably buy a complete set of these things from Yahoo Auctions for a fraction of the cost it would take for him to mail them to either one of us, though.

Pretty sure he just wants to get the missing 4 issues scanned and will likely sell the rest.   4 issues shipped shouldn't be too ridiculous, no matter where they're going.

And before re-scanning anything, it would be worth asking the original scanner if she has higher quality files from before they were compressed to meet RetroCDN's limited filesize requirements.  (Actually, I already did suggest that we would be happy to host such files if they exist, but I haven't heard anything back...)

[Cuckooguy]

My previous post is still hidden for some reason. Anyway, buying the magazine off of yahoo auctions Japan, good luck with that, you might find a lone issue every now and then but it took about a decade of consistent watching before a complete collection appeared.

[Cuckooguy]

If there is someone who is willing to commit to doing a rescan of the whole collection at a higher resolution than the scans that currently exist, even if it means debinding the whole collection, I think I'd be okay with that and not wanting the collection back, but because there's a collection of scans already I do not feel this is as imperative as filling in the blanks. I would like to get into contact with the original scanner of the collection that is currently on the net to make sure if they just held off on releasing those scans or if they just don't have them, but I'm having trouble tracking them down.

[Phillyman]

If my scanner could accept the extra wide magazines I would take them. I always send my larger format magazines off to Marktrade.

[kitsunebi]

7 hours ago, Cuckooguy said:

Anyway, buying the magazine off of yahoo auctions Japan, good luck with that, you might find a lone issue every now and then but it took about a decade of consistent watching before a complete collection appeared.

Well, I didn't mean a complete set just pops up everyday, because you're right - this very minute there are 30 different auctions for Dreamcast Magazine active on Yahoo auctions, but all but one of them are for single issues. All I meant was, a collection of that size would probably cost more in shipping to send overseas from America (where I assume you're located) than what it's selling price would probably be.  That's all I meant - just a comment about the high cost of shipping so many magazines halfway across the world.

 

5 hours ago, Cuckooguy said:

 I would like to get into contact with the original scanner of the collection that is currently on the net to make sure if they just held off on releasing those scans or if they just don't have them, but I'm having trouble tracking them down.

All I can tell you is she has the same user name both here and at RetroCDN should you choose to contact her.  But based on my limited interaction with her, I'm not sure she wants to be contacted nor am I sure how fluent in English she might be, so I wouldn't necessarily expect a reply.  However, I'd say it's a fair bet that she does not own those 4 issues or they would have been scanned already.

 

5 hours ago, Phillyman said:

If my scanner could accept the extra wide magazines I would take them. I always send my larger format magazines off to Marktrade.

It seems like I'm saying this a lot lately, but for the benefit of not misleading Cuckooguy, I'll again point out that (despite continuing to collect over $150 per month from his patreon backers) marktrade hasn't scanned anything in nearly 5 months, nor has he logged in at Retromags since February, so he won't be much help here.

Philly, I thought you bought the same scanner I have?  Unless the version they sell in America is different, it can scan Japanese mags.  At least, I'm pretty sure that's how I've scanned all of mine so far.  Dreamcast Magazine, like almost all JP mags, is A4 in width.  In order or increasing width, my ix500 has markers for A5, B5, A4, and letter.  Is yours different?

So assuming Philly's scanner is the same as mine, he would be the best bet for the 4 missing issues.  I'd personally be wary of expecting anyone to scan your entire collection, and I'd be downright incredulous if anyone suggested the editing could be completed in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.  Considering the number of pages involved in that many mags, it would amount to more pages than Philly or anyone else at RM has scanned in the couple of years since I became a member.  Only Kiwi has probably scanned that much in that time.  And editing so many mags would be a task which, to be perfectly honest, I would be shocked and amazed to see ever get completed.  Forgive me if I'm mistaken, Cuckooguy, but I'm assuming you've never scanned and edited a mag, so I'll point out that from start to finish, completing a single issue of a mag like Dreamcast Magazine takes about 6-8 hours of work, depending on variable factors like the condition of the mag and the speed/skill of the editor.  It requires a certain type of madman's passion to ever commit to more than one mag, let alone over 100.  So again, unless you're OK with the collection pretty much permanently existing as terabytes of raw jpgs (or you intend to take a year's vacation from work so you can edit them yourself), I'd just concern yourself with the 4 missing mags for now.

If worse comes to worst, you can send the 4 mags to me.  I don't particularly want to scan them, but I'll do it if somebody else is willing to edit them together.  I've got too many mags of my own that need done to commit to editing other people's mags, but scanning is by far the quicker and easier task.  Still, if Philly or anyone else living wherever you live can do it, your shipping costs will be less.

[Cuckooguy]

Ok, so, with these in mind:

• I'm okay with the books being debinded
• You can optionally scan the whole shebang, but unless you're willing to commit to that task, you'll only scan the remaining unscanned issues
• If you're only scanning the unscanned issues, then I would like them sent back, so I can perhaps each in their own plastic sleeve or something
• If you want to commit to the scanning the whole thing, even though a majority of the collection is already scanned, then I'm willing to let go of this collection, though I feel that time would be better spent on scanning magazines that have yet to be scanned

Is there anyone who is willing to scan and fill in the blanks of the missing Japanese Official Dreamcast Magazines?

Please contact me here or email me at cuckooguy84@gmail.com if you are willing.

[KiwiArcader]

If you are okay with them being cut up to feed through a document scanner and are happy to ship to New Zealand I will happily scan any issues that you send my way and make them available over at my website and here at Retromags.

I have a small amount of donations in the kitty so if you have PAYPAL I can contribute something towards postage. I'd happily take the whole shooting match with a view to getting 300dpi scans of them all and consign those RetroCDN versions to the trash where they belong but I am guessing shipping for that lot will be quite high. If people want these maybe they could chip in with the shipping costs? 

Price up the four issues to ship to Auckland, New Zealand and maybe a box worth as well for comparison and we can take it from there if you are still keen.

Cheers .....

 

[kitsunebi]

2 hours ago, KiwiArcader said:

I'd happily take the whole shooting match with a view to getting 300dpi scans of them all and consign that entire RetroCDN site to the trash where it belongs

EDITED FOR CLARITY

[KiwiArcader]

LOL. That's not very polite kitsunebi77.

Mind you, their ripping off our files and dropping the quality to crap levels is impolite too so I'd have to say that probably the comment is somewhat deserved 

[kitsunebi]

34 minutes ago, KiwiArcader said:

Mind you, their ripping off our files and dropping the quality to crap levels is impolite too so I'd have to say that probably the comment is somewhat deserved 

I actually have no problems with their Dreamcast Magazine scans (or any of the other mags offered by their Japanese scanner), since those are the ONLY scans they have that weren't purloined from elsewhere.  They're low quality, but since that's the way the scanner decided to release them, it can't be helped.  But everything else on their site is disrespectful to the scanners of the work they've appropriated and devalued by diminishing the quality.

[Cuckooguy]

WHy do you have to live in New Zealand, KiwiArcader :(

anyway I'll try to work out the logistics sometime this month. Thanks for the interest guys. Not sure why people here aren't satisfied with the resolution of the scans on the retrocdn site, they look totally fine to me O_O

[kitsunebi]

20 minutes ago, Cuckooguy said:

anyway I'll try to work out the logistics sometime this month. Thanks for the interest guys. Not sure why people here aren't satisfied with the resolution of the scans on the retrocdn site, they look totally fine to me O_O

They're acceptable quality.  By which I mean that they are perfectly readable.  But the resolution is quite low, so the images aren't sharp.  The text in particular suffers and is somewhat blurry.  The more you enlarge the image, the more obvious the faults become.

After spending hours and hours scanning and editing a mag, I want it to look its best, so personally, I would never save the pages at the resolution/compression that these files are.  But again, they're perfectly readable.  They don't bother me at all, and I'm grateful to have them.  And by "them" I mean the scans done by Akane.  All of their other mags are available in better quality on whatever website they were taken from (including ours).

[Cuckooguy]

Just a heads up right now I'm leaning towards sending the whole shebang to KiwiArcader. Before that though, I'm thinking of getting about 120 plastic sleeves so that when it's debinded each magazine can at least be together in their own plastic sleeve.

question, though: will the pages actually be cut up, or is it only the staple that will be removed?

[kitsunebi]

Just now, Cuckooguy said:

Just a heads up right now I'm leaning towards sending the whole shebang to KiwiArcader. Before that though, I'm thinking of getting about 120 plastic sleeves so that when it's debinded each magazine can at least be together in their own plastic sleeve.

question, though: will the pages actually be cut up, or is it only the staple that will be removed?

Wait.  You want to send all of them to Kiwi, AND you want all of them sent back when he's done?

Get ready to take out a loan to afford the shipping, my friend.

All square-bound issues will obviously be cut up.  Stapled issues technically can be run through simply by removing the staple, but only if the scanner is big enough to allow two pages side by side (most aren't.)  Also, doing so makes editing the magazine a super-huge pain in the ass, since the scanned pages won't be in order.  So I'd say it's extremely likely that stapled issues will be cut as well (I would never personally try to scan a magazine without separating the pages.)

 

[Cuckooguy]

Yea I know, I'm sure once I actually see the logistics I'll get scared and have second thoughts lol. If I send the whole shebang I probably won't want it back, but perhaps it can be donated to a vg museum if they want cut up pages, which I may also be ok footing the bill. I think when I bought them off yahoo auctions Japan it was about $500 per box for shipping to the US, and there were 2 boxes so $1000? 

[kitsunebi]

Yeah, I was thinking it would be $800-1000.