The Power of the DVD
September 14, 2005 7:22 PM   Subscribe

Finally, someone does archives right. The entire New Yorker collection, all the way back, for less than 2.5¢ an issue
posted by rtimmel (55 comments total)
 
(I know it might be a bit of adfilter, but it is just so cool.)
posted by rtimmel at 7:23 PM on September 14, 2005


Very cool.
posted by caddis at 7:27 PM on September 14, 2005


Will there be updates for future issues?

One of the problems for any New Yorker subscriber is all the back issues around, and one's spouse not being OK with that.

I talked to a woman on the plane once about that so I know that it effects everyone who read The New Yorker. . .If I had access to every story on CD, well. . .

So many books, so many great articles, so many movie reviews. . .this is just tempting.
posted by Danf at 7:33 PM on September 14, 2005


I wonder if there's any copy protection on there -- seems ideal for the discriminating software pirate. Though perhaps I've just answered my own non-question.
posted by VulcanMike at 7:34 PM on September 14, 2005


If anybody would like to get me a present, I really, really want this.
posted by freedryk at 7:42 PM on September 14, 2005


Cock fucking shit. This news is like a balm to an intellectually sore man who just moved and could no longer justify keeping ten years worth of The New Yorker around.
posted by gramschmidt at 7:44 PM on September 14, 2005


Hmmm... I wonder if I could get various family members to chip in for this, we too have the "stacks of The New Yorker everywhere" problem.
posted by TricksterGoddess at 7:50 PM on September 14, 2005


order submited.
alt.binaries.newyorker
anyone?
posted by archaic at 7:51 PM on September 14, 2005


The idea of alt.binaries.newyorker makes me want to learn how to crack programs. Right now.
posted by freedryk at 7:54 PM on September 14, 2005


I'm a big fan of free stuff obtained through torrents and I love the New Yorker, but we're talking about at least a 30gb download possibly much more. It's an 8 DVD set. I think I'll stick to the current issues that I never finish reading anyway.
posted by monkeyman at 7:57 PM on September 14, 2005


It's only $63 when ordered from Amazon.
posted by dobbs at 8:03 PM on September 14, 2005


I'm a big fan of free stuff obtained through torrents and I love the New Yorker, but we're talking about at least a 30gb download possibly much more. It's an 8 DVD set.

It would be good practice for when they start pirating HD-DVDs next year.
posted by VulcanMike at 8:10 PM on September 14, 2005


Doing archives right means making them free, and posting them online, IMHO.
posted by banished at 8:14 PM on September 14, 2005


Why is the New Yorker doing this? It seems a statement of decline. They could have put it online in a subscription database and sold yearly subscriptions to libraries and individuals (see for example Britannica, OED, ODNB, etc..). Giving away the crown jewels for a $100 on-time shot seems like a statement of desperation for immediate cash flow (every library will buy one within a year). Is the New Yorker a has been?
posted by stbalbach at 8:26 PM on September 14, 2005


It's only $63 when ordered from Amazon.

..or $50 if you order a subscription at the same time. Whats crazy is the next 12-issues through a subscription costs about as much as 4,100 back issues.
posted by stbalbach at 8:30 PM on September 14, 2005


That's wonderful. I hate throwing away New Yorkers. I've allowed myself to save just one issue, but so many of them have articles that are just gold that never even get indexed by Google.

Oliver Sacks' piece last year about the how we perceive the passage of time. Elizabeth Colbert's unbelievable three-part global climate change series earlier this year. The 2002 piece on the correlation between more roads and more traffic.

I hate not having those pieces (and dozens more) at my fingertips. I intend to rip the issues for the duration of my subscription and store them on my hard drive, where Spotlight can find them. This is totally worth the $100.
posted by waldo at 8:38 PM on September 14, 2005


This Pepsi, it's blue? Erm, just because it's literary doesn't mean it's exempt from our product-placement prohibition.
posted by killdevil at 8:40 PM on September 14, 2005


But we love The New Yorker and Pepsi Blue is just gross. I know what to do. Let's call it the iNewYorker and then constant posting will be okay.
posted by monkeyman at 8:49 PM on September 14, 2005


This. Is. Freaking. Awesome.
posted by JHarris at 8:56 PM on September 14, 2005


Unbelievable. Like everyone else in the thread, I hate throwing out my New Yorkers. But I always end up doing so every six months when I realize that the pile has grown so big that there'd be no way of me being able to find the article that I want to look up. This DVD collection is a godsend. Thanks for posting this.
posted by painquale at 9:03 PM on September 14, 2005


Excuse me, I have to go change my underwear.

(Is anyone else a little wibbly at the thought of reading the very, very early ones?)
posted by kalimac at 9:22 PM on September 14, 2005


I know I'm just joining the crowd here, but thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me know about this. I often cite old New Yorker pieces for articles I'm writing and that usually entails either hours of digging through cut-outs or fruitless Google searches.
posted by piers at 9:30 PM on September 14, 2005


Cool... no more of those stinky perfume ads falling out of the magazine. Um, is this Cosmopolitan: 1925-2005, right?
posted by rolypolyman at 9:31 PM on September 14, 2005


One of my dreams has come true. All of these years I thought I was the only one that hoarded the New Yorker - much to the irritation of girlfriends (and an ex-wife). When I come home to find my stash tossed I feel like I've lost an appendage.
posted by rotifer at 9:32 PM on September 14, 2005


I'll be getting these from the college library and ripping them, as soon as I can get my grubby little hands on them.

That said, I really do with they had put them online too. For free access.

Even access only for current suscribers, like Time does, would be friggin awesome. Even with ads shitted all over it. They'd get linked up and down the web. And they'd still sell a shitload of DVDs.
posted by blasdelf at 10:15 PM on September 14, 2005


great flash demo of the set here:
http://www.cartoonbank.com/survey/0831_tny_demo/index.html
posted by jmccw at 1:56 AM on September 15, 2005


Why is the New Yorker doing this? It seems a statement of decline. They could have put it online in a subscription database and sold yearly subscriptions to libraries and individuals (see for example Britannica, OED, ODNB, etc..). Giving away the crown jewels for a $100 on-time shot seems like a statement of desperation for immediate cash flow (every library will buy one within a year). Is the New Yorker a has been?

No, they're stronger and more relevant than they've ever been. Don't you remember the Tina Brown years, when the Condé Nast strategy was to sell as many subscriptions as possible using TV ads? They had a horrible retention rate with those, and of course the response was ... more TV ads. There were still good pieces occasionally but it was all wrapped in this faux Vanity-Fair package that reeked of Upper East Side social climbing, rather than the upper West Side that is the magazine's natural constituency.

I imagine they didn't put it online because they still don't see themselves as an online entity. I think you're right that it could have been a moneymaker for them, but it seems more risky from where they sit.

"Quantities are limited" ... means it's an experiment.
posted by dhartung at 3:00 AM on September 15, 2005


If they mean "The Complete New Yorker" the same way they meant "The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker", I suggest holding on to your money.
posted by Plutor at 3:03 AM on September 15, 2005


HOLY FUCKING SWEET.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:20 AM on September 15, 2005


What do you mean, Plutor?
posted by pmurray63 at 4:45 AM on September 15, 2005


The Complete Cartoons, the hard copy at least, was printed with all the care of bathtub gags on cocktail napkins. I really want this, but I want to hear a review from someone who owns it first.
posted by maryh at 5:12 AM on September 15, 2005


Plutor/Maryh - Did you look at the previews? Every page of every magazine. Flipable. Printable. How more complete can it get?
posted by dpx.mfx at 6:04 AM on September 15, 2005


Finally, an inexhaustible source of impenetrable cartoons that, when eventually decoded, amount to puns worthy of Bazooka Joe.
posted by sonofsamiam at 6:26 AM on September 15, 2005


They're doing it to mine the archive for cash. Danf, I had to restrain myself from asking a friend to give me the old New Yorkers she was recycling. I think I'm going to wallpaper a room with New Yorker stories some day. That's my excuse for keeping them, anyway.
posted by theora55 at 6:33 AM on September 15, 2005


Amazon Canada thinks it's a book...

Um, Amazon US thinks it's a book too: "Publisher: Learn how customers can search inside this book."
posted by kika at 8:20 AM on September 15, 2005


"Quantities are limited" ... means it's an experiment.

Yeah noticed that too. Might be a good time to pre-order (or that might be the intention).
posted by stbalbach at 8:21 AM on September 15, 2005


Oh man ... there goes all my wife's disposable income.

She was so pissed at her ex for making her throw out her many many many back issues of the new yorker ... damn.
posted by Relay at 9:35 AM on September 15, 2005


I have to second Plutor. The Cartoon Book DVD had very low quality scans of the cartoons and in a wretched DRM-ridden pdf format which made it difficult to view. I'll bet the issues on the DVD will also be similarly DRM-laden.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:41 AM on September 15, 2005


I have to second Plutor. The Cartoon Book DVD had very low quality scans of the cartoons and in a wretched DRM-ridden pdf format which made it difficult to view. I'll bet the issues on the DVD will also be similarly DRM-laden.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:41 AM on September 15, 2005


I have to second Plutor. The CD archives accompanying he Cartoon Book were a great disappointment: DRM-ridden and very low-quality scans of the cartoons in pdf format. Difficult to search and to view. They looked awful when you printed them out. If the Magazine Archive disks are in the same format, you won't even be able to select text and right-click it to copy and paste (you couldn't with the Cartoon pdfs).
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:51 AM on September 15, 2005


I have to fourth [longdaysjourney]'s second. Cartoon CD sucked.

But, to be able to read the entire history of The New Yorker. Tempting. Huge time-suck but verrry tempting.
posted by bz at 10:09 AM on September 15, 2005


Yikes, sorry about that. Was making an edit and there was a hiccup. If someone could delete those first two posts, I'd appreciate it.
posted by longdaysjourney at 10:15 AM on September 15, 2005


(I'll be counting the seconds until it's torrent'ed)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:16 AM on September 15, 2005


I pre-ordered this back in July but I still haven't gotten a copy. Does anyone know when this is shipping?
posted by lilboo at 10:29 AM on September 15, 2005


longdaysjourney and Plutor .. watch the Demo .. it looks pretty good actually in terms of searching and indexing. 30 gigs by 4000 issues is roughly 7.5MB per issue (probably more like 5MB with overhead) should be ok quality (I think?)
posted by stbalbach at 10:33 AM on September 15, 2005


Amazon says I'll have mine by Oct 7! This may even convince my dad to try to begin to start to use the computer I set up for him!!!
posted by squalor at 10:33 AM on September 15, 2005


Liboo Amazon says Sept. 20th
posted by stbalbach at 10:36 AM on September 15, 2005


sorry squalor didnt check preview.
posted by stbalbach at 10:37 AM on September 15, 2005


Not only was the "Complete cartoons" CD crappy, but it was far from complete. I've read a number of complaints from cartoonists whose cartoons were not included. Despite the fact they used just about every synonym for "complete" on the cover of the book, it was not complete; they just meant "lots".

I wish I could find those complaints. My Google-fu is failing me today.
posted by Plutor at 10:59 AM on September 15, 2005


It'd be great if Harper's, The Atlantic and Canada's Saturday Night magazine made all their issues available on DVD. (The Atlantic has an online archive.)
posted by New Frontier at 5:30 PM on September 15, 2005


I work part-time for a little book store. I ordered my copy. Whil placing my order I was able to find out a little info:
"Quantities are limited", in this case, means that the first run (only run?) is 200,000 copies. Does anyone know what their current circulation numbers are? In 2003 they were around 900,000 copies. 200,000 vs. 900,000 doesn't seem so "limited" to me.
posted by horseblind at 10:10 AM on September 16, 2005


Thanks horseblind. As usual a marketing ploy. And who says they cant have a second edition!
posted by stbalbach at 6:29 PM on September 20, 2005


IT'S HERE!!!!!! woo-hoo!! See you-all in 2006!
posted by lilboo at 2:05 PM on September 23, 2005


No disappointment here- all is very searchable & legible. Juggling the 8 dvds is a bit of a pain- I envision moving them out of the album they came in and into a car-visor cd holder thingee (perhaps some savant out there could figure out a way of stowing all the data on a HD, and tricking the viewing program into looking there instead for a dvd).

Just finished reading an fascinating piece about Mitch Miller in the 6/6/53 issue.

For those concerned about screen resolution, here's a screencap of a cartoon at the highest magnification level:

posted by squalor at 5:49 PM on September 24, 2005


Just got mine. Preparing for extraction from society for several years....

Anyone have clues on how to put these onto a HD for faster/more convenient access? On my Mac, I tried saving a self-mounting archive, but when the program tried to access the "DVD" that was mounted, good old Macrovision threw a wrench in the works.

I'm sure there's some shady program which will help me assert my fair use rights, but this is the first time I've tried to copy DVDs and Google searches keep coming up with programs to make disc copies, not de-Macrovisioned self-mounting archives.

Hanx....
posted by baltimore at 6:14 PM on September 25, 2005


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