Playboy Cover to Cover, The 50's [ハードカバー]

There are quite a few rave reviews here and, for many, they will be spot on. I'd like to target my review to a more technically discerning audience interested in the technical specifications. Many will not mind the faults I list below and that's totally fine. It's great to enjoy this set as a fun retrospective of classic Americana, but I feel the need to point out some egregious shortcomings for those that care.

First of all, Bondi claims they're doing us a favor by tethering their content in a stupid digital rights management scheme. It's so that we can enjoy the content with greater ease. To many, it will be a headache. Not that their image viewer is awful. It's just excruciatingly slow compared to looking at the same images in, say, a PDF viewer like Acrobat. The interface is slow, sluggish, and unresponsive. I'm often required to click buttons more than once while waiting for the application to respond. It really makes reading a chore. With most PDF viewers, you can move between pages rapidly. With Bondi's system, you must load one (or two) pages at a time. I tested on a Mac Pro with a great graphics card. It sure wasn't my machine that was slowing things down!

While the articles are indexed and although it IS handy for jumping around, so are PDFs!!! Why not just give the users PDF files and let them use which ever free and available apps they want? It makes absolutely no sense except as a DRM mechanism. Bondi has drastically reduced the functionality of this collection - a shame. It also guarantees a limited life to the files. If they were jpgs, pngs, or PDFs, we could always keep them current, changing the formats and the technology advances. However, the images are locked away in a proprietary file format.

The installation is quick and fairly painless. It did automatically create a shortcut on my desktop without asking my permission (annoying), but I suppose that's easy enough to delete. I haven't tried installing on multiple machines, but since no software registration is required, I'm assuming you can install multiple copies. As the software agreement reminds us, this is a violation of copyright, so don't do it - but you probably can anyway.

Oh yes - and Bondi assures us that software updates maintain compatibility. The fine print indicates that "additional fees may apply". They might provide the updates for free, but then again, they might just make users keep paying for something they supposedly already bought.

Now onto the scans. Well, they're scans of about the same quality as anyone with a regular scanner could do. I was pretty shocked to find that many of the pages are not exactly level. As we all know, it's tough to make perfectly level copies from bound print matter, but I assumed for $100, Bondi would do a better job than this. The image quality is nothing amazing. Once you blow the pages up to a readable size, the quality is noticeably diminished.

Their browser gives you the option of zooming up to 300%, but at that size, the text looks awful. The 300% option really only works for the centerfolds. They seem to be scanned at a much higher resolution than the rest of the magazine. To be fair, the centerfold images do look great - great color, great resolution, good amount of detail, etc. I think it's a bit sneaky to drop the resolution for the rest of the content though.

The whole idea is so great that it's a shame Bondi Digital Publishing screwed it up so bad. The first mistake is the crippling DRM. The second is the silly interface. The third is the inherently limited lifespan due to the DRM and interface. The fourth is the surprisingly low quality of the images.

Early Playboy is good clean (well, maybe PG-13) fun and it's a great idea to give a new generation access to this piece of American history. I'm not against the idea at all - it's a great one. I just think the realization of the idea fails on so many levels. If you don't mind the issues I raised above, you'll probably enjoy this. If you're on the fence, all I can say is, I hope you find it cheap. I don't think it's even worth Amazon's current price of $41. Shame on you, Bondi.

I bought the Playboy Cover-to-Cover DVD set for myself because I was culturally curious about the magazine (I am a woman) from its early years and I wanted to review it as a potential holiday present for my 80-year-old father. I figured my Dad might enjoy a ride down memory lane, providing this product was easy enough to use for an older person. I read the first review but know better than to credit any one negative review, and boy, was I right!

First, I ran the DVD on Windows Vista and it ran flawlessly. I scanned through many of the issues and played with the navigation. For any technically savvy person who ever used a PDF, navigation is a breeze. While it is not a PDF, it is similar enough for a quick knowledge transfer. The Playboy Cover-to-Cover DVD set installed quickly, loaded the default first issue (Hello Marilyn!), and from there all other issues were loaded from the second DVD. I found moving from issue-to-issue no problem at all. My Dad will have NO problem using this software.

I bought this product to read magazines, and it is easy to navigate through the individual articles just like you would with a normal magazine. You can open issues, save reading lists, search by author, article name, and so on...and it was EASY. Personally, I found the entire experience so good, that I also bought the Rolling Stone Cover-to-Cover DVD set at well.

For Mac users, I am also pleased to note that these DVDs also loaded up on my new Leopard MacBook Pro. If you are looking for a great gift for any person who wants to see what all the articles are about (sic), look no further. The beautiful packaging, and exceptional content make this a much better gift than something boring like slippers for Dad! Thank you Bondi for giving me something I know Dad will LOVE for this holiday season!

The Playboy Cover to Cover --the 50's is a fantastic collection and journey in the way back machine that offers an amazing glimpse into the history of our culture as America was being altered and influenced by the hugely important launch of Playboy magazine. 50 years later, using searchable DVD technology, every single page from inception in 1953 through till December 1959 is reproduced. Every ad, every letter's column, every record review, and yes, every centerfold. What an incredible, insightful time machine to sift through the cultural archeology this collection represents. I can't wait for the 60's edition.

The packaging is terrific, and it even comes with a true reproduction of the humble first edition including M. Monroe and Sherlock Holmes.