Ct CDROM issues

[chshrkt]

Right,
So my CT CDROM arrived this past Friday, and I had been looking forward pouring over it with great enthusiasm.

However, my enthusiasm was chilled when I went directly to "CT B08 Book 08 Robots", it appears to have been scanned at very low resolution, and when I tried to copy/paste the text into notepad, it was mostly gibberish.

<darthvader>NOOooooooooo!</darthvader>

I had been so looking forward to that particular book because a neighbor's toddler destroyed my original copy many years back. I have seen a couple copies on ebay, but could not see spending $50+ to replace it.

I immediately checked a couple other books to see if the quality was the same (I was ready to open a can O'Whoop-Ass on someone if so), but to my relief, the next couple files were fine. So I started at the top of the list and checked each file, and these were my findings:

There are eight books that seemed to have been scanned at very low resolution, and the OCR was mostly giberish. Printing the pages produced very fuzzy and difficult to read text.

Specifically:

CT Traveller Starter Edition
CT B06 Book 06 Scouts
CT B08 Book 08 Robots
CT A02 Adventure 02 Research Station Gamma
CT A10 Adventure 10 Safari Ship
CT A11 Adventure 11 Murder on Arcturus Station
CT D01 Double 01a Annic Nova (scanned small and also was not OCR'd, so the text is not searchable at all)
CT D01 Double 01b Shadows

The following books were scanned in what appears to be the appropriate size, but were not OCR'd, so the text is not searchable at all:

CT A00 Adventure 00 The Imperial Fringe
CT G01 Game 01a Mayday Rules

So, I sent an email to Marc Miller with the above list and asked him if he was going to fix either the MT or CT CDROMs, since I cannot bring myself to purchase the MT CDROM until an acceptable resolution to the problems is reached, even though I really want to buy it now.

I also asked him if he would be open to letting the Traveller fans help with scanning their copies of the items that are missing pages or scanned such that parts are unreadable.

Other than my very rapid scan of each file, I was not able to determine if any pages were missing. I did notice that several pages were upside down, not a big deal really since they were still copy/pastable.

We shall see what the response from MM is.

 

[Border Reiver]

Have you tried some decent OCR software like ReadIRIS?

 

[Foxroe]

OK, gotta ask...

I am poised to purchase the CT CDROM (all that goodness for $35!). Is this an issue with everyone's CD's, or was this fixed at some point and this was a left-over from an early batch of bad scans? Is the MT CDROM worse? How did the JTAS PDF's turn out? Anyone?



-Fox

 

[Bob Weaver]

OK, gotta ask...

I am poised to purchase the CT CDROM (all that goodness for $35!). Is this an issue with everyone's CD's, or was this fixed at some point and this was a left-over from an early batch of bad scans? Is the MT CDROM worse? How did the JTAS PDF's turn out? Anyone?



-Fox

I picked up the JTAS CD-ROM a while back and have noticed only one error - in I think issue #24 there is one page missing. The scans are all good, and in color and I've had no trouble with printed hard-copy. Much goodness, worth getting!

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[chshrkt]

OK, gotta ask...

I am poised to purchase the CT CDROM (all that goodness for $35!). Is this an issue with everyone's CD's, or was this fixed at some point and this was a left-over from an early batch of bad scans?

I just received the CT CDROM 4 days ago, so if any of my points above have been fixed, I did not get that version.

Despite the issues I mention, I still think it is a worthwhile investment, more than worthwhile actually.

I just hope at some point I can obtain the information in a readable format from Marc (unlikely until after T5 release according to what I am seeing elsewhere on CotI) or from other fans (probably my best bet).

To be honest, I actually have the deadtree versions of all the poorly scanned books except for Scouts and Robots.

I purchased the reprint of all the Adventures from FFE a couple years ago, so that takes care of:

CT A02 Adventure 02 Research Station Gamma
CT A10 Adventure 10 Safari Ship
CT A11 Adventure 11 Murder on Arcturus Station

I actually have two copies of:

CT D01 Double 01a Annic Nova/CT D01 Double 01b Shadows

that were included in lot purchases from ebay years ago. So, I could get on with the scanning, though I lack OCR software (are there any good open-source ones?).

I would be very interested in copies of books 6 & 8 if anyone has them for sale. Otherwise, Marc might allow someone to scan them and send me the scan (though somewhat unlikely from what I have read).

My next purchase will be the JTAS CDROM, since they seem to be exemplary examples of how to do this process correctly. For me, the MT CDROM will have to wait until all the issues are addressed.

 

[chshrkt]

I just received an email response from Mr Miller

Thank you for your constructive criticism and your offer of updated scans.

I am always trying to update and upgrade the CD ROMS, and I would love to update the files you mentionbelow.



Marc

In my email I had asked him if he would allow traveller fans to scan the affected books so that the CD could be updated.

So, I have started scanning my Annic Nova double adventure and will post them on my website, then send the link to MM. I am optimistic that this may help him update the files, and therefore the CDROM.

 

[far-trader]

Just curious if anyone else has a version where the index link for S05 Lightning Class Cruisers is just a link back to the index? The file is there, I just have to go through the directory to get to it is all. One minor fix for any future production runs of the CD

 

[chshrkt]

Just curious if anyone else has a version where the index link for S05 Lightning Class Cruisers is just a link back to the index? The file is there, I just have to go through the directory to get to it is all. One minor fix for any future production runs of the CD

All of my index links work, so that must have been one of the early fixes.

All I need to do is find someone with the following LBBs who would be willing to scan them to submit to Marc:

CT Traveller Starter Edition
CT B06 Book 06 Scouts
CT B08 Book 08 Robots
CT A02 Adventure 02 Research Station Gamma
CT A11 Adventure 11 Murder on Arcturus Station


I can scan the following LBBs since I own them:

CT D01 Double 01a Annic Nova
CT D01 Double 01b Shadows
CT A10 Adventure 10 Safari Ship

Like I stated above, I do own the FFE reprint of the adventures (A02 & A11), but I think it would look better if the LBBs were scanned instead.

Any volunteers?

 

[BigBadRon]

Just curious if anyone else has a version where the index link for S05 Lightning Class Cruisers is just a link back to the index? The file is there, I just have to go through the directory to get to it is all. One minor fix for any future production runs of the CD

Yep, I have one of those copies.

 

[Vargas]

I don't know if this adds to the conversation but Annic Nova and Lightning Class Ships appear to be fine on my CD copy. Truth be told, for the money you can't beat the amount of CT goodness you get.

 

[chshrkt]

I don't know if this adds to the conversation but Annic Nova and Lightning Class Ships appear to be fine on my CD copy. Truth be told, for the money you can't beat the amount of CT goodness you get.

It appears that maybe different files on different CDs have varying degrees of legibility.

Do you have any files that appear to have been scanned at a lower resolution?
Have you tried a copy/paste into a word processer to check the accuracy of the OCR? If you could check Annic Nova that way, it would be helpful, perhaps revealing different versions of the CD.

I just finished scanning Double Adventure 1 at 300dpi and uploaded it to my photo site. I sent Marc an email with links to the two galleries (Shadows/Annic Nova).

If he likes them, I will scan Adv 10 and upload that as well. Hopefully, others will be able to scan the rest of the books I noted in the OP and maybe Marc can offer them as downloads to folks who received CDs with issues. Or he can just send updated CDs, but the download option would probably be quicker/more cost effective.

 

[Spinward Scout]

They usually make stuff like that from a Master and to have different problems on different CDs would mean that the differing files became corrupted as it was being burnt to the CD in question.

Unless it wasn't done from a Master file or CD.

 

[Jacqual]

I still want to order a copy of both CD's but my wife keeps spending all my money lol. I am glad to hear that Mr. Miller is in a mind for always upgrading the product for future orders. I am a firm beleiver that in anything done continued improvement and quality go a long way for your reputation as a good bussiness person.

 

[wolf90]

I too was thinking of buying the CT, MT and JTAS CDs.... Am I correct in that the JTAS version is relatively error free, but the other two have some significant issues? I have dead tree versions of all, but would love the ability of printing out specific pages without having to scan my books. But if the resolution is questionable on some, that does limit the appeal of the discs...

 

[Jacqual]

I ordered the CT, JTAS, as well as the T5 CD today when they arrive I will go over them with a fine tooth comb and let everyone know if I have any quality issues with any of them.

 

[wolf90]

I ordered the CT, JTAS, as well as the T5 CD today when they arrive I will go over them with a fine tooth comb and let everyone know if I have any quality issues with any of them.

Thanks...that would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Jacqual]

Well I got my CD's and was able to do some checking on the CT disk havent been able to get to the JTAS disk yet. My first quick exam showed up with simular examples as listed by chshrkt above I also noticed that the Zhodani alien module, and the Darrian alien module shows the text as gray not black like it was faded. I could still read it fine. I was not able to print out any of the books as my printer is fresh out of black ink and for my printer that is about 150 bucks for the monster cartridge. (OK I bought the monster laser printer to print books it does hold 200 sheets of paper at a time and in the last year I printed like 1200 to 1500 pages on the starter cartridge). But everything does appear readable to me on my PC.

 

[chshrkt]

Well I got my CD's and was able to do some checking on the CT disk havent been able to get to the JTAS disk yet. My first quick exam showed up with simular examples as listed by chshrkt above I also noticed that the Zhodani alien module, and the Darrian alien module shows the text as gray not black like it was faded. I could still read it fine. I was not able to print out any of the books as my printer is fresh out of black ink and for my printer that is about 150 bucks for the monster cartridge. (OK I bought the monster laser printer to print books it does hold 200 sheets of paper at a time and in the last year I printed like 1200 to 1500 pages on the starter cartridge). But everything does appear readable to me on my PC.

Just to clarify, you noticed that the same files I listed seemed to be scanned at a lower resolution?

I have not heard from MM regarding the scan I did of Double Adventure 1 and whether it was valuable or not. I have scanned Adv 10 as well, but have not yet uploaded it to my website for him to look at.

 

[Jacqual]

Yes those titles apear with a slight fuze to them. As well as the AM listed which appear grey in color for the text instead of the text being black.

 

[DaddyDragon]

My son pointed out today while trying to make a vargr PC that page 16 and 28 appear to be missing from AM3 module on our disk.

I think I'll start rummaging through and see if I notice any other issues.