Playboy Cover to Cover -- the 50's: Searchable Digital Archive--Every Page, Every Issue | 
 enlarge
| Author: Playboy
Creator: Bondi Digital Publishing
Publisher: Bondi Digital Publishing, LLC
Category: Book
List Price: $100.00
Buy New: $34.85
You Save: $65.15 (65%)
New (20) Used (6) Collectible (2) from $24.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 123437
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Har/DVD/Bk
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 202
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.4
Dimensions (in): 12.3 x 9.7 x 2.1
ISBN: 0979526116
Dewey Decimal Number: 306
EAN: 9780979526114
ASIN: 0979526116
Publication Date: October 22, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
System Requirements
- Platform: Windows 2000 SP2 / XP / Vista, Mac OS X Minimum
512 MB of RAM (1 GB RAM recommended) - 750 MB of free hard drive space
- Minimum screen resolution 1024 x 768
- Media: DVD-ROM
- Item Quantity: 1
|
Software Features
- Easy to use and searchable digital archive with every issue, every page (even the ads!) of Playboy from the 1950s on 2 DVD-ROMs
- Includes the powerful Bondi Reader and search engine (Mac or PC). Find and read any award winning cover story, interview, photo or review in seconds
- The browse-by-cover feature lets you visually locate any issue by its cover--simply click the cover and the issue opens to read
- Custom reading lists let you organize the collection any way you want
| Book Description What do Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Jayne Mansfield and Brigitte Bardot have in common? They are the most alluring sex symbols of all time--and they all graced the pages of Playboy in the 1950s. But Playboy wasn't only about beautiful women--it featured serious literature by equally serious writers like Hemingway, Kerouac, Bradbury, and Steinbeck. Playboy Cover to Cover--the 50s brings the magazine's entire groundbreaking first decade--every issue, every page, cover to cover--into one searchable digital archive. This exclusive box set features the Bondi Reader, powerful MAC or PC browsing software that allows you to explore, search, save and arrange multiple reading lists. Every story, feature and interview, and of course every Playmate, can be located in seconds, and then compiled and cross-referenced however you choose. Playboy Cover to Cover--the 50s also comes with a 224-page companion coffee table book chronicling the behind-the- scenes history of Playboy and filled with never-before-published letters, photos, and contact sheets of Playboy's amazing first decade. A collector's edition reissue of the extremely rare first issue--featuring Marilyn Monroe's breathtaking cover and pictorial--is included as a special bonus. This essential collection is a must for lifelong fans and subscribers of Playboy, nostalgia seekers, history and culture buffs, as well as all lovers of beautiful women.
Take a Tour Through Playboy Cover to Cover--the 50s Click each image below to see a full-size version of spreads from the book and screenshots of the digital archive.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Very nice product at any price July 14, 2008
I bought this when it was $[...]. The price seems to fluctuate wildly. It's now $[...]. But this is a very nice product at any price. I'm not wild about the Bondi software, but it is usable.
The magazine's content is great, vividly captured. It's better than I expected. I wasn't sure if the magazine would have been preserved in its early days, but it was and it is here. The centerfolds showcase the great photography that Playboy has always had.
Playboy has had its ups and downs over the years, but Mr Hefner always was true to himself. This item is worth a look, if only to see what our fathers and grandfathers grew up with.
Finally! April 14, 2008
This is a great collection of the older Playboys and is long overdue for collectors. Hopefully, each decade will be done to facilitate a complete magazine search database. The format is a bit strange and I don't understand why Adobe wasn't used as opposed to the proprietary program this set is formatted in...but who am I to question PEI? An excellent addition to my collection and I can now find any article or author without having to actually open each issue.
Playboy- A Fabulous Journey! April 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best archival collections that I DIDN'T produce!
This superbly inclusive package contains 2 discs chronicling each (printable) page of Playboys first and most groundbreaking decade (which began in December 1953). Undoubtedly the most visionary publication ever, it reflected a style, artform, sophistication, sizzle, taste and hip attitude which never existed before, and still endures as the pioneering influential catalyst for all the titillating printed works that became beneficiaries of the true original.
In addition to the discs, comes a 224 page coffee table book with many previously unseen photos & material gathered by Hef for this special release.
But the ultimate bonus for us collectors, is the reprint copy of the very first issue, complete with every article, advertisement and the memorable cover and classic Pin up shot of Marilyn Monroe by Tom Kelly, as it was originally first seen in that milestone issue. This limited edition package is a must for every fan, collector & aficionado of memorabilia and the lovely sights that have been exclusively captured in the pages of this timeless original. Hopefully, there may be a similar production for the other great decade of creative, artistic excitement, the 60s! Till there is, you may enjoy a unique collectible compilation of classic soft drink jingle commercials by the biggest hit-making recording artists of the decade, plus vintage radio disc jockeys and broadcast memorabilia from that decade called "Top 40 radios swingin' soft drink spots of the 60s; Vols 1 & 2". And the double CD sets are available exclusively from Amazon.com! Note the first volumes' cover featuring the other timeless sex symbol Icon from the 50s & 60s "Brigitte Bardot" appropriately sipping up a glassful, undoubtedly while listening to an earful!
The First Decade January 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an incredible bargain! I have loved every minute I've spent reading the wonderful fiction, interviews and reviews. (The works of Ray Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder" and "Fahrenheit 451" are worth the price!) I heartily recommend this collection, and can barely wait for the decade of the 60's to come! What I remember of the 60's, I remember fondly. :)
Oh, yeah... the pictorials are awesome, as well.
 Great idea, terrible execution. Bondi's crippling DRM ruins what could have been a great collection. January 28, 2008
36 out of 41 found this review helpful
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.
|
|
|
