Has anyone bought the "Scale Auto First 35 years" dvd

[Heartattaq]

If so was it worth the 89.95 to you? I mean price wise For the amount of magazines you get on the dvd I imagine the price is right, but if you purchased it, do you find you use it enough to justify the price point?

[Roncla]

I'm happy with my purchase of the DVD. I first started buying the mag in 1986 so its given me access to the earlier issues I would never have gotten to otherwise see.

The only issue I have is that I followed the instructions and  downloaded the DVD to my new iMac running the latest  OS Mojave 10.14.5 and whenever I open it I'm getting a message saying the app is not optimised for my Mac and needs to be updated

Its currently working fine but worryingly its saying the app won't work with future versions of Mac OS. 

 

[Glen Powers]

I'm also happy with the purchase. I followed their PC/Windows instructions and it loaded fine.

The search feature alone makes it worth it to me also the space it freed up in my model room

was a big plus. 

 

[Bainford]

I think there is likely good value here, but when I tried to order it, the shipping to Canada was horrendous. I emailed them a couple of times to see if the quoted numbers on the website were correct, but so far no reply.

[randyc]

We have an old lap top somewhere.  Will this work on a regular DVD player or Xbox?  I can enjoy the magazine and force family to enjoy it with me on the TV.  LOL.   

Can it be copied to a separate PC?  So I can look at it at work as well without having the DVD with me everytime?

Any way to trasnfer files to google drive or something so I can see it on my phone?  

These are my questions and probably easier to get an answer here.  I have almost every issue since 1986, but nothing before and I probably missed a few issues in there when I was buying off the rack.

[jchrisf]

So, I can't seem to find this DVD for sale anymore.  Did they nix this too?

[OldNYJim]

22 minutes ago, jchrisf said:

So, I can't seem to find this DVD for sale anymore.  Did they nix this too?

I think so - seems like they’ve been clearing out anything related to Scale Auto at much reduced prices.  They had that DVD for $40 a couple of months back 

[jchrisf]

5 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

I think so - seems like they’ve been clearing out anything related to Scale Auto at much reduced prices.  They had that DVD for $40 a couple of months back 

Oh man, that stinks. Both because it is gone and because I missed that great price.  That should be a great money maker for them.  Surprised they got rid of it.

Edited September 14, 2021 by jchrisf

[Dave Van]

I bought it for the $40 not long ago. I lost many issues in hurricane Danny when our house flooded. It's ok.......worth $40but very happy I did not pay more.

[jchrisf]

47 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

I bought it for the $40 not long ago. I lost many issues in hurricane Danny when our house flooded. It's ok.......worth $40but very happy I did not pay more.

Good to know Dave in case they bring it back.  Why is it not worth more?

[Rob Hall]

I got a while back.  It’s neat to browse the older issues. 

[OldNYJim]

13 minutes ago, jchrisf said:

Good to know Dave in case they bring it back.  Why is it not worth more?

Guess it's practically free money at this point if the magazines have long since paid for themselves and they can just put them on a 10 cent DVD.

Pity they've discontinued it - I'm hopeful that they'll bring out a revised version with EVERY issue, ever, and that it'll work on current Mac operating systems...but I have no reason to think they're doing that.

[Dave Van]

46 minutes ago, jchrisf said:

Good to know Dave in case they bring it back.  Why is it not worth more?

IMHO ONLY...the proprietary software used to 'read' the magazine is very clumsy and not what I think of as user friendly.  I am BIAS as I was a computer system analyst for 25+ years so I may be more critical than others. thx

[OldNYJim]

You'd think they'd just put them on a disk in PDF format and just be done with it...

[jchrisf]

7 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

You'd think they'd just put them on a disk in PDF format and just be done with it...

I wish the had... then I wouldn't have to buy it.  It'd be all over the internet for free 

[Dave Van]

38 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

You'd think they'd just put them on a disk in PDF format and just be done with it...

yep,,,,make it easy and cheap and you will not have to worry about copying.....

[OldNYJim]

31 minutes ago, jchrisf said:

I wish the had... then I wouldn't have to buy it.  It'd be all over the internet for free 

I'm sure that's their concern - but they're not making any money either way right now.  You can't buy it, and if you did it might not work on your PC/Mac regardless. 

You'd think they'd want to monetize all that old stuff in the same way Netflix monetizes old shows and movies.  Netflix wouldn't be too popular if you could only run it on Windows XP though...they're missing a trick by not having all this stuff available digitally somehow

[jchrisf]

I was thinking.. now that Scale Auto is defunct, is there anything preventing people from sharing these now?

[Dave Van]

1 hour ago, jchrisf said:

I was thinking.. now that Scale Auto is defunct, is there anything preventing people from sharing these now?

Pretty sure the copyright is still in place.  Add to it the files on the disk will not open w/o the disk and I ain't figured out how to export the files. 

[jchrisf]

2 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

Pretty sure the copyright is still in place.  Add to it the files on the disk will not open w/o the disk and I ain't figured out how to export the files. 

If the company is gone I'd think the copyright was null and void.  Plus they are not selling it anymore and there is no way for anyone to get access to this great resource.  Hopefully someone will figure out how to get it the pdfs off there.  I'd be happy to pay a fair price for it but I can't even do that.  Fortunately I bought some of the digital sets they had available before the DVD was out.  They are of several things but one was the Kemp Collection and the other was Building the Legends with Clay Kemp and David Thibodeau.  I'd love to get everything Clay and DT have done.

[Dave Van]

Kalmbach publishing owns SAE. They are keeping the title alive just not publishing a paper magazine any longer. Like GM still owns the 'Pontiac' brand, try and produce a Pontiac model kit without a license from GM......lawyers will magically appear at your door. 

Same deal with SAE Kalmbach

[Bugatti Fan]

Maybe some well heeled benefactor will buy out the complete rights to Scale Auto and place all the back issues off the DVD onto the web as a free download?     LOL!

[jchrisf]

I'm hoping someone will just put them out there and no one will care.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Although scale auto is gone Kalmbach is still in business. If someone publishes the contents of the scale auto dvd there is going to be legal consequences. Better to petition kalmbach to put the dvd back on sale.

[Dave Van]

3 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Maybe some well heeled benefactor will buy out the complete rights to Scale Auto and place all the back issues off the DVD onto the web as a free download?     LOL!

I bet Kalmbach tried selling off SAE....but a tough market. I gave a heads up that SAE was closing to a publisher that is hobby magazine only.....they said thanks....but after a month or two they posted no deal could be made.