Digital Subscription Advice

Keef Monkey · 30 January, 2014, 04:43:14 PM

Hey, I've finally decided to take the plunge and get a tablet and switch my subscription to digital (purely because I literally have no more room for progs in the home sadly).

Being a noob at such things I just wondered what people use in terms of readers and what the easiest way to download them onto your tablet for reading are. It's a Nexus I'm getting so it'll be Android.

Asked some friends but they tend to do their comic reading on Comixology and said that the best format to grab is the cbz, but that there are a bunch of different ways of reading that, so I guess I'm just looking for a breakdown of what your process is when you buy and read the prog!

Thanks!

IndigoPrime · 30 January, 2014, 05:14:09 PM

As far as I can tell, your current choices on Android will be buying from 2000 AD's shop on an ad-hoc basis, or subscribing via ClickWheel, which offers CBZ and PDF. 2000 AD is not available via Comixology. On iOS, you can add 2000 AD's own app to the mix (which is essentially a custom PDF reader mixed with Apple's Newsstand subscription service).

Frank · 30 January, 2014, 05:33:37 PM

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 30 January, 2014, 05:14:09 PM
your current choices on Android will be ... subscribing via ClickWheel

Which can be done by clicking on the subscribe annually button below the option to buy this week's prog. That might seem obvious, but I know it took me months to notice. I'm blaming my tiny laptop display, but that's really just me trying to save face.

sheldipez · 30 January, 2014, 06:42:10 PM

Clickwheel is the cheapest (the meg is insane value imo) and do .cbz files as mentioned above. The best comic reader is ComicRack; highly recommended. That's all you need to know

Keef Monkey · 30 January, 2014, 07:38:38 PM

Clickwheel sounds good, will check out Comicrack too, thanks!

One thing that just occurred to me though, with the digital Megazine do you still get the bonus floppy/GN collections that come bagged with the physical copies? Maybe a stupid question but best to check! Thanks for the help guys

Albion · 30 January, 2014, 10:55:25 PM

Yes, the bagged floppy is part of the file and at the end of the Meg.

chris_askham · 31 January, 2014, 12:39:30 AM

I've been thinking of going digital for a while now, mainly due to space reasons, and looking at the prices on Clickwheel it seems crazy not to.

But are there any serious valid reasons I may have overlooked for not going digital?

The Adventurer · 31 January, 2014, 06:16:02 AM

The only real negative I have with 2000 AD digital is I feel the image compression techniques they use are a little too noticeable. Color crush, especially with grays and reds can be especially noticeable. But... For me it's not a deal breaker.

chris_askham · 31 January, 2014, 11:33:15 AM

If i do go digital, am I going to be able to read my progs / meg on my Kindle Fire? Anyone else doing this? I only recently picked my device up, so still getting use to what I can do with it.

Keef Monkey · 31 January, 2014, 01:47:01 PM

Someone else can hopefully confirm, but pretty sure Kindles read PDFs fine so shouldn't be a problem?

Emailed Subscriptions (I didn't realize Rebellion owned Clickwheel) and it all sounds fairly easy. They did mention that hopefully in the relatively near future there'll be a more direct option for Android users, but that at the moment Clickwheel was the place to go for subs. No Megazine subscription on the website at the moment though, just individual issues, but it sounded like that's temporary and maybe even just a technical fault just now.

So I've mailed Denise to see about cancelling my sub (end of an era!). I did grab Comixology and grab a couple of freebies and I'm quite impressed with the digital comic experience

sheldipez · 31 January, 2014, 02:12:48 PM

Quote from: The Adventurer on 31 January, 2014, 06:16:02 AM
The only real negative I have with 2000 AD digital is I feel the image compression techniques they use are a little too noticeable. Color crush, especially with grays and reds can be especially noticeable. But... For me it's not a deal breaker.

I do wish they offered a less compressed version, high res 22 page US comics tend to come in just under 50mb and the progs I've had from clickwheel have all been little over 20meg and it does show. That's not to say theyre bad or low res, just room for improvement.

Keef Monkey · 01 February, 2014, 03:52:24 PM

They're looking pretty good on my tablet, it's only a 7" screen so maybe not big enough for any of the compression problems to show when zoomed in?

The only thing I found fiddly was that I couldn't work out a way to get the prog straight to my tablet, because browsing to what I guess is the mobile version of the site all the links to download are missing. In the end I had to download them on my PC, then upload them to my Skydrive (because I didn't have a cable to hand), then use the Skydrive app to download them to the tablet.

Maybe I'm going about it wrong, seems mad there wouldn't be a direct way of doing it, maybe I just can't find the link on the site because I'm looking in the wrong place. Is everyone here on Android having to go through a few steps to get the issue on their device?

sheldipez · 01 February, 2014, 04:26:35 PM

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 01 February, 2014, 03:52:24 PM
They're looking pretty good on my tablet, it's only a 7" screen so maybe not big enough for any of the compression problems to show when zoomed in?

The only thing I found fiddly was that I couldn't work out a way to get the prog straight to my tablet, because browsing to what I guess is the mobile version of the site all the links to download are missing. In the end I had to download them on my PC, then upload them to my Skydrive (because I didn't have a cable to hand), then use the Skydrive app to download them to the tablet.

Maybe I'm going about it wrong, seems mad there wouldn't be a direct way of doing it, maybe I just can't find the link on the site because I'm looking in the wrong place. Is everyone here on Android having to go through a few steps to get the issue on their device?

I use dolphin browser for Android and the links show up fine; shows options for PDF or CBR file - I hit the CBR link and downloads to the tablet into the 2000 AD folder I've created. Browser issue maybe?

Keef Monkey · 02 February, 2014, 01:59:08 AM

That's odd, it is Chrome I'm using but downloaded Dolphin to check and it's the same for me. The issues show as purchased but I can't see any link to download them (unless I'm looking in the wrong place)!

This is a screenshot of what I see...

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=FA0BBF684649FC5E!149&authkey=!AF-Hdf4LNw2QYpo&v=3&ithint=photo%2c.png

I take it you're seeing a different page then? Weird!

The Adventurer · 02 February, 2014, 03:30:30 AM

Personally I just buy issues through the 2000 AD shop on my PC, then upload the files to Dropbox, which I then download to my iPad and read in ComicZeal.

But I don't think ComicZeal has an android app. But there must be a good cbr reader for it.