The New Lionel Catalogs Low Resolution

KOOLjock1 posted:

Hmmm... I just went to the site, found the catalog and read them clearly on my iPhone 6s.  I wonder if some are having wifi speed issues?

 I will say that from a design standpoint, the Lionel website is reminiscent of their ill-fated 1997 catalog.

Jon

I am getting 185 Mbps down and 20 up.  Using Ipad pro which has a large and very hi res screen.  Pictures are blurry and all copy illegible.  Not sure what is going on, but I don't think it is related to download speeds.

Hopefully they get it fixed soon.  I can't wait to see what everyone is so excited about! 

Ben 

$600.00 for a gantry crane.

I have no problem viewing the new catalog.

I have issues of resolution with my driod cellphone. But I goto my computer to read all the fine print.

The RTR cat. was simply awful yesterday. Pages hanging up, little to no response. There needs to be a designated person to go to that can smack Lionel in the face and say FIX THIS MESS!!!

$600.00 for a gantry crane

I have long thought that high prices on the newly made stuff are good for the secondary market

eddie g posted:

I have no problem viewing the new catalog.

On what device?

The photos are Low-Resolution.

The pdf drawings are super-high resolution.

Somebody has to get the photos corrected.

Andrew

A couple of years ago, I stopped reviewing the Lionel and MTH catalogs on-line.  As soon as they are available, I download the PDF versions.  They are clear and switch between pages quickly.  I keep copies of all the PDF catalogs on a file server on my home network so I can view from any PC in the house.  And, if I'm so inclined, I can copy the catalogs to my laptop, ipad or phone to take with me.

When is Lionel going to FIX the resolution problem 

Surely someone from Lionel could take a stab at an explanation and estimate of the time frame for a fix

Sitting in the weeds is not helpful

On my iPhone 6 on Wednesday, I could only see blurred images after tapping any page of the Signature catalog. On my desktop computer Thursday, I could see everything fine, but the Ready to Run catalog crashed the reader plug-in -- like others have said, right at the John Deere page. 

The RTR catalog continued to freeze, though I was able to trick their system and head directly to the last page, then work backwards towards the front. The fuzzy images and non legible text in the "big boy book" on a lot of pages are a pain.

What's being reported is odd behavior indeed.   

  As I stated before, I am having ZERO issues viewing any of the 2016 Lionel Catalogs on my iPhone 6 with the latest OS, whether I am on WIFI or 4G LTE.

In fact I am looking right now at th R-T-R on my iPhone 6 while typing this message on my MacBook.

What's odd to me is some are reporting issues viewing on their iPhone 6, and others are reporting no issues.

Same with my 2013 13" MacBook Pro retina.    The pages load just fine, and when I click on a page to see detail, it sizes right up with crisp, clear text and pictures.

I have not tried it on my 21" iMac non retina yet.

The catalog does look just fine on an old PC with 17" monitor in my studio.

I have not tried my iPad 2 recently so I can't comment on that.

EscapeRocks posted:

What's being reported is odd behavior indeed.   

  As I stated before, I am having ZERO issues viewing any of the 2016 Lionel Catalogs on my iPhone 6 with the latest OS, whether I am on WIFI or 4G LTE.

In fact I am looking right now at th R-T-R on my iPhone 6 while typing this message on my MacBook.

What's odd to me is some are reporting issues viewing on their iPhone 6, and others are reporting no issues.

Same with my 2013 13" MacBook Pro retina.    The pages load just fine, and when I click on a page to see detail, it sizes right up with crisp, clear text and pictures.

 

I have not tried it on my 21" iMac non retina yet.

The catalog does look just fine on an old PC with 17" monitor in my studio.

 

I have not tried my iPad 2 recently so I can't comment on that.

Not sure if this will work, but here is a screen shot of the table of contents page. Illegible!

C W Burfle posted:

$600.00 for a gantry crane

 

I have long thought that high prices on the newly made stuff are good for the secondary market

That initially caught my eye as well, but then another forum member called to my attention that i'ts not a traditional crane, it's the die cast one that was used for the TMCC (now Legacy) controlled crane cars.

$600 is still high, IMO, but it's not as bad as I thought when I first saw it thinking it was a conventional crane car body with Legacy control.

As to the resolution, the PDFs looked OK on my laptop at home.  I try not to bother with the pretty wiz-bang flippy page BS since it is so hit and miss.  I go right for the download icon when I open it up.

-Dave

Does anyone have a link to where I can download the PDFs? The online versions are blurry on my ipad as well.

thanks,

Jay in Ottawa

Jay Ottawa posted:

Does anyone have a link to where I can download the PDFs? The online versions are blurry on my ipad as well.

thanks,

Jay in Ottawa

Not sure if there is a direct link somewhere, I got it by starting with the flippy page thing and there are icons to the left.

Clicking the icon that looks like the below starts the process, then I had to click on a little pop-up type thing that said PDF. (though it might be within the 3D viewer, not an actual pop-up). This then opened the PDF, though it does take a while to download (few minutes here on a high speed connection).

-Dave

The download symbol appears on my desktop, but not on my iPad Air 2. I can create a PDF of only the one page I am viewing using Safari tools in the flippy page thing.

Got my catalogs from Nassau today. They look way better than what I could see online.

I'm using my pc with a big screen and it's very slow to turn a page and as others pointed out, low resolution.  Sometimes it will even hang for awhile mid page, but eventually buffers in the next page or offers to stop the script that appears to be not responding.  Doesn't matter if I use a different laptop, a different internet provider, or different browsers like IE, Chrome, or Firefox.   I also finally resorted to just downloading the thing offline, which removed the slowness problem.

I haven't experienced any of the problems that people are complaining about. I have a four-year old Dell desktop computer running Windows 10 and Firefox Ver. 43. Could magnify or reduce the size, had superb resolution, leafed thru the catalog pages swiftly. So where's the problem?

Ron M

Okay, just a test and to make sure I'm not crazy I just did the following:

Went thru R-T-R, Signature, and Track and Power 2016 catalogs on a late 2013 MacBook Pro 13" Retina.

OSX El Capitan    8gb  2.4 ghz

WIFI connection on a Verizon FiOS router, with tested 22ms ping, 48Mbps down and 39 Mbps up (I get much better when using ethernet from my desktop).

Firefox 43.0.4 for Mac

Results:

One issue found, the first Table Of Contents page of the Signature catalog remained blurry.

Every  single other page of all three catalogs loaded fine, and when clicking on the page, the page zoomed in to fit the screen, and also gave me a tool to zoom in further.

I am attaching a random page from each catalog that I screen shot to show what I am seeing. 

Any one from Lionel made an effort to explain (fix) the problem ?

Yet.

Yet !

YET !!!!! 

Let me be direct, FIX IT

ron m posted:

I haven't experienced any of the problems that people are complaining about. I have a four-year old Dell desktop computer running Windows 10 and Firefox Ver. 43. Could magnify or reduce the size, had superb resolution, leafed thru the catalog pages swiftly. So where's the problem?

Ron M

My original post above...

"I cannot read the text even expanded on an iPad Air 2. Is this the best that can be done. I can read it on a desktop with a 21 inch monitor."

ron m posted:

I haven't experienced any of the problems that people are complaining about. I have a four-year old Dell desktop computer running Windows 10 and Firefox Ver. 43. Could magnify or reduce the size, had superb resolution, leafed thru the catalog pages swiftly. So where's the problem?

Ron M

My original post above...

"I cannot read the text even expanded on an iPad Air 2. Is this the best that can be done. I can read it on a desktop with a 21 inch monitor."

The website sure doesn't seem very user friendly.

jpc posted:

Any one from Lionel made an effort to explain (fix) the problem ?

Yet.

Yet !

YET !!!!! 

Let me be direct, FIX IT

Has anyone having an issue contacted Lionel directly instead of complaining here?

Lionel's marketing and sales strategy strikes me as strange. They don't seem interested in the mass market.  Back in the day, I bet old Josh made more trains in a week than they sell in a year.  Part of the problem for them and us.  Buy trains !!

EscapeRocks posted:

jpc posted:

Any one from Lionel made an effort to explain (fix) the problem ?

Yet.

Yet !

YET !!!!! 

Let me be direct, FIX IT

Has anyone having an issue contacted Lionel directly instead of complaining here?

I started to, but having to put all the info into the "talk to us", I got impatient and decided that they look here I have noticed and this should be sufficient.

I have to add that I have never had a problem like this reading any previous Lionel catalog or anyone else's for that matter.

I hit two shops yesterday looking for a hard, legible copy.  It ain't there yet.  When I can get my pink paws on one, I will look at it.  Otherwise, fogitaboudit.

We appreciate the feedback on the digital presentation of the catalog and hope to have improvements in place later this week.

Lionel.com Site Manager posted:

We appreciate the feedback on the digital presentation of the catalog and hope to have improvements in place later this week.

Great. I like to look at the catalog and it's being mobile on my iPad, I can look whenever.

Catalog looks fine now.

Not here yet. I thought later this week...

Has anyone having an issue contacted Lionel directly instead of complaining here?

I'd guess that Lionel has at least one person with the responsibility to monitor this and other "O" gauge chat boards.

The one page I reported as being bad for me on any platform (1st menu page of Signature Catalog) is now perfect on MacBook Pro 13", iPad 2, iPhone 6, and old iMac 21".

Thank you for fixing this.

I can now see all pages of all catalogs just fine.

THE FIX IS IN !

THANK YOU LIONEL

AN ADDITIONAL REQUEST

HOW ABOUT A WEB SITE THAT IS EASIER TO NAVIGATE

I HAD A HECK OF A TIME JUST TRYING TO FIND THE CATALOGUES

IS THAT A PROBLEM FOR OTHERS

Funny thing, the RTR catalog stops dead a few pages in on Lionels website. If I view the RTR catalog via Charles Ro's link I can flip though the whole catalog as fast as I want without any issue.

The new site uses hot click symbols that are not generally familiar. Those symbols of parallel lines or three dots which are HUBs and MORE open up a lot of options on the site. The site otherwise looks rather stark. No idea of where to find things. But after some browsing it becomes second nature and the site is very rich with places to go.

RickO posted:

Funny thing, the RTR catalog stops dead a few pages in on Lionels website. If I view the RTR catalog via Charles Ro's link I can flip though the whole catalog as fast as I want without any issue.

I, on my windows desktop, put the PDF into dropbox and then on the iPad, I downloaded it to the homescreen which brings up a nice copy of the catalog.