Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/c.s.a.reviews/hardware/cd-rom/CDTV_2

Internet Message Format | 1994-06-02 | 19.7 KB

Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Nhan Trong Nguyen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Amiga CDTV and 2 discs
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Date: 2 Jul 1993 14:25:56 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 385
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <211ghk$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Nhan Trong Nguyen)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: hardware, system, CDTV, CD-ROM, CD, commercial


PRODUCT NAME

    Commodore Dynamic Total Vision (CDTV)
    Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia CD-ROM
    Lemmings CD-ROM

    [MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review was updated on September 20, 1993.
    Search for the text "[UPDATE:" to find updated information.
    -Dan]


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    This is a followup to the review of CDTV posted by T H Pineapple
("THP") on June 28, 1993, in comp.sys.amiga.reviews.  Please refer to it for
more details on CDTV, as this post will deal mostly with the differences
between THP's machine (a UK CDTV) and my own (US CDTV), though I will
interject opinions as well.  Please note that my CDTV unit was purchased in
June 1992, and there may have been some minor changes to the hardware sold
since then (keyboard and mouse).

    In short, the CDTV has a motherboard different than the other Amigas,
and depending on whom you ask, is similar to either the A500 or A2000 mother-
boards.  It has all the standard Amiga ports, as well as MIDI in/out, S-Video
out, RF out, composite out, and mini-DIN mouse and keyboard connectors.  CDTV
also has a CD drive and proprietary RAM card slot.


COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Commodore Business Machines, Inc.
    Address:    1200 Wilson Drive
            West Chester, PA  19380
            USA

    [Commodore has other offices in other countries as well.]


LIST PRICE

    The CDTV has two basic US configurations:  the stock CDTV, and the
CDTV Professional (CDTV/P).  The list price for the CDTV is $599 (US), while
the CDTV/P will cost about $200 more.  A the current mailorder price of the
CDTV/P is under $600.

    The CDTV can be upgraded to a CDTV/P with the addition of the CD-1500
Professional Pack.  This pack consists of a jet-black A3000-style 94-key
keyboard (96-key A2000-style in UK), black corded mouse (some units come with
infrared mice), black A1011-type external floppy drive (renamed CD-1411),
Workbench disks, one black CD caddy, and two CDs.


OBTAINING THE MACHINE

    I mail-ordered my CDTV/P from BriWall for a total of US $921.00 (this
was before AGA machines were released, in June 1992).  The package consisted
of the following:

    Stock CDTV Package

    o CDTV unit (CD-1000)
    o Remote Control plus Panasonic general purpose batteries
    o CD Caddy with Commodore Tutorial CD inside
    o Cables
    o Hookup booklet

    CD-1500 Pro Pack

    o Wired Mouse, CD-1253
    o Keyboard, KKQ-E94YC
    o External Drive, CD-1411
    o AmigaDOS 1.3 System disks and documentation
    o Catalog of CDTV titles
    o Lemmings CD
    o Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia CD
    o CD Caddy

    The system I'll review contains the following: CDTV/P, Sharp VHS
VCR, Commodore 1084 monitor, and Emerson 2400 baud modem, but will mention
cases when I've tested other hardware with it.


HARDWARE

    The CDTV unit, built to be put into a hi-fi component rack, has the
following dimensions:  430mm W x 330mm D x 95mm H.  It is black with 15mm
high cylindrical feet, for shock reduction, stability, traction, and
ventilation.  Very slick.  The base CDTV unit is identical to that in UK,
except for the Video Slot card, as noted in THP's review.

    Some comments on my CDTV/P:  using the remote control as a mouse or
joystick is quite a pain.  Since the remote control acts as a joystick, using
it as a mouse means that the pointer will only move at one speed, which is
adjustable only through Preferences.  I highly recommend the Pro Pack's
mouse.  I don't know about most people, but Nintendo and Sega-type joypads
have always served to make my thumbs throb in pain, so the CDTV's remote
didn't help much.  The directional buttons are in the style of the
Nintendo's controls, but instead of making an integrated "plus" design
(where one cross-shaped button (like this: +) is rocked up, down, left, or
right), Commodore chose to split the four controls into four separate
buttons.  This would be fine, except that Commodore put plastic dividers
between the buttons!  To make the controller slightly more functional, I
filed off these dividers.

    The remote control's range is good (I've used it up to 20 feet away),
but trying to send commands to CDTV at angles of more than 45 degrees makes
for spotty response.  When you're playing a game, and the pad moves while
you're hitting buttons or directional controls, this isn't very helpful.
There is a corded version pictured in the Tutorial CD, but I've never heard
about nor seen one.  Again, for games, buy a regular joystick.  There are two
devices I know of that allow the CDTV to use regular mice and joysticks:  Top
Secret's Brickette and Commodore's own CDTV Trackball.  The CDTV Trackball
has a trackball (obviously), genlock control, and joystick ports, and can
operate either via infrared or corded control.  It uses the CDTV mouse port,
so say goodbye to the slick mouse!  I know of no adapter to let you use the
mouse with a normal Amiga mouse port.

    I'm not an Amiga musician, so my CDTV's MIDI slots just gather dust.
I've had some friends (who are Amiga musicians) look at the CDTV, and they
are glad it has these ports as standard.  But, they ask, why doesn't it have
a MIDI THRU port?

    For the Expansion Port, the only device I know of that goes in there
is AmiTrix Development's SCSI-TV, which provides a SCSI port which allows
you to add up to seven SCSI devices.  (CDTV should have had this in the
first place, as does the A3000.)  SCSI-TV also has a mounting bracket for
$10 extra which lets you mount a 2.5" Quantum Go drive inside CDTV.  Nice,
but I've been hunting for weeks in search of a 2.5" SCSI drive, and no one's
ever heard of it.  I sent e-mail to AmiTrix about this, but have yet to
receive a reply; I'm still trying to reach Quantum.  AmiTrix also has in the
works a fast RAM expansion device -- it's about time somebody did!
Currently, the only way to add RAM is via DKB's MegAChip.

    [UPDATE:  A Fast RAM expander exists called BigRAM CD8.  It plugs
    into the CDTV motherboard and comes with 2 megabytes of RAM (allows
    for expansion with zips for 8 meg).  The price is 399DM from:
        W.A.W Elektronik
        Commodore Computer Service
        Tegeler Stra{e 2
        1000 Berlin 28
        Germany

        Tel. +49 / 30 / 404 33 31
        fax= 011 49 30 4047039

    Thanks to Philip McDunnough and Craig Ganoe for this information.]

    The Video Slot is a nice feature; but because of CDTV's design, it
could not be the same type as the ones in other Amigas.  CDTV's Video Slot
comes filled with a video output card, and I can think of two other devices
available for it: Commodore's CD-1300 genlock, and the AVM card (manufactured
by America Multimedia, Inc., according to the "Commodore Multimedia"
literature).  The genlock is discussed briefly in the Tutorial CD, and the
standard control of it is a nice touch (buttons for genlock control are
standard on the remote control and trackball).  I called Safe Harbor's
technical support about it, and they say it has S-Video input and Composite
output.  What?  No RF or S-Video out?  As for the AVM card, American
Multimedia said that it uses DCTV display technology, and does nothing else
the full DCTV unit can (digitize, etc.).  They also said that the AVM card
is available only to CDTV developers, and has a composite output only (so
you lose all the outputs of your original Video Slot card).

    I hope this isn't NDA material, but a CDTV developer I talked to
(well, e-mailed, anyway) tells me that CATS has released CDTV 2.0 ROMs, which
will allow CDTV's 1.3-based OS to finally move to 2.x without losing CD0:
(the CD drive's ID under AmigaDOS).  The ROMs are for developers only, and I
can only hope that they will be released to the public.  Since my warranty
expired a few days ago, I decided to open up my CDTV and have a look.  It
appears that CDTV uses two ROM chips (like the A3000, I believe) -- low and
high ROMs.

    The same developer who told me about the new ROMs also said that
he's managed to squeeze in ICD's AdSpeed, but cannot boot in the 14 MHz mode
(it works fine if you boot in 7 MHz mode, then software-switch it to
double-speed once within Workbench).  Of all the developers I've called,
none has a CDTV accelerator.  At one time, Progressive Peripherals
Incorporated told me that one might be made if their 040/500 line fared well,
but then they had a fire, and now I doubt that they will be releasing one.
Advanced Systems & Software's Blizzard Board will work with CDTV, I'm told,
but will not fit under the casing.  The same goes for CSA's and MicroBotics'
accelerators, which is a pity.  The main reason I want acceleration for CDTV
is because most accelerators come with RAM expansion, but so far none will
work without my removing the CDTV casing.

    There's a lot more to CDTV than this, so please refer to THP's
review.


DOCUMENTATION

    Everything is the same as in THP's review, except that I did receive
an A500 manual, an AmigaBASIC manual, and a catalog of CDTV titles.


GROLIER'S ELECTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA ("GEE") FOR CDTV

    The CD takes about 45 seconds to load, and right before it's ready,
a voice welcomes you to "Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia on CD-ROM, a
treasury of sights and sounds for the entire family."  Credits are
simultaneously shown, and then you are brought to the main screen.  GEE is
made by Xiphias, who has released other reference CD-ROMs for CDTV.  Like
other Xiphias titles, the main screen consists of a large panel of buttons,
one for each letter, and function buttons at the bottom (Word Search, Title
Search, See Pictures, etc.).  There is also an asterisk button (*) for
wildcard searches, backspace button (<==) to delete the last letter typed,
and an "Enter" button.  The palette chosen looks fine in composite or RGB,
but the interlaced screen makes GEE painful to use for more than an hour at a
time (unless your CDTV is hooked up to a big-screen TV, and you're some
distance away, or if you have a flicker fixer).

    You can use the remote control, mouse, or keyboard to enter search
strings, and there's a little bar directly beneath the alphabet buttons to
show what you've chosen.  When working from the keyboard, hitting "Enter" or
the Return key merely repeats the last character typed, instead of sending a
Return, for some odd reason.  Furthermore, if you're using the remote
control or mouse, the alphabetic key layout is not "QWERTY," as are computer
keyboards, so it takes more time to search for the right letter to press!
It must be extremely annoying to CDTV owners without the Pro Pack.  And, you
cannot enter a "space" character or anything besides letters.  Amazing.
Anyway, once you've entered what you want, GEE will search the disc, with
more time spent when more relevant articles are found.  GEE will also make
a spoken announcement whenever it can't find what you asked for.  Within
an article, the pointer can be used on the text in a Hypertext-type fashion,
where you can highlight a word and then cross-reference it.  There are also
two sets of arrows:  two at the upper left and right hand corners of the
screen, and two within a button panel below any text you're reading.  These
can move back and forth between related articles in parent or current
directories.  With certain items chosen you'll find accompanying sound and
picture files, and these can also be referenced by themselves from the main
menu, if you don't need to research anything.

    Most of the pictures appear to be in 16 colors to get the highest
resolution possible (CDTV is not AGA), or in 352x480 in HAM.  Whether it's
to save memory or get higher resolution, most pictures on the CD are not
digitized photos, but digitized drawings and paintings, maybe even taken
directly from the hardbound version of Grolier's Encyclopedia.  Some of the
audio samples are not too pleasing to the ear, I'm afraid, while others
sound fine.

    One thing GEE has that most Amiga applications don't is... online
help!  Though actually not very helpful, it was a good idea, and should be
implemented on other applications.  GEE loads large audio samples to show
you around, and switches screens to illustrate points.  Here's something
GEE was missing that I'd expect from a computer encyclopedia -- printer
support!  I couldn't believe this, and called Xiphias about it.  They only
said that if enough demand were for it, they'd release it in the next
version.  Again, amazing.  I also viewed many of the images from AmigaDOS
and found that I couldn't access them via GEE, such as maps(!), and Xiphias
said they were from the PC version.  Yet I viewed the pictures with an IFF
viewer....


LEMMINGS FOR CDTV

    I've played Lemmings in disk form, so all I can say about Lemmings
for CDTV is that you don't swap disks.  I don't think anything was upgraded
for the CDTV version.  There is an added bonus on the CD, however: a demo
animation of PlanetFall, a game that was once slated for release by
Psygnosis.  Planetfall was to take advantage of CDTV's CD capacity (and
maybe CDXL?), but has so far not been released.


CDTV IN ACTION

    I've had no problems with CDTV under AmigaDOS, and the addition of
CD0: is only a boon.  As THP stated in his review, you can play music CDs
while running AmigaDOS (and even when not, like under certain games).  I
would like to make a plug here for a program available on Fred Fish Disk
868, CDTV-Player, which gives you extended audio control under AmigaDOS,
since the only controls you'd normally have are the basic ones on the unit
and the remote control.  CDTV-Player even displays lyrics for a song and
recognizes CDs automatically.  There are other features in the works.
CDTV-Player is available from AmiNet sites around the world.

    As for the CD drive, I've had no major problems.  On occasion,
however, you have to reinsert a caddy, since the drive did not register
your putting it in.

    I've said this earlier in the article, but I really would like more
RAM in my Amiga.  The MegAChip is nice, but how about some fast RAM?  Like
THP noted, the CD filing system eats up around 150K of RAM under AmigaDOS,
so from there you've got to get creative and economical when choosing
programs.  I've created custom disks and chosen tiny programs to deal with
the limited RAM and single disk drive.  But then I thought, "Wait!  What
about the credit card RAM slot in front!  I'll bet I can use those new
PCMCIA cards in it!"  No luck, since CDTV's card slot is not the same as the
ones found in the A600 and A1200.  The specs also note that it can only
handle 256K maximum.  I think the 256K card costs around $349.99, and cannot
be used as regular RAM, just a storage disk for high scores for titles that
support it.  Why so expensive?

    [UPDATE: The credit card RAM cards for CDTV (64k and 256k) can be
    used as fast RAM.  They don't AutoConfig though, the memory must be
    added to the CDTV's memory pool using a command such as AddMem.
    Thanks to Craig Ganoe for this information.]

    For more information on what CDTV is capable of under AmigaDOS,
please refer to THP's review.


EXPANSION

    In addition to the various ones I've listed above, I've had no
problems using the CDTV with an external genlock (namely, Digital Creations'
SuperGen), DCTV, or MicroSearch's ChromaKey.  What's nice about CDTV having
so many outputs is that you can genlock the outgoing RGB signal and still
have a composite, RF, AND S-Video out for reference!  I think the A600 and
A1200 can also do this, though only in RF.

    [UPDATE: The A600 and A1200 have a composite video output as well as
    RF.  Thanks to Craig Ganoe for this information.]

    Printers and modems work fine; I've tried some Okidata printers and
US Robotics Courier HST and Emerson 2400 modems.  I've also tried using an
NEC MultiSync 3D monitor with a Commodore RGB port adapter, and that worked
fine as well.  I have yet to try a hardware deinterlacer, for lack of cash,
but it appears that CDTV's Amiga ports are no different than those on other
Amigas, so there should be no problem.  If you want a cheap way out, get the
Super Denise chip for 4-color (yet flicker-free) Productivity mode on VGA or
multiscanning monitors.

    Like other CDTV/P owners, I'm awaiting an accelerator board, and when
I heard about Supra's SupraTurbo 28 accelerators, I quickly wrote to Supra
and asked if they planned to release a version for CDTV.  Supra says if their
A500 and A2000 SupraTurbos do well, they might just make one for CDTV.  I hope
so.


BEST USES

    Using the CD drive under AmigaDOS is very nice, especially when
downloading files or copying files.  I've heard about karaoke for CDTV, and
know of at least one such disc -- a Beatles disc, but have yet to try it out
(I feel no need to embarrass myself at the moment, I guess!).  And yes, like
the magazines say, CDTV would make a nice presentation system, although the
A1200 is now better.  Still, the CDTV will still help me do things like word
processing and modeming when and if I do get enough money for an AGA machine
(A4000T!  A4000T!), since old Amigas are not useless Amigas.  And if I buy
hard drives or SyQuests and hook them up to CDTV, then ParNet it to an AGA
machine, then I'd have something like a data server!  I'd store all data
there, and use the AGA machine's hard drive to keep programs.


FOR THE FUTURE

    If some new incarnation of CDTV will be released by Commodore, I
sincerely wish for the following additions/modifications:

o More complex CD controls on unit, remote control, and from AmigaDOS
o SCSI port
o Multifunctional display, and maybe add seconds to clock display, too
o Adjustable left and right audio control
o Regular 12-hour clock mode that doesn't screw up every 12 hours (a small
    bug at the moment)
o Regular Amiga expansion slots, perhaps in an external mini-tower which
    would also hold drives, so that CDTV can keep its figure
o AmigaDOS 3.x and AGA graphics (or at least standard AVM card)
o 32-bit motherboard bus
o 68020 or better CPU
o Standard Amiga joystick/mouse ports
o MIDI-through port
o Double-speed CD-ROM drive with more format compatibility
o Standard PCMCIA slot (2.0+), and keep the card eject!
o More controls on remote control


CONCLUSIONS

    Like THP, I am pleased with my CDTV/P.  Like anything else, there's
room for improvement (that's what technology is for, right?), but CDTV will
always be useful to me.  Once accelerators and Fast RAM devices are created,
CDTV will be quite nice.


DISCLAIMER

    I am associated with none of the above listed companies,
corporations, or people.  I'm just another Amiga owner with something to
say.  Direct all flames to e-mail, and all lawsuits to my invisible friend
Ernie (just kidding!)....


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    Copyright 1993 Nhan Nguyen.  All rights reserved.

    If you'd like to repost this, publish it, or modify it in any way,
just tell me first.  There shouldn't be any problem.


CONTACT

    Contact me QUICK if you have money to throw around and want to get
rid of some!  Or if you'd just like to ask some questions about what CDTV
can or can't do, its quirks, or need to find a person to beta-test a CDTV
product...etc.  Sure, flame me, too, if you like.  I'll be at the following
address till September 15, 1993.

 ____________________________________________________________________________
|       __                                        |
|    __///Only    A1200--A1200HD    Nhan  Trong  Nguyen       Sophomore, UH     |
|    \XX/Amiga    A4000---A4000T    [e-mail]    Desktop Video     |
|____________________________________________________________________________|

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