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- Path: menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!usenet
- From: vitas@grace.bah.rochester.ny.us (Vitas Povilaitis)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Subject: REVIEW: World View Media Clips CDROM disc
- Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia
- Date: 13 Feb 1993 20:50:28 GMT
- Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
- Lines: 147
- Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <1ljmukINNkqs@menudo.uh.edu>
- Reply-To: vitas@grace.bah.rochester.ny.us (Vitas Povilaitis)
- NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
- Keywords: CD-ROM, graphics, sound, commercial
-
-
- PRODUCT NAME
-
- World View Media Clips
-
-
- BRIEF DESCRIPTION
-
- A CD-ROM disc of electronic art, containing both sound and graphics.
-
-
- AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION
-
- Name: Aris Entertainment
- Address: 4444 Via Marina, Suite 811
- Marina del Rey, CA 90292
-
- Telephone: (310) 821-0234 (Technical Support)
-
- Fax: (310) 821-6463
-
-
- LIST PRICE
-
- Unknown.
-
-
- SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
-
- You'll need a CD-ROM drive and CD-ROM filesystem software.
-
-
- COPY PROTECTION
-
- None.
-
-
- MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
-
- Amiga 2000 running OS 2.04.
- GVP G-Force 40--40 Mhz 68EC030/SCSI II/12 Mb RAM
- 15 Mb total RAM
- Toshiba CD-ROM drive
- Xetec CD-ROM filesystem software
-
- Since the disc is standard ISO 9660, it should be readable on any
- CD-ROM drive under any OS revision. I have not tested this disc on a CDTV.
-
-
- REVIEW
-
- Because it's so hard to find CD-ROM discs for the Amiga, more people
- should review discs from other platforms to see if they are usable with the
- Amiga. I'm writing this review in the hopes of encouraging you to do the
- same.
-
- The disc has been produced with the IBM PC user or Mac user in
- mind. All the supplied support software is for MS/DOS, Windows, and MacOS.
- Consequently, the disc is mastered in ISO 9660 Level 1, which means that
- filenames are limited to MS-DOS length (8 characters plus 3-character
- suffix). However, the filenames are generally meaningful.
-
- The disc contains about 600 MB of royalty-free graphics and sound
- files. There are 100 fair-quality images and 100 sound tracks stored on
- this disc. Images are stored in several formats:
-
- 1. 24-bit TIFF, in 640 x 480 format, for high resolution paint
- programs and desktop publishing, in the TIFF directory.
-
- 2. 8-bit PCX, 640 x 480 format, for most DOS paint programs, in
- the PCX directory.
-
- 3. 8-bit BMP, 640 x 480 format, for compatibility with Windows,
- in the BMPLARGE directory.
-
- 4. 8-bit BMP, 320 x 240 format, for high speed viewing, in the
- BMPSMALL directory.
-
- Audio is 22 Khz, 8-bit, stored as follows:
-
- 1. WAV format in the WAVE directory, for MPC compatibility.
-
- 2. VOC format in the SNDBLAST directory, for compatibility with
- Sound Blaster audio cards.
-
- The graphics are all scanned images from NASA's archives, with space
- theme. Generally, there are images of space craft, and satellite views of
- Earth and other planets.
-
- The sounds are all sampled pieces of original new age music composed
- by Jamie Brehm and Kevin Mannis. Each sample may run from about 5 seconds to
- about 40 seconds, averaging 15 seconds. (These are rough estimates.) The
- samples are of high quality, as far as I can tell.
-
- The graphics files can be viewed on Amigas by many different
- programs, such as ADPro. The audio files can be played by many
- different sample players, such as OPlay.
-
-
- DOCUMENTATION
-
- The disc comes only with a cover leaf for the CD-ROM case, and
- brief directions for PC, MPC and Mac users.
-
-
- LIKES AND DISLIKES
-
- The graphics and sound files are duplicated in many different
- formats, so each unique image and sound file takes up more room than it has
- to.
-
- Some of the images seem to be slightly washed out; the black areas
- are not as dark as they could be, and the bright areas could be brighter.
- Running the images through an image processing program would clean them up.
-
- The VOC files have an annoying click at the end of them, but the WAV
- files do not. Again, an audio processing programming would clean them up.
-
- Each graphics file has an associated music file. It would be
- interesting to set up a slideshow for the Amiga.
-
-
- BUGS
-
- As mentioned in LIKES AND DISLIKES, above, some of the images look
- "washed out", and the VOC files have an annoying click at the end of them.
-
-
- CONCLUSIONS
-
- This is a nice collection of graphics and sound files.
-
-
- COPYRIGHT NOTICE
-
- Copyright 1993 Vitas Povilaitis. All rights reserved.
- -Vitas P.- 22 Wolcott Avenue, Rochester, NY 14606
- UUCP: moscom.com!grace!vitas
- Internet: vitas%grace@moscom.com or vitas@grace.bah.rochester.ny.us
- Graceful Boot BBS: (716) 426-4779
-
- ---
-
- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu
- Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu
- Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu
-