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