Subject: REVIEW: World View Media Clips CDROM disc
From: [email-masked] (Vitas Povilaitis)
Date: 13 Feb 1993 20:50:28 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

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: [email-masked] or [email-masked]
Graceful Boot BBS: (716) 426-4779

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