From: Steven_Hurdle@amusers.UUCP (Steven Hurdle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia
Subject: Re: Why I bought a CD-I yesterday and what Commodore needs to do about 
Distribution: world
Date: 14 Dec 92 11:55:21 PST
Organization: AmUsers - The Amiga Users Group of Victoria BC

In a message dated Mon 14 Dec 92  2:51, Jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (jordan K. Hub
wrote:

 JKH> a Philips-supplied carousel of CD-I titles.  All very attractive and
 JKH> professionally presented, and I wandered over to it for closer
 JKH> inspection.  A salesman materialized in the usual 4.7 nanoseconds

Just asking, but are those Amiga/CDTV stands now in the shops?  The
euro-mags have all been mentioning them and that they'll be around for
Christmas.

 JKH> more than play audio CD's).  Throughout, I've either been outright
 JKH> disappointed with the quality of the titles, or left with the
 JKH> nagging
 JKH> feeling that the title I just saw was good, but somehow could have
 JKH> been just *that* much better in some way.  Usually the information
 JKH> content is good but the interface is simply awful, or it's the other
 JKH> way around.

 JKH> Put more simply, I've yet to see a CDTV title that *really* shines
 JKH> in
 JKH> the human engineering dept.

It seems you've had a particularly bad run of disc-purchases.  My CDTV,
bought in N.A. of course as I live in Canada, came with Grolier's
Electronic Encyclopedia and I think it's interface is wonderfully slick. 
It also came with Lemmings, which is the same as the floppy version in the
interface department.  Beyond that I've added Sim Cit,( which should be in
every CD-owners collection IMO) The Fred Fish Collection on CD-ROM, and the
"Heroic Age of Spaceflight-Nasa... The 25th Year".  The Fred Fish CD simply
uses the workbench (which is on the CD) and a few utilities like Aquarium
and SID.  Sim City has a very unique interface, and one that I like quite a
bit!  That product oozes quality in EVERY respect and the tunes are nice. 
Nasa... The 25th Year also seems to have been put together thoughtfully. 
Maybe you'be just been buying the wrong titles?

 JKH> It was in this skeptical state of mind that I watched "Smithsonian"
 JKH> load on the CD-I.  And was floored.  From top to bottom, the entire
 JKH> title simply oozed production values.  It wasn't just a matter of
 JKH> having more colors (though the larger color pallette was used to
 JKH> magnificent effect), it was a matter of leaving almost no area
 JKH> "unpolished" in any way.  Everything from the initial load screen to
 JKH> the method of selecting which "building" you wanted to enter was
 JKH> really really well done.

Unfortunately, don't expect to see this too often.  With CD-I being
presently such an unprofitable niche-market (more so than the other CD
formats which are off to a faster start) its handful of developers are
going to be hard-pressed to be able to put that much effort in on a regular
basis.  All the major CD-I titles to date have been produced with direct
sponsorship from Phillips, and I suspect that this disc is another example
of that as they've used it in their advertising so it was probably very
important to them.  I don't think you can realistically expect Phillips to
keep doing so for very long, especially with only lacklustre sales so far. 
I still see the biggest market for these types of machines among the
computer owners, and with CD-I being in the audio section of stores and
having no automatically-loyal group of computer enthusiasts like CDTV has,
it's going to be tough for CD-I to survive IMO.

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

Steven Hurdle <==> The Swindler                [public replies only please]

Writer of "Virtual Rumours", a rumour/news column in some club newsletters.

          Coming to you from Victoria B.C., the Bahamas of Canada

                     "Give me AGA, or give me DEATH!!!"