From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia
Subject: Re: Why I bought a CD-I yesterday and what Commodore needs to do about
Date: 19 Dec 92 02:48:01 GMT
Organization: Lotus Development Ireland


	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.

I have seen CDTVs on display in Europe a total of three times.  Once
at a games shop in Munich (where I bought mine) and in one Karstadt
store (also in Munich), where it was switched off and languishing in a
corner.  The third appearance was at an electronics store in Nurnberg
where it was playing a 20 second German produced clip of Boris Becker
playing tennis using Commodore's "quasi-FMV in a quarter screen"
technique, with a sort of a pop-ish soundtrack.  The problem was, it
was only impressive to anyone who actually knew quite a bit about CDTV
already and knew enough to be impressed!  To anyone else, it simply
looked like a very bad video playing.  Poor sales judgement, there.

I'll be in London next week and will be actively canvasing the stores
to see what sort of Christmas Amiga deals are being offered.

	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

Well, Ok, I'll freely admit that the Sim City CD is nice (though lack
of a mouse-type pointer DOES mean that you end up often paging through
lots of stats screens you don't want - c'mon, admit it!).  I'll admit I'm
somewhat spoiled by the straight Amiga Sim City interface, but the
soundtrack definately breathes new life into the game, I'll readily
agree.

I've actually got the NASA Cd on order.  Damn hard to get here.  I
mostly want it to see the FMV.

And yes, I do have the fish CDROM.  I also just ordered the "Fish
Online" with #1-#770 from Hypermedia Concepts and the AB20 collection
CD.  I use PARNET between the CDTV and my 2500 - it's quite nice
(albeit slow).  I probably use my CDTV more often for this than
anything else, save playing audio CD's.

	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

Could be, we'll have to wait and see.  Since then, I've purchased the
Musical Biography of Mozart and a title on the life and times of
Vincent Van Gogh ("Harvest of Gold?" I can't remember and am too lazy
to run downstairs and check :-).  Both are very nice indeed, though
the Mozart is not quite up to the quality of the other two.  To be
fair, it was also the cheapest by a large margin.  There's still the
Golf and Time-Life 35mm Photography CDs to buy (both really great) and
I imagine it will be awhile before I find any titles that are
significantly less polished.

I've been pretty amazed at the quality so far.  Even the best of the
CDTV titles I have don't approach the "worst" of the CD-I offerings
I've seen.

Now, you make the very good point that much of this "polish" is a direct
result of Phillips throwing large chunks of cash at the problem and I
agree that poor sales (the store where I bought my CD-I has sold a grand
total of 3, including mine!) are going to really hurt.  Nonetheless, I don't
see Phillips giving up for at least another year, since the machine AND
its titles have been available in Ireland, at least, for only 4 weeks now.
If, in this year, they throw enough money at people to produce even 10
new good titles, I'll consider the machine more than worth the investment.

	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,

Well, I won't argue the point that CDTV's loyal amiga following has
helped initial sales quite a bit, but I still don't think it's helped
that much.  A large number of sales will be to techy types like me who
are very impressed with the features the CD-I offers (the use of color
has to be seen to be believed - I can't believe I ever thought HAM was
anything to yell about!  Is it 24 bit color?  It looks like it, but I
can't see any reference in the manuals).  Don't forget that initial
Amiga sales were to those very same techy types who were willing to
take a chance on a new machine.  Admittedly, the CD-I doesn't have the
same appeal as you can't program it, but a couple more games like
the Golf simulation (and I don't even like golf) and it will turn more
than a few heads just on the "wow!" factor alone.

Don't get me wrong: I still remain a loyal Amiga/CDTV fan (and wish
they'd get their thumb out on the true color extensions they've been
promising forever and a day!), but I think it's unfair to bash Phillips
just because they're the competition.  If you simply look at what
they've done, you'll probably agree that they deserve a lot of the same
kudos that Commodore originally got for the Amiga.  There's a lot about
the technology that's quite impressive, for the price.

				Jordan

--
Jordan Hubbard		Lotus Development Ireland	jkh@whisker.lotus.ie
I DO NOT SPEAK FOR LOTUS - IT HAS PLENTY OF LAWYERS TO DO THAT FOR IT ALREADY
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.multimedia