From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Why I bought a CD-I yesterday and what Commodore needs to do about it.
Organization: Lotus Development Ireland
Distribution: comp
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 03:23:34 GMT

No, no, this isn't another Marc Barrett flame about Commodore
(mis)Management, this is from a genuine Amiga fan who owns a CDTV and
a 2500 but is nonetheless getting more than a little worried about the
current state of affairs.

Yesterday, as I was browsing through the local HiFi store in downtown
Dublin, I noticed a new addition sitting prominently in the middle of
the show area.  It was a new Phillips CD-I system, attached to one of
the nicer Phillips 21" stereo T.Vs, and surrounded by what looked like
a Philips-supplied carousel of CD-I titles.  All very attractive and
professionally presented, and I wandered over to it for closer
inspection.  A salesman materialized in the usual 4.7 nanoseconds
after I displayed an interest and 2 minutes later I was staring at
"Treasures of the Smithsonian", a CD-I title featuring audio visual
"tours" through the Smithsonian Institution.  Now before I go into my
impressions that followed, let me back up a minute and discuss why I
bought a CDTV and (briefly) what my experiences with it have been.

I purchased a CDTV about a year or so ago, after seeing it in a store
and playing with the "welcome disk".  Believe it or not, I was quite
impressed with the welcome disk in and of itself, just given the way
it made learning about the unit so much easier.  Based on the strength
of the welcome disk, and the fact that there really wasn't much else
available, I walked out with the unit 20 minutes later (well, er, I
did pay for it first).

A year and a half later, as I've kept one constant eye on the CDTV
"title" scene, I've accumulated a growing collection of good and
not-so-good titles.  "World Vista", "Advanced Military Systems", "The
Guiness Disk of Records", Xiphus's "Time Table of History" series and,
of course, the usual included titles like "The Hutchinson
Encyclopedia" and "Snoopy, the case of the missing blanket", to name
just some.  A few of the titles, like "Snoopy" and "Hutchinson" are
downright awful, and never leave their cases.  Others, like "World
Vista" and "Advanced Military Systems" are used once every other month
or so, which is quite often for the CDTV (it generally does little
more than play audio CD's).  Throughout, I've either been outright
disappointed with the quality of the titles, or left with the nagging
feeling that the title I just saw was good, but somehow could have
been just *that* much better in some way.  Usually the information
content is good but the interface is simply awful, or it's the other
way around.

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

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

Certainly, there were flaws - it wasn't immediately obvious how to
"browse" around the institute as what controls there were tried too
hard to use standard "cassette player" icons.  Often, you found
yourself wondering "Does that arrow mean 'forward' or does it mean
'continue' or does it mean (click) 'MENU' (!) Menu?!?  Eh??".

Nonetheless, I had to work rather hard to find flaws, rather than
having them leap out at me from the very start, as has sadly been the
case with most CDTV titles.

Not one to stop there, I loaded Time Life's "photography" CD-I title
and was floored twice.  Using a very slick presentation, the user is
walked through basic photographic technique and given an opportunity
to use an imaginary camera to take a "picture" of a scene with
different f-stop settings and targets for the light meter.  You're
then shown the visual results of your snap, with helpful comments made
if you've overexposed it or made some other error.  I'm not really all
that interested in photography, yet I found myself quite entranced by
the section on light, where they show you a lake scene at different
times of the day and explain how best to use the colors of sunset,
early dawn, etc.  It's really very difficult to convey how well
put-together everything was, you really have to see it for yourself.

Needless to say, I left the store having placed an order and it
arrives the day after tomorrow with accompanying "Treasures of the
Smithsonian" CD.

Now I did promise that this wasn't a unilateral flame against
Commodore, and it's not.  First off, I more than intend to hang onto
my CDTV in hopes that Commodore will eventually realize what is going
on and take a more active hand in the developer market. 

You see, it's my impression that Commodore has always been a very
"hands off" company when it comes to 3rd parties, content to let
certain firms take areas of the peripheral and software market (like
GVP or Electronic Arts) and do what needs to be done.  Unfortunately,
this strategy DOES NOT WORK with the CDTV market, which drastically
needs both a serious marketing strategy and a program of rigorous
quality control.  Titles like "snoopy" and "hutchinsons" are simply
pathetic and are scarcely what you want to be bundling with your
product in order to make a good impression.  I would even go so far as
to say that many of the poor titles have actively *HURT* CDTV sales as
many potential "walk-in" customers were quickly turned off by what
they saw and went off to buy something else for christmas.

Lack of sales causes, in turn, more developers to look to other new
markets and the situation further deteriorates.

Commodore!  WAKE UP!  Your machine is capable of a lot more than any
of the titles I've seen currently do with it.  I'm not even
necessarily saying "all pictures in HAM, all animations FMV" - I'm
simply saying "better artwork", "better overall interface", "BETTER
OVERALL PRODUCTION VALUES!"  Sorry to shout, it's just that I
sometimes get a little worked up over these things.  I know being
first-to-market was important to you, and the various Amiga magazines
had a lot of fun slagging Philips off for their "vapor hardware", but
I'm afraid that they're very much here now and they put their extra
time to good use.  It's time for you to start competing on their turf.

I really didn't intend or imagine myself becoming a CD-I customer, I
just couldn't resist what they've managed to do.  Sigh...

					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
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