Welcome to a nostalgic compilation of some early films of yesteryear. Enjoyable for their artistic value and for many adults, these movies will conjure a trip down memory lane.
This series of QuickLaffs™ volumes was produced to provide pre-digitized and pre-compressed QuickTime movies for your education, entertainment, personal library and your potential multimedia projects. For the first time the technology of yesteryear meets the state-of-the-art in desktop multimedia. We hope these early examples of American motion pictures will in some small way help you combine education, nostalgia, and multimedia in potentially new and innovative ways.
The original films were converted to video and then digitized with the very latest hardware and software technology available. Each digital version of the original film required well over 1,000 megabytes of disk space. With the best video compressors currently available and maintaining the highest quality, each movie would require almost all of the CD-ROM and would not be playable without transfer to your hard disk. To make the QuickTime movies usable by the largest audience, Compact Designs has compressed each film for optimal playback directly from the CD-ROM. The 1/8 screen movies were optimized for playback on CD-ROM drives that can only output a data rate of 90-150 kb/s. The 1/4 screen movies were optimized for playback on CD-ROM drives that can output a data rate of 150-300 kb/s or better. The sound for the 1/8 screen movies were sampled at 11khz, while the sound for the 1/4 screen movies were sampled at 22khz. None of the sound files are stereo, since there was none at the time of the original films. Also, on a few of the early movies, the original movie sound track was recorded over modulated when two separate sounds were mixed. The playback performance of these QuickTime movies is highly dependent on the transfer speed of your CD-ROM drive and the speed of your Macintosh. For the best performance, you can copy any movie from the CD-ROM to your hard disk.
The original films were transferred with Rank-Cintel equipment, using scene-to-scene correction whenever possible and a wet-gate was used to conceal scratches. Since these early original films were of marginal quality, Compact Designs has done everything possible to maintain the best quality, given the slow speed of most CD-ROM drives. For best viewing, we suggest that you CHANGE YOUR MONITOR SETTING TO 256 GRAYS, since in color mode your monitor will only give you a small number of grays from a pallet of 256 colors.
While the original films contained on this CD-ROM are in the public domain, certain trademarks, trade names, service marks and characters may still be active. Therefore, you may not use the Software, or any part thereof, to advertise, connote sponsorship or act as an attention-getting symbol to promote products or services. Additionally, State law requirements with respect to the Right of Publicity may be applicable to the use of this Software in some states. Any use of this Software which does not conform fully to state law requirements is strictly prohibited.
Look for additional volumes of QuickLaffs featuring: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields and others. Also look for Compact Designs' QuickToons series featuring Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman, Porky Pig and others.
