The Discover Ltd. Web Site on the Acorn User CD
http://www.discover.ltd.uk/net/

This site is entirely produced on an Acorn RiscPC using a variety of software packages and is uploaded using Ants Internet Suite. Its been cut down for this disc as the site contains password protected areas for our clients use. The site is held on the RiscPC on an IBM formatted disc using Warm Silences Win95FS to allow filename compatibility between the internet server files and its locally held image. Netplex is used to check cgi scripting on the local site. The directory structure has been designed by topic to allow for expansion.

Discover Ltd are a British company specialising in educational fieldstudy and tailor made tours and have centres in France and Morocco. My company, Abell Broadcast creates promotional videos and internet sites for them. The Managing Director of Discover, Mike McHugo, at the French centre is the main point of contact for information and thus most update information is in the form of emailed messages and data for inclusion on the site sent to my North Worcestershire UK office.

From the outset it was decided to make the site as browser friendly as possible so its only recently that frames and tables have been added. Its checked on Fresco, Browse and WebsterXL as well as Netscape and IE4 on a networked PC, not looking so good on the latter two!

Many of the photographs are from 35mm cameras and archived onto Kodak Photo CD. Other Artwork is created on the RiscPC and Images from Digital Video cameras grabbed via VideoDesk or the PC are also used. All graphics are then remastered for archival purposes onto a CD writer via Essox software and copies sent to France and to the UK office where they are used on a PC system to produce printed promotional material. These CDs also contain company logos etc. and can be given to printers to produce high resolution artwork from layouts on floppy with low resolution pictures.

To create the site the text from France on disc or email is added to templates created in RComps wonderful HTMLEdit suite to get a house style. Original text from me is written in EasiWriter Professional and output in HTML to the editor. or if Im in France or Morocco its written on a Psion . Mike often sends over a zipped Word document so again EasiWriter is used to convert it.

Graphics are created in house by two routes, from pixel based files from PhotoCD and scans put through Photodesk and text and effects added in Composition and secondly from vector based files created in Artworks and converted to sprites via Tony Houghtons excellent ArtToSpr. All graphics are then converted to Gif or Jpeg using WebGif or Intergif and ChangeFSI.

Other packages used regularly are Studio 24, Phantasm and - of late - WebFX3D..

This project was started about 3 years ago and its grown a lot but its amazing how the multi-tasking nature of Acorn software makes any design changes a pleasure. Most importantly the website design reduces time taken to produce promotional videos for the company as much of the artwork is stored in original sprite format and can be used with Videodesk to create animation. The next stage of the project is to add a Phoebe into the network to do all the Video work whilst the PC sequences the Digital video and the RiscPC runs audio tracks on StudioSound via timecode links....so much to do....so little time....

Ned Abell

Abell Broadcast

August 1998

nedabell@enterprise.net

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