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- Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!warwick!uknet!ieunet!dec4ie.ieunet.ie!jkh
- 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
- Message-ID: <JKH.92Dec19024801@whisker.lotus.ie>
- Date: 19 Dec 92 02:48:01 GMT
- References: <Steven_Hurdle.00ql@amusers.UUCP>
- Sender: usenet@ieunet.ie (USENET News System)
- Organization: Lotus Development Ireland
- Lines: 98
- In-Reply-To: Steven_Hurdle@amusers.UUCP's message of 14 Dec 92 19: 55:21 GMT
- Nntp-Posting-Host: whisker.lotus.ie
-
-
- 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
-