Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!parc!biosci!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!cdsale From: cdsale@netcom.com (Todd Ostrer) Subject: ADULT CD-ROM REVIEW: HIGH VOLUME NUDES Message-ID: Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 08:03:31 GMT Lines: 189 HIGH VOLUME NUDES ================= This review contains four major sections: General - Miscellaneous comments that didn't seem to belong in any other section; Statistics - some quantitative, measurable characteristics of the CD; Operations - a more qualitative analysis of the "usability" aspects of the CD which tries to consider factors of interest to both the sysop and the end-user; and Visual - a purely qualitative opinion of the intrinsic qualities of the images themselves. Note that section boundaries are not inviolate. To those of you who have read some of my previous reviews of adult CDs, you will be familiar territory with this one as well. If you're a "new" reader, let me iterate: I am NOT an expert (whatever that is) on adult (or any other kind of) CDs. Accordingly, what follows is ONE PERSON'S OPINION. General ======= This CD is a very slickly produced, if somewhat strange adult CD. It's the product of New Machine Publishing (though the identification "ROMVLVS Entertainment" (the V's are really U's ergo "ROMULUS") also appears on the packaging. The jewel case has both front and back inserts. The folded page of the front insert is a clip-off registration form. The rear insert (complete with titled edges - yea!) gives both Macintosh and PC requirements as well as some copyright warnings, etc. Interestingly, the Macintosh requirements are simply stated as "Color Machines Recommended - 8-Bit Minimum - 2MB RAM Minimum" No processor or OS requirements are listed. The pertinent PC requirements are given as Windows 3.1, DOS 5.0, 8 or 16 bit video card, and (get this) "386 Or faster" (sic). Apparently the producers are no more savvy about compute requirements than Vivid Digital. As we'll see, even a 386-40 would be minimal; a 386-16 unusable. The rear insert also claims "500 high quality hardcore photos of centerfold nudes." IMO, this is numerically correct only. Statistics ========== This will take a bit of explanation as I must depart from my usual format to report my findings. Like Girls of Vivid (GOV), HVN eschews the GIF format. Instead its publishers have chosen to use the PICT (.PIC) format from the Apple Quicktime software. Again, like GOV, HVN has file names like 1.PIC, 2.PIC, etc. Unlike GOV, HVN has NO file description files at all. To further complicate matters, HVN has for all practical purposes replicated its "500 pictures" in two main sub-directories: \HICOLOR and \LOCOLOR. (In point of fact, I found only 463 .PIC files in HI and 465 .PIC files in LO.) The \HICOLOR files are, according to the built-in viewer (see Operations), JPEG compressions of (I'm guessing) 24-bit images. The \LOCOLOR files are all 8-bit color. Both \HICOLOR and \LOCOLOR are themselves further divided up into five sub-directories each. The former's subs are: \DENMARK, \EGYPT, \UTAH (how'd that get in there?), \YEMEN, and \ZIMBABWE; the latter's are \ICELAND, \MALAYSIA, \PARAGUAY, \SCOTLAND, and \SWEDEN. Now before anyone gets excited and supposes that these names represent the places of origin of the ladies whose likenesses appear therein, let me say emphatically that I found no visual evidence to support that interpretation. In general, these country-named subdirectories are paired across the HI and LO directories in the order given. For example, \HICOLOR\EGYPT\20.PIC in 24-bit JPEG (?) is the same image as \LOCOLOR\MALAYSIA\20.PIC. in 8-bit PIC. While this correspondence isn't 100% true, it's near enough to make the point moot. (Note: ALL files in these directories have the .PIC extension. The built-in viewer indicates JPEG when displaying an image from the \HICOLOR set.) As with GOV, there's obviously no need to run HVN's file names against the "grassroots" GIF name data base - so I didn't. Operations - Sysop ================== This is a null topic. As mentioned, there are NO files with image descriptions in them. Further, the packaging clearly indicates copyright notices which would seem to preempt any use save personal viewing. Then there's the matter of the PICT format which, in general, renders the files useless to anyone without an appropriate viewer. The overwhelming popularity of the GIF format (as well as PCX, BMP, and to a lesser extent TIFF and TGA) has suppressed widespread production or availability of PICT decoders. Operations - End User ===================== If you're NOT an Windows 3.1 user and have no intentions or interest in becoming one, you can stop right here. This is, in PC-land, a Windows 3.1 ONLY CD if you want/have to use the built-in viewer. The good news is that installation simply creates a new program group called (surprise, surprise) "New Machine Publishing" with four icons inside. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING copied to the HDD (YEA!). The four icons are for the PICTure viewer, a Quicktime .MOV viewer, a READ.ME file, and a SAMPLER of other products from the same company. The bad news (for starters) is that since the PICTure viewer is setup to run directly from the CD, there's no way to configure it for individual video setups. Since I run Windows in 800x600x256 mode, trying to view the \HICOLOR images resulted in very poor results. Using the \LOCOLOR images, the viewer SEEMED to be defaulting to about 640x480 resolution since I had to select at least a 50% size reduction to get anything more than the upper left corner of any image into view without using the elevator bar (something one does NOT want to do with this product). More bad news: PICTure viewer is s-s-s-s-s-l-l-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w to say the least. On a 486DX2/66 it took over 15 seconds to decode a \HICOLOR image and about 5-6 seconds for a \LOCOLOR image. Comparably sized (i.e. same resolution) GIFs decode on this machine in about 1-2 seconds from the same CD drive. Granted, GIFs are by nature smaller files so there's more data to be read when using other formats. While this poor showing by the PICTure viewer/.PIC combination is far better than the PICBASE/CTIF combination of GOV, it still rapidly becomes tedious. Still more bad news: Aside from the "controls" provided by Windows itself (e.g. scroll bars, etc.), PICTure viewer adds little in the way of functionality. For example, there is no provision for selecting multiple files for a "slide show" (a la WINGIF). Outside of a very limited "sizing" function with fixed step increments (e.g. 25%, 50%, etc.), there are no image manipulation functions. The bright side, if there is one, is that the printing function was fairly decent. It provided a full page image (8-1/2 x 11) in a nearly usable halftone-looking format at 180x180 DPI resolution on my BJ-200 ink jet printer. Sadly, even though it apparently tried, I couldn't get it to print at 360x360 resolution. After about 30 seconds of "work", whatever it handed to Print Manager to print didn't result in anything but a rapid exit. Operations summary: Mediocre functionality and poor performance. Visual ====== Because of the slow response time from PICTure viewer, I didn't look at a LOT of HVN's images. Nonetheless, I'm confident that I saw enough to render some generalizations about the disc as a whole, but keep in mind that my conclusions are based on a relatively small sample. As far as subject matter goes, HVN's images belong in the "Penthouse centerfold" category. In my own personal rating system, they'd get an "R" or "Hard R". As far as image quality goes, (and here I speak of only the \LOCOLOR images for reasons already mentioned) I'd have to say they're only fair to good. Clearly the original photography was excellent. However, the transition to electronic form, by whatever path, resulted in images frequently marred by "blotchy" areas. That is, areas that were apparently highlighted in the original photos (like a cheek or forehead) often appear, well, "blotchy". In my admittedly small sample, I didn't see any images with more than one person in it, nor did I see any images with males in them. There were quite a few images that drew attention to the genital area, but none that involved any activity other than exhibitionism. Bottom line: HVN is marginally better than Girls of Vivid, but it's cut from the same cloth. It pales in comparison to the well-made GIF CDs. The images are so-so, the interface abysmal - even for Windows. The viewer's performance is unacceptable on a '486-66 and likely painful on anything much slower. With licensed GIF collections here and more on the way, my advice to shoppers would be to give this CD a high volume "No, thanks!". ------------------------------------ Review by Bob Jackson: Houston, Tx. ------------------------------------ Pacific Data Graphics / Your Adult CD-Rom Source 2473 S.E. 135th / Portland , Oregon. 97233 (503) 257-7255 '24' Hr. Voice# for Questions/Orders 1-800-400-7255 '24' Hr. Voice# for ORDERS Only: Email: cdsale@netcom.com For Our Latest 350+ Title Adult List: -- Pacific Data Graphics Inc. 'your cd-rom disk source 1100 titles' 503-257-7255 '24' Voice# for Questions,Orders 1-800-400-7255 '24' # for Orders Only: