First CD-ROM periodical is a hopeful sign

With this issue, Digital Media will begin a review section specifically for content, the foundation upon which the larger world of digital media will be built.

The time is right. Over the past couple of years, only a small number of products combining digitized graphics and video, text, sound and interactivity have trickled into the computer-based multimedia world.

It’s simply not possible to examine such titles in the same way computer software, or even film and music, have been examined in the past. As important as the content itself is its presentation — the interplay of media, production values, user interface, and raw hardware and software performance raises issues not previously considered.

To develop what amounts to a new literacy for digital media, the industry needs to bring a fresh perspective and artistic sensibility to the subject of content. We hope to contribute to that process.

A FITTING LAUNCH: VERBUM INTERACTIVE
The new two-disc CD-ROM magazine from Verbum Inc., publisher of the computer-art journal Verbum Magazine, is a fitting launch for this new section. The first periodical of its kind, Verbum Interactive (or VI) is an ambitious attempt to corral all the various media — video, audio, graphics and text — into a useful and entertaining format.

Plan to spend at least five hours playing around with Verbum Interactive. There’s more than enough information and entertainment to hold you for at least that long, although because of the technical limitations of both MacroMind Director and CD-ROM, you may want to consider either a prescription for barbiturates or an advanced course in Zen meditation before you do so. (More on technical limitations later.)

Appropriate technology. The best overall feature of Verbum Interactive is its striking presentation of media-based information in a way that actually makes sense and utilizes the strong points of various media instead of being gratuitously whizzy.

Verbum Roundtable. For example, a regular column in Verbum Interactive will be the Verbum Roundtable — a collection of video one-on-ones with a “Tonight Show” feel. Issue 1.0 includes a lineup of multimedia notables. Each participant is separately interviewed on the same topic, but the screen design gives the illusion that they’re all sitting together. A user can choose either to see an overview or to watch the whole thing.

The digitized video doesn’t spin off the CD-ROM at anywhere near real-time speeds, but it’s interesting to note how little that matters. Good audio synchronization and quality make up for it, and together they deliver the sense of personal contact and immediacy of television at its best.

Show and tell. Another column, called “Secrets of the Universe Revealed,” was equally imaginative. In it, Verbum art director Jack Davis used still imagery and screen shots from Adobe’s Photoshop to show step-by-step how he designed a company’s logo. How-to columns of this type, as well as VI’s Demo section for products, will prove a powerful tool for showcasing multimedia tools and products. Such products are almost impossible to describe, but their potential becomes immediately apparent when you can see them perform.

The Verbum Gallery. Verbum shows off its roots as a “journal of personal computer aesthetics” in Verbum Gallery. Included in Issue 1.0 are 13 multimedia “exhibits,” including nicely reproduced photography, with CD-quality narration and music, by musician Graham Nash; a beautiful (though somewhat inscrutable) “artitorial” by Barbara Mehlman and John O’Neill; a sampler (plus graphics) of music by Pauline Oliveros, D’Cuckoo and Chris Yavelow, among others; samples from Warner New Media’s interactive Mozart CD-ROM; a slide show about ecology synched to a Todd Rundgren song; and an inspiring selection of projects by first-time Director users from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Technical performance in this section, however, was sketchy. The way users interacted with each exhibit changed from one to the next with little or no explanation. In the Todd Rundgren and Mozart sections, the music tracks (to be heard through headphones or speakers hooked to the CD-ROM drive) weren’t accessible, and no explanation about how to get to them was given on the screen. The documentation said the tracks were to “run from your hard disk,” but it didn’t say how that was to be done. To be most effective, there should be software on the CD-ROM that goes out to the hard disk and launches those tracks without human intervention.

Features. Though VI’s feature stories had potential, the slow access time of the CD-ROM combined with an inconsistent user interface made them cumbersome and difficult to follow.

But like “Secrets of the Universe” and the Demo section, some of the features made excellent use of interactive media. Hal Josephson’s piece on interactive marketing, for example, included functional, point-and-clickable examples of the genre from well-known multimedia producers such as Doris Mitsch of Clement Mok Designs and Robert May of Ikonic.

This section also highlighted one of the weakest points of VI’s interface: the way it presents text on-screen. Throughout the publication, the print is too small and isn’t broken up enough to be easily readable. Online information services long ago learned the trick of short “paragraphs” — often only a sentence long –to keep the reader from going into blur mode.

Technical limitations. Let’s get this one out of the way right now, since you’ll probably be reading it in every review of a CD-ROM product: CD-ROM is too slow. It’s horribly, annoyingly slow. Until it is improved, access time will be the foremost reason that people will refuse to buy products in this medium. Its sluggish response makes the term “interactive” almost laughable, since it’s nearly impossible to have anything even approaching real-time interaction with a drum application.

User interface. That said, as mentioned earlier, VI’s user interface has some fairly serious consistency problems that must be addressed. In addition, and this assumes Verbum actually wants people to use the disc more than once, there is no apparent, consistent or easy way to browse the disc for specific information or to cancel a selection once you’ve clicked on it. If at any time you use the standard Macintosh “cancel” convention — Command-Period — the whole application quits. This is a time-consuming (and in this case, unnecessarily annoying) process.

Sound off. Once you’re past the opening screen, there’s no way to adjust the volume. Most of VI’s sound comes through the Macintosh, not the CD player, and the Mac’s control panel isn’t available unless you’re Director-literate enough to know how to resurrect it. Audio controls should always be immediately accessible in real time, in case the phone rings or something in your environment changes that requires either increased or decreased volume.

Yes, you should buy it. Despite these drawbacks, this is a title to own. VI is a snapshot of the state of the art in interactive multimedia: it is a perfect example of how to enhance an already-existing genre — in this case, magazines — with digital technology. VI’s abundance of creativity and intelligent use of media excites the imagination; at the same time, the formidable technical limitations of today’s tools and hardware detracts noticeably from the experience. And it’s clear that multimedia designers are learning by leaps and bounds about what works and what doesn’t in user interface design. Examples of both are evident in VI.

Not for the masses. Though VI is a step in the right direction, it is certainly not multimedia for the masses. It requires a color Macintosh with a (still pricey) drum drive, a minimum 5 mb of random-access memory, and speakers and/or headphones for connection to the Macintosh and/or the drum drive. But consumer versions of the product for CD-I and CDTV are already in the planning stages, and I expect VI to provide great inspiration to those who’d like to see more such innovative products become a reality. The product is available now, and a quarterly subscription service is expected to begin in early 1992 for both Macintosh and Windows systems.

- Denise Caruso