This Is Spinal Tap CD-ROM Review by Elwin
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Here is a quick review of the This Is Spinal Tap CD-ROM (for the Mac) from
Voyager.
Briefly: An extremely nice package that is highly recommended. Video is
typical quicktime quality; the only real drawback is the audio quality.
User interface is excellent. Bonus CD is awesome. For a total price of
$27, the CD-ROM package is a must have.
The Nit-picking details: The CD-ROM package consists of two cds: one
containing the movie, and one "bonus" cd containing missing footage,
stills of movie related items, and promotional material.
The movie cd contains the entire TIST movie in quicktime format. Not much
to say about the video except that it looks like your typical quicktime
movie, with the associated compression artifacts that quicktime gives
you. The video portion runs smoothly at at least 15fps (total guess on my
part, but it is smooth). My only real complaint is the audio: there is a
lot of hissing whenever the is something played over the audio channel
(the hissing goes away during silent portions of the movie). However,
there are three audio tracks: the original movie, commentary by the
members of the band, and commentary by the crew. All are entertaining;
the bonus tracks are informative as well.
The user interface is a real plus. The movie can be run in a small window
or a large window (I forget the dimensions). You can switch between any
of the three audio tracks at any time. Volume can go to eleven of course.
You can jump to various scenes by either choosing the city from a menu,
clicking on snapshots, or clicking on various locations on a map of the
United states. Perhaps the best feature is the "Find" command: just type
in any word and the movie will cut to the next occurrence of the word. In
addition, one can use keywords as well. Example: search for the word
"interference" correctly (in my mind) jumps to the air force base scene
even though the word interference is never spoken.
The bonus CD is a real treat with some clips of extra footage, many
informative stills of images, the script, and comments. The best thing on
the bonus CD is the promotional trailer that is funnier than you can imagine.
Ratings (0 to 11):
Video: 8 (typical quicktime)
Audio: 3 (too much hissing)
User Interface: 10
Packaging: 8
Value: 11 (bonus CD alone is worth the $$)
Addendum
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05June95: After communicating with Colin Holgate from Voyager,
we have tracked down the cause of the audio noise that I reported. The
noise was due to my Mac only being capable of producing 8-bit audio. The
audio track sounds much better with 16-bit capable Macs. Thus my Audio rating
should be upped to 8 (about average). Also, Colin reports that the framerate
of the movie is 12 fps.