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From: nwickham@triton.unm.edu (Neal C. Wickham)
Subject: Re: CDTV & CD-I The Whole Picture
References: <1991Apr19.234710.26180@ariel.unm.edu> <1991Apr20.065435.17965@ncsu.edu> <1991Apr20.095337.31340@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Message-ID: <1991Apr20.201207.4208@ariel.unm.edu>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 91 20:12:07 GMT
Lines: 52

In article <1991Apr20.095337.31340@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes:
>In article <1991Apr20.065435.17965@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>>
>>See, usable raw material (that is, movie/sound samples with copy rights) will
>>be one important factor in I-TV.  This is partly why CD-I backers acquired
>>Polygram, Columbia, MCA and so on.  Not just for CD-I, but for future
>>interactive projects not yet announced, or perhaps even thought of.
>>
>	Getting rights to those materials is VERY easy. Go to
>AmiExpo. There were companies showing clips from Back to the
>Future III, Predator and Total Recall. That stuff is cheap to do.
>You don't think IVS and ICD are "big money" companies?
>	And I know that they were just showing, not selling. But
>I doubt that Polygram, Columbia, MCA, etc. are going to give
>stuff for free to CD-I either. Most likely both sets of people
>will pay about the same.
>	-- Ethan
>
>Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb
>A: None. It's a hardware problem.

Its not 'materials' that I was talking about, its expertise.  Its people who
know how to commuicate on several different levels.  There are reasons that
Presidents have PR people and there are reasons that these people are paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.  Hollywood these days is as much a
haven for people in the social sciences as it is for artists.  I think the
uninitiated would be amazed at the intensity of scientific consumer research
that goes on.  I would guess that the dollar volume of consumer research in
this country out paces ALL electronic research ten to one.

I don't mean to be hard on C= either.  I don't know why they don't advertise.
They may have well calculated reasoning behind that decision.  And they may
have some good 'Hollywood' types behind CDTV and CDTV may become a big hit 
and CD-I may fail.  I just wonder sometimes.  But if anyone doesn't believe
in 'Hollywood expertise' and 'image' and 'big time PR' go have a little
talk with Mike Dukakas or Walter Mondale or for that matter any Amiga owner
who has listened to some idiot tell him that the IBM PC is a better machine.



                                      NCW
PS Not all IBM owner are idiots.  Remember Amiga is the machine that 
   cooperates with IBM.  All Mac owners are idiots though.  And NeXT
   is a big bad failure who is not welcome in the PC family.