Star Trek Omnipedia
           œ44.95 (Simon & Schuster Interactive)

          IBM PC CD-ROM review by Richard Hewison

Earlier this year, Simon & Schuster Interactive released a Windows
and Mac CD-ROM title based on the "Star Trek - T.N.G. Technical
Manual". Now they have released the follow- up, based on the "Star
Trek Encyclopaedia" book, a reference guide to the Star Trek
universe.

The Omnipedia will run under Windows 3.1 and above (including
Windows '95) and is best suited to the SVGA 640 x 480 mode. You
also need 8 Mb of RAM. The on-screen design is based on the
computer interface screens used in the recent TV series (The Next
Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager).  If you have the correct
software and hardware, the Omnipedia will even respond to voice
commands! Installation is simple enough, giving you three
options which occupy varying amounts of hard disk space. A readme
file helps to explain any last minute amendments or additions to
the slim CD sized manual that comes in the typically over-sized
box.

The Omnipedia offers an alphabetical search on any subject you
care to mention related to the various movies and TV series
connected with Star Trek (although the current version does not
include much info. on the seventh movie "Generations" or
"Voyager". Fortunately, if you send off your registration card you
can get regular updates - the first of which will be free). Quite
often you will hear the voice of the Enterprise D's computer (in
reality the actress Majel Barret Rodenberry) confirm your choice,
which all adds to the authentic feel of the program.

You can manipulate the Omnipedia in two ways. The easiest is by
using your mouse pointer (which has turned into a small U.F.P.
icon). This way you can point at keywords, icons, pictures or
buttons and left-click to activate them. The second method is by
utilising the 'speech recognition' feature which is built into the
software. All you need is an appropriate sound card and a
microphone. I have a standard Soundblaster 16 card. I plugged in a
basic microphone into the MIC socket, turned up the mic volume
control software that came with the soundcard and that was it. The
speech recognition feature can only recognise a set number of
commands, and I had great difficulty in getting it to recognise
most of what I was saying. For example, I said "Letter E" to get a
list of the entries beginning with E and the Omnipedia responded by
taking me to the quit screen (it somehow thought I had said
"Deactivate Omnipedia"!). After fiddling with the speech for a
while longer I decided to abandon the idea and revert to the tried
and trusted mouse!

It doesn't take too long to get used to the way the Omnipedia
works. Unfortunately it suffers from a severe lack of speed in
several areas. Firstly, moving from one topic to another can put
quite a strain on your hard disk and it also takes an awful long
time to complete. Whenever new text is displayed (related to your
chosen subject) you are forced to watch as it painfully bolds,
italicises and re-formats the text before your very eyes. Clicking
on a mini-photo will expand it to a larger frame, but again it can
take a while.  Sometimes you can click on a new subject and it
appears that nothing has happened. It can take a good 10 seconds
before something begins to happen (and this is on a DX2 66 Mhz
machine!).

You can also view a number of 'Topics' which concentrate on
Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, The History of the Enterprise, The
History of the Future and The Production of Star Trek.  These are
effectively slide shows with the occasional silent video clip
narrated by Mark Lenard (who has played a Romulan, a Vulcan
(Spock's father) and a Klingon (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
over the years).

There are approximately 100 different video clips on offer within
the Omnipedia. They are all displayed using Quick Time 2 for
Windows. Quick Time was originally developed for the Mac and then
converted to Windows. Unfortunately, I don't think it's as quick
as Microsoft's own Video for Windows (which can play the more
standard .AVI files). The advantage with Quick Time is that it
results in much smaller files with many more frames per second and
higher quality sound sampling to go with it (ideal for storing
lots of clips). Unfortunately, the down side is that it doesn't
seem to run as smoothly (or at least it doesn't seem to on my
PC!). For example, I play a video clip for the first time.  It
lasts about ten seconds and shows the Enterprise D opening fire on
a Borg ship, and Captain Picard ordering Worf to fire on it again.
The first time around everything is fine. However, if I then
decide to watch the same clip again immediately afterwards I
discover that video frames are dropped as the picture falls behind
the sound. The video clips can be from just a few seconds to
around 20 or so.

As with the "ST: T.N.G. Technical Manual" before it, you cannot
fault the Omnipedia on its authentic presentation.  It looks and
sounds just like the computer interface used in the TV series.
However, whilst it's a nice collectors item to have if your
machine is up to it and you are a big Star Trek fan, it suffers
from the very slow execution of the program. I think this is due
to it being converted from the Mac instead of being sourced on the
PC. I've got a number of multi-media programs with video and sound
effects that work very nicely indeed on my 486 under Windows 3.11
(Microsoft's own "Dangerous Creatures" springs to mind). The
actual graphics used in the TV series are created using a Mac so
it was obvious this would be the lead version.

In summary, it's an awful lot cheaper to buy the book (The Star
Trek Encyclopaedia - published by Pocket Books at around œ12.99)
and you don't need a powerful PC to get it running at a
satisfactory speed. A nice idea but poorly implemented under
Windows.

UPDATE: The Star Trek Omnipedia runs faster under Windows 95 and
is a little easier to use. To get the speech to work you need to
fiddle with the .INI file, but otherwise it seems to work okay.






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