Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Expanded Edition (DVD-ROM)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Just as some of the buyers have complained here in Amazon.com, the "convenient" installation in this Britannica DVD doesn't work. Obviously, this is due to a bug in the program. So I have to keep the DVD always in the computer, an inconvenient option. The multimedia is not as bad as some Encarta enthusiasts claimed. This DVD has great content and is good for adults and researchers. When I click "Islam," I get pages after pages of articles. You don't get that much from Encarta.

Verdict: Good for people 18 and above. Kids may not find it interesting.

The "convenient" install went OK. After it was installed, I immediately registered the product on-line and downloaded the latest update (both content and an apparent bug-patch).

Nevertheless, this piece of software seems to have a memory leak, and typically uses 320 Megabytes of system memory EVEN AFTER I QUIT THE APPLICATION. This requires me to re-boot my computer to regain usage of HALF OF MY SYSTEM MEMORY. This is inconvenient, and utterly ridiculous for modern software.

Unless you enjoy re-booting your computer everytime you use the Britannica, I advise you to NOT buy this software. This saddens me, because I like the textual content. The multi-media element,
however, leaves much to be desired.

System details:
- Macintosh 867 G4
- 640 MB RAM
- OS X 10.1.4

This is simply the best reference product I have ever purchased for my family. I have read all the reviews in this forum, and want to point out a few things:

1. Although there is no practical way to do a complete installation with the 2002 DVD, their customer service department is more than happy to exchange your version for a CD Deluxe edition, which does support this installation (nearly 2GB)

2. One reviewer said that there was no alphabetical browse feature, but there IS one in the product. Additionally, there is a subject browse tool called the Knowledge Navigator, which is based loosely on the content from the Propaedia volume of the printed edition.

3. While the multimedia does tend to be scant, it is all EB's original content. Other companies tend to license videos and photos like crazy, but have very little REAL content as far as the text goes. Britannica is known for its original content, and the transfer to CD/DVD is wonderful.

I bought my first Encyclopdia Britannica CD 2.0 on September 13, 1995. Looking at the invoice in front of me now, it cost me exactly $522.59 (including tax, shipping and handling). I upgraded to the Britannica CD 98 Standard Edition couple years later.

Subsequently, EB had been releasing a more powerful DVD version just for the Windows platform and the same thing for the Mac is nowhere to be found. I don't know how many times I had been calling EB to release a DVD for the Mac with no avil. Being a diehard Mac user, I refused to buy into the Windows version.

As you may imagine, I am extremely delighted that EB is finally going to release a DVD for the Mac after all these years...It is much more convenient to use just one DVD instead of swapping back and forth with two CD-ROMs. More audio and video on one DVD is another advantage of going DVD.

Technology is GOOD!

Content is great. "Convenient" installation is not convenient. In fact, it doesn't work at all. 3 and a half months after I sent out the rebate form strictly according to their requirements, the check still has not come. Perhaps it will never.

Within an hour of installing the DVD, the registration process hadn't worked, the online service wouldn't let me in because I hadn't provided information for which there was no blank, and the online updating had frozen my computer twice (and never worked). On the disk info itself I'd found three typos and a broken link, and had been crashed once while following an ordinary link. The single QuickTime movie I looked at was visually dark and had oddly pointless clips with minimal information. The dictionary gives no pronunciations and the atlas, as far as I can tell, is surprisingly limited. The logic of the encyclopedia's organisation is far from transparent though I suppose that might improve with use. Graphic design is ugly, very unlike the print Britannicas I remember from school, and page layout (again as far as I can see from brief acquaintance) inflexible (e.g. the window for marginalia can't be collapsed to get more of the actual article onscreen). I'm near returning it for falling so far short of what it could be, but there IS a lot of information here--in a package which really should have been designed (and copy-edited!) to higher standards.

Clearly the top encyclopedia on the market. Unmatched content, nice media. Highly recommended.

Convenient installation (which should allow user to install most of the contents [except multimedia] of DVD on his hard disk) properly works for my Mac. My Mac is iMac G4 (flat panel one), OSX (10.1.3).

Britannica is the best encyclopedia in print. Why, oh why, can't they get the software right? Examples: The video clips are stock footage of no instructional purpose, some are simply of animals grazing (dumb!), the audio clips are few and far between, as are the video clips. This is multimedia circa 1985! Not 2002! The clipboard function explanation was confusing. The navigator was slow and only touched upon articles directly related to the topic. What happened to a macropedia?
I was disappointed by this. Maybe they will get it right in a few years. As it is, it is a very unimpressive cd-rom and will put you to sleep.

If you want this product for your IMAC, be careful. There are appparently no longer DVD-ROM drives available for IMACs that don't already have them.