Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia Britannica 2004 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD

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

 

 

I agree that Britannica has poorer user interfaces compared to Encarta and not as up-to-date in recent events. On the other hand, as someone who's learned so much from the hard-copy version of Britannica from childhood, I still value the vast intellectual resources and scholastic quality of Britannia. You can find endless, and timeless classics in science sections - relativity article by Einstein, compilation of beautiful math formulas, thermodynamics section even recommended by Feynman, and oh.. that beautiful fluid mechanics which is so clearly written. There are numerous other examples in Britannica, for which you can never find a match in Encarta.
It depends on your interest. I am mostly interested in science, arts, history, and I just love the authoritive, scholastic articles in Britannica. For others more interested in recent events, ease of use, multimedia features, Encarta may be a better choice. They can complement each other. Not a waste of money: with just a few tens of bucks, you can wield all the knowledges contained in Britannica. It's truly amazing.

I use almost all important encyclopedias available. And comparison of the multimedial editions of American Britannica & Encarta (both 2004 edition), German Brockhaus (2002 edition), French Hachette (2002 edition) etc. shows that famous Britannica is the most outdated of them. Only some obscure and cheap encyclopedias can compare with Britannica's outdatedness.

EB 2004 does not deserve to be called updated and its title (2004 edition) is very misleading. Yes, they've updated some major articles and buried many dead people, but that's far from enough. There are many other articles and facts that should be thoroughly revised and updated, e.g. population figures (many of them are from the 80's!). Encarta and Brockhaus has most of the population figures from around the year 2000 or even later. Why not Britannica?

EB 2004 is outdated even in comparison with Britannica's concise printed version (Concise Britannica), which was issued two(!) years ago. Examples:
- Encarta 2004 and Concise Britannica say that Mobil and Exxon are former names (companies) and that the new company is named Exxon Mobil Corp. (since 1999). But Britannica 2004 (Deluxe) says Mobil and Exxon are still independent companies (the last date mentioned is 1972 for Exxon and 1988 for Mobil).
- Concise Britannica say that Merida, Mexico, had a population of 557,000 in 1990 (Encarta 2004: 705,000 in 2000). But Britannica 2004 provides only an information for 1980(!) (i.e. 400,142)

Another example of Britannica's outdatedness is a name of the French town of Chalons-sur-Marne: how is it possible that Britannica is the only major encyclopedia which still hasn't noticed that it was renamed Chalons-en-Champagne years ago (according to Hachette in 1995)?

Etc, etc.

I have been using the Britannica products for years and this is definitely the best version that they have produced.

Basics:
- Three complete (age specific) encyclopedias: In addition to the main encyclopedia, this product also includes, a complete Elementary encyclopedia, a complete Student encyclopedia, and ten years of Year Book articles (including recent topic coverage).
- Other (age specific) content: For each of these age groups the product also contains an Atlas feature (much improved than previous incarnations), a series of Timelines, Dictionary and Thesaurus (it appears that two versions of each are included, the primary difference seems to be the exclusion of `bad words' from the Student and Elementary versions), and online content.
- Searching: The product does a simultaneous search across several content types (articles, images, video/media). Results are viewed by clicking on the content type. A link to on-line content is also included.
- Browsing: The product has additional ways to find content including subject browse (one for each encyclopedia), Yearbook and video browsing, Classic articles, and the standard A-Z method.
- Interface: The interface follows a very no nonsense approach to finding content, although, it has been improved in both appearance and function. It's a single screen system that allows you to see all the controls on part of the screen while opening, viewing and manipulating content in the larger work/article area. You select an age specific `library' to work with and then search, browse, or open any of the features using simple, intuitive controls. The control area can even be adjusted to show more of less of the options you work with regularly. The work/article area allows you to view articles, media or other features that you choose from any of the libraries. You can have a lot content open at the same time and move the windows around to organize them.
- The articles: Articles are displayed very cleanly with much improved font handling and size controls. The navigation within the article is intuitive making them easy to read. You can find related content (images, tables, graphs, maps, etc.) or even other articles that are related in subject matter (using the index or a new feature that finds related people and places). There are embedded links, a built in dictionary (double click any word), Search term bolding, a new `find' feature.
- Other features: The product contains a number of other useful features including a separate dictionary/thesaurus, a visual browser, a research organizer.

Improvements:
- Performance: I could not believe the improvements related to installation and start-up time, over all speed, and general stability. The product works fast and reliably. I have had many pieces of content open/active without a severe slow down.
- Articles: There are new ways to find related materials, the display is much improved, a new `find' feature is available, the navigation is much more intuitive and natural, article text can be copy and pasted into other applications.
- Data: There are more types of content and more of each type of content (at least according to the materials supplied). New content includes classic articles, ten years of yearbook articles, new on-line content, etc. All features seem to be updated to include more content as well as more recent content (timelines include some events from 2003).
- Interface: - The interface has improved dramatically, it is intuitive and responsive. It includes many new features. Examples are mouse wheel support, article summaries that appear on mouse over, images that appear on mouse over, the ability to remember what I was doing in other libraries, etc.
- Video quality: The quality of the video is much better. They are about four times the size and can be scaled to any size you choose. There are also more of them.
- Browse features: There are new browse features in this years product including Classic articles, Yearbook articles, Subject/Topic listings, and a Media browse. It works better and includes time-saving improvements like an Auto-complete feature.
- Searching: All results are now in a single scrollable list, the results are more accurate, spell-checking is improved and happens automatically now, as needed. A search history is maintained, article titles can be auto-completed, and new advanced searching options have been added (for searching just titles, etc.)
- Display: The problems with last years font seems to be fixed, the overall appearance is greatly improved (it's visually appealing), library homepages have been added (includes tips and links to library features)
- Atlas: A new atlas that contains many more maps, country statistics and new features to allow for easy navigation.
- Bolding: You can choose to have all your search terms bolded in articles that you open.
- Pop-up dictionary: You can double click on any word to automatically see the dictionary definition.
- Configuration options: A number of user configuration options can now be permanently set. Includes items like font size, starting library, and term bolding.

Conclusion:
Even if Britannica was not the most reliable and definitive source of reference information on the planet - this is a superior product. It has an excellent design and approach to content access and management. It is genuinely useful and not simply some pretty showpiece that is difficult to navigate and use to any real end. The bottom line is that there is no real alternative on the market.

Far and away the best content of any electronic encyclopedia. However, this is marred by a truly horrific interface and performance on a mid-level system.

This is a Java app, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it suffers all the weaknesses of a poorly-written Java app. The primary headache is the inability to save window preferences - the default is to fill the screen with the app's blank desktop which it uses to open a new window with each link. It is PC and Mac compatible, but the Mac implementation leaves very much to be desired. For example the scroll wheel doesn't work (as it should in OSX), it will expand to hide behind the dock, and even scrollbar arrows are missing.

Not to mention woeful performance on mid-range systems. Here again the Mac fares worse than the PC - on a 1 GHz G4 it can take up to 30 seconds just to switch between "browse" and "find" modes. Performance on a 1.6 MHz Pentium IV is slightly better, but still painful for prolonged use.

My advice would be to stick with the 2002 edition. This was also a Java app but had an excellent interface and performs nicely. While it's not quite as bad as the horrific 2003 version, the 2004 edition is still a step backwards from 2002. C'mon Britannica!

I have bought both Encarta and Britannica for years (EB in printed edition too: 32 volumes, 32.000 sheets). This is my opinion in brief: Encarta is excellent in all aspects, but Britannica's authoritative text (sometimes outdated) makes interesting to buy both.
¿DVD or CD? Both editions are actually the same. You can copy them in your hard disk.
TEXT: Britannica is a superb encyclopedia in text (not in visual aid) since 1768 (you know: an article by Einstein and so on...). Text in electronic version differs from printed encyclopedia (very large articles have been shortened). Britannica claims that it has more items than Encarta, but this is a joke: articles like "Mexico" are only one (with a lot of subdivisions) in Encarta, while in Britannica subdivisions are unconnected, and you must "jump" from one subdivision to another, which is slow and very annoying, especially if you want to copy it in "WORD". Very often, the text is not updated.
In the other hand, Encarta's text is not bad at all. Most articles have the name of their contributors (professions, works...): They are not John Doe. You can find large fragments of literary works, literature guides, a lot of sidebars and thousands of quotations. "Encarta Africana" is included. The Pop-Up (double clicking a word) Dictionary and Thesaurus has sound for correct pronunciation (by the way, it can read aloud, with a robotic and ugly voice, a whole article). The "Translation Dictionaries" to Spanish, French, German and Italian must be improved, because they are minimal. It gives you a lot of "Internet links", even if you are not connected. With Britannica you must be "on-line" and it searches in an EB Web page.
In theory you can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year quarterly (4 times), but this does not work: You can not find new files. Encarta can be updated free EVERY WEEK with new articles and additions or corrections to the old ones (till October 2004). With Encarta updating really works. Technically, is amazing to see the changes in old items.
ATLAS Britannica has not a real atlas; only a worlds map whose maximum detail is the States of USA. Statistics are very poor. Encarta's Atlas is like another encyclopedia, with a great detail (1 cm/ 4 km all over the world) and 20 types of atlas presentations (statistical ones can be counted by dozens). If you look a geographical article (city, river...) you can see in a corner where it is placed and, with only a click, open the atlas. In articles of cities, if you are on-line, you can see in another corner the weather of this place in that moment. If it is a USA place, you can read the latest news.
MULTIMEDIA: They say that "serious" or "adult" readers do not care about "pictures"; that multimedia is only for kids. I do not agree, because I think that, sometimes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Works of art, anatomy, historical maps, diagrams ... Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of photos, paintings, drawings, charts & tables, animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, 2-D and 3-D virtual tours, 360-degrees views, timeline, games... It is not only the quantity and quality. It is the easy access you have to all the multimedia, and that text and multimedia are fully integrated. Britannica is not really multimedia. It has photos and videos, but they make the program slow and sluggish. They should edit an alternative version with only text, as they did with the first edition in 1995. It worked fast and easy in old computers.
INTERFACE AND PERFORMANCE: This is the worst side of Britannica. With Encarta you only have to type a word or the beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contain it. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you automatically alternative spellings. Even if you write the name of a small village lost in any country, you see it in the atlas. If you need to copy text or pictures, the integration with Microsoft WORD is perfect. It has additional ways to find content, including subject or multimedia browsing, "related articles" and the standard A-Z method. The "Research Organizer" is very helpful too. Encarta's TEXT FONT is very clear (Britannica's...) and you can choose 3 sizes.
Navigating with Britannica is different. 2004 edition is better than 2003 one, but still it is disappointing. I will only give you an example: if you do not know the exact and correct spelling of a name or word, it does not help you with similar spellings (unless you open a window and fight with it). As I said before, the program's performance speed is very slow and sluggish, and it must be dramatically improved. To go "back and forward" you do not find any icon and you need to open a "menu".... One "pro" for Britannica: they say it works with Macintosh.
I repeat my modest piece of advice: Encarta is excellent in all aspects, but Britannica's authoritative text (sometimes outdated) make interesting to buy both.

It has some good articles... but at times it is hard to read, like a textbook written in greek, rather than in plain simple english.

also, while I was looking as Nash Solution in Game Theory, I found that the tables are missing! How could that be!

Then I joined the 90 day online trial, which required a credit card... depending on people to forget about the subscription and earn money from that... what a good and not so moral strategy... interestingly, the online content contains the missing tables... and it costs $25 per year. So it might be better just to subscribe to the online version, and be able to find articles any where you are with an online computer.

also the DVD-ROM version doesn't let you copy the whole article to Word or Notepad with ease. You need to do it screenful by screenful. The online version is just a webpage and allows easy copying to Word or Notepad.

Do not waste your time and money with this product. It has much better interface than 2002 or 2003 version, but as compared with Encarta 2004 or Concise Britannica (2002) it is completely outdated!
Examples:

- Encarta 2004 and Concise Britannica say that Mobil and Exxon are former names (companies) and that the new company is named Exxon Mobil Corp. (since 1999). But Britannica 2004 (Deluxe) says Mobil and Exxon are still independent companies (the last date mentioned is 1972 for Exxon and 1988 for Mobil).

- Concise Britannica say that Merida, Mexico, had a population of 557,000 in 1990 (Encarta 2004: 705,000 in 2000). But Britannica 2004 (Deluxe) provides only an information for 1980(!) (i.e. 400,142)

It would be nice if someone from Britannica can explain how is it possible that Concise Britannica from 2002 is more updated than Britannica 2004.

I am very diappointed with this product. It is extremely sluggish. Moreover, most of the text in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus in the Encyclopedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004 DVD (2004.0) does not display correctly. I have tried to get help from Encyclopedia Britannica's online tech support and customer service for this product repeatedly but they do not respond. I cannot recommend software which Encyclopedia Britannica refuses to support. It is shameful that Encyclopedia Britannica will not support their product and will not respond their customers.

If you're thinking about upgrading from the 2003 version, don't bother. This one is equally slow (even when all of the files are fully installed on hard disks) and the content appears to be virtually the same. The interface is more attractive, but just as inefficient and difficult to use.

The articles are well written, but fragmented and not as complete as one would hope.

All in all, a disappointment. Judging from the other reviews on this page, that view is widely shared.

It is all around the best available encyclopedia. There are other, but Encarta represents exact Microsoft's incline to put in more buttons and few knowledge. This is not only the best encyclopedia but it is the best Britannica. The quality of materials you get in enormous. The cross-reference are logical and helpful, the article well written and intriguing. It appears to be Java app, so it runs smoothly on any platform. I have it on my lovely two Apple machines and could not be happier. Britannice made the real leap from 2003 release to this one.