The Complete National Geographic Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)We need not discuss the greatness of National Geographic Magazine; people already know it's the best source of geographic knowledge these days. This review concerns the product.
As many, many people have pointed out, the JPEG compression for the magazine pages is at times atrocious. The text is barely readable at times, but thankfully, the majority is readable. The pictures look somewhat good, although compression artifacts are visible at times.
For a product produced in the late 1990's, it's pretty good. However, with the advances of modern technology, higher-quality picture compression and DVDs, the Society should consider putting out another Complete National Geographic collection on DVD. If Mad magazine updated its already-good Totally Mad set with the Absolutely Mad DVD-ROM, why can't the Society be bothered to put out another edition of a product with unrivaled potential? Especially seeing as a lawsuit over this product (and its updates) has recently been resolved in the magazine's favor.
The potential for a "National Geographic: Complete 119 (or 120) Years Collection DVD-ROM)" product is enormous. Who knows; they might even be working on another as I type.
Anyway, the final verdict: while this product is by no means reference-quality, it is worth picking up until the Society decides to release another, higher-quality DVD edition.
EDIT: I have recently found that if the program is installed from the disc which contains issues from January-December 1997, a feature to darken the text on the pages is added to the zoom-in mode. There are three settings: low, medium and high. There is also a "Reset" button to restore the text to its original form. Darkening the text improves the quality of illegible text, but causes picture quality to drop if set to maximum. Still, this feature is appreciated.

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This CD-ROM collection from National Geographic Interactive brings every exotic corner of the universe explored by National Geographic as close as the computer. Peruse all the stirring imagery, fascinating reporting, and nostalgic advertisements without sacrificing shelf space. Content on these 30 searchable CD-ROMs is printable in black and white or color.

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