Product: Encarta 2004 Reference Library Plus DVD ROM Company: Microsoft Website: http://shop.microsoft.com/ Estimated Street Price: $74.95 Review By: Byron Hinson

The Features

This is the fourth year in a row that I have reviewed the Encarta reference suite for ActiveWin. Each year I have been surprised by the new additions that Microsoft adds to the suite that even in 1999 was already an excellent encyclopedia. So what has been added and tweaked this time round? Well for a start we have Discovery Channel video content and a new visual browser which should improve how users explore Encarta thanks to more animations and better navigation.

The comprehensive, award-winning Microsoft Encarta Reference Library is the ultimate reference source for the entire family. You get more up-to-date content, more learning tools, and more leading-edge multimedia than ever before!

Content Highlights:

• Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004
• New! Discovery Channel Media Content
• New! Visual Browser
• Homework Center, Project Starter and Curriculum Guide
• Update Encarta
• More! Literature Guides
• Encarta World English Dictionary and Thesaurus with Translation Dictionaries
• Encarta Interactive World Atlas
• Chart Maker
• Encarta Africana
• More than 68,000 articles
• Encarta Researcher
• Statistics Center
• 1.8 million map locations
• Single Search

Key Features:

• New! Videos from Discovery Channel - A collection of 32 high-quality videos from the Discovery Channel. Watch animals in their natural habitat, see where electricity comes from, or learn how stars live and die in space. Don’t just read about it… Experience it!
• New! Visual Browser - The Visual Browser is an innovative new way to investigate Encarta’s comprehensive multimedia content, related articles and content associations.
• Updated! Homework Tools
  • Homework Starters – Sometimes, half the battle with homework is simply getting started. Homework Starters provide students with resources to better understand and plan for assignments.
  • Literature Guides – Students gain a better understanding of literature with articles that help explain themes, characters, and settings, plus provide insight into the author of commonly assigned works of literature.
  • Chart Maker – Spice up a presentation with easy to build charts! Users simply choose a chart type, enter data and Encarta draws a chart.
  • Quotations – Easily search Encarta’s collection of familiar and contemporary quotations from literature, entertainment, and the news.
  • Improved: Dictionary Tools – Encarta takes the dictionary a step further by providing easy access to Encarta Thesaurus, Book of Quotations, plus a Translation Dictionary that translates English words to French, Spanish, German or Italian… and back again!
• Update Encarta² - Download new, up-to-date information directly into articles to keep content current as the world changes.
• Interactive World Atlas - The world is at your fingertips. An interactive globe with 1.8 million map locations and 20 map styles enables you to look at and learn about locations around the world.
• Dynamic Timelines - Explore and analyze historical periods and events with the interactive timelines. Zero in on specific events, or scroll through fascinating periods of history.
• Interactivities - Explore a variety of different topics such as the Periodic Table of Elements and how tropical storms are formed.

So what about the main new additions:

• New! Videos from Discovery Channel
  A collection of 32 high-quality videos from the Discovery Channel. Watch animals in their natural habitat, see where electricity comes from, or learn how stars live and die in space. Don’t just read about it… Experience it!
• New! Visual Browser
  The Visual Browser is an innovative new way to investigate Encarta’s comprehensive multimedia content, related articles and content associations.
• Updated! Homework Tools
  Sometimes the hardest part about doing homework is getting started. This unparalleled resource revolutionizes homework, guiding students through research and creative projects from start to finish. It not only gives students a scholastic advantage, it invites them to become fully engaged in topics, while helping them make connections and learn about subjects they might otherwise overlook.

2004 Encarta Product Family   Encarta  Standard Encarta    Deluxe   Encarta Reference Library on CD Encarta Reference Library on DVD Encarta Reference Library Educator's Edition Number of CDs/DVDs 1 3 5 1 5 Articles 37,500+ 63,000+ 68,000+ 68,000+ 68,000+ Photos and Illustrations 19,500+ 20,000+ 25,000+ 26,000+ 25,000+ Videos and Animations 75+ 200+ 300+ 400+ 300+ Sound and Music Clips 2,025+ 2,500+ 2900+ 3,300+ 2900+ Web Sites (selected by editors) 29,000+ 29,000+ 29,000+ 29,000+ 29,000+ Web Center x x x x x Map Locations 30,000 30,000 1.8 million 1.8 million 1.8 million Live News, Radio, and Weather x x x x x Games x x x x x Hard Drive Install (no CD swapping) x x x x x Article Updates x x x x x Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe   x x x x Dynamic Timelines   x x x x 2D Virtual Tours   x x x x 3D Virtual Tours   x x x x Read Aloud   x x x x Product Support   1 year 3 years 3 years 3 years Discovery Videos (CD/DVD)     20 32 20 Visual Browser     x x x Homework Starters     x x x Homework Center     x x x Encarta World English Dictionary     x x x Encarta Thesaurus     x x x Translation Dictionaries     x x x Encarta Interactive World Atlas     x x x Encarta Africana     x x x Literature Guides     x x x Quotations     x x x Virtual Flights       x   5 licenses for the price of 3         x 120 day Class Server 3.0 Trial CD         x Educator Guide         x ERL/Class Server Demo CD         x

Installation and Settings

Once again the Encarta Reference Library 2004 ships on the single DVD-ROM, or if you pick it up on CD, it comes on 5 CD's. The difference between the two versions is obvious, if you use the DVD-ROM version you just need to use the one DVD, no swapping or whatever, if you use the CD version, unless you choose to copy the whole thing to your hard drive, you will be in for a lot of disk swapping when using the program. Also the DVD-ROM version contains more music and video footage, so if you have a DVD-ROM drive go for it.

There is very little to improve installation wise over the previous versions, yet again there are no problems with the installation what so ever and that is after installing it on 3 different PC's here at ActiveWin. One thing I have noticed over the last version seems to be an improvement in loading times, the 2004 edition loads far faster.

Encarta Itself

I have decided to break the review down into separate components just like Encarta itself is. I will begin with the Encarta Reference Library 2004. Encarta Reference Library is filled full of documents, topics, accounts, illustrations, sounds, videos and 360 Degree views, everything you would want from a computer encyclopedia. This latest release of Encarta yet again increases the amount of information you can gain access to, both via the DVD and via the internet.

Yet again there has been a colour change to the Encarta Reference Library 2004, gone has the darker navigation and in comes a much brighter look than before, and it is very welcome. The icons have changed from their previous shades of gray to primary colours and to a look which feels more cartoon like, but it fits in far better now with the rest of Encarta's look.

At the top of the Encarta layout are the main menus, they include the following:

• File -- This allows you to print articles
• Edit -- Find and Copy articles
• View -- Change text sizes and captioning
• Favorites -- Add articles to your favorites list
• Features -- Access articles, maps, timelines etc
• Tools -- Find, Voice Controls and settings can all be accessed from here.
• Help -- Get easy access to help options.

The main area from which you search from is called "Find" once you click on this option via the menu (the first time you load Encarta it is already on the side for you), a bar appears on the left hand side of the layout, from here you can enter letters/words to find items you are looking for. You can also search by type of information, this way you can filter out items and only choose a certain type such as an image or some video footage, something that is very useful and can be accessed via the "Advanced Search" feature at the bottom of the panel. With the new DVD version you can also search through various categories of the Library such as Africana, Religion etc or the dictionary from just one place.

The main homepage in Encarta Reference Library 2004 has once again been improved over last years release. For a start we have the new visual browser in full effect spinning around the screen, we also have the remnants of the "Encarta Today" section which has gradually been improved with each release. All of these bits and pieces are updated via the internet when you load up Encarta each time. I don't know what it is about the new look main page, but something about it just feels better, certainly the addition of the Visual Browser does make it look more animated, but the colours seem to be very easy on the eye all round.

As previous users of Encarta will know, the reference library contains bucket loads of well written articles from entertainment to business details, each item that you click on is streamed directly off of the DVD, the 2003 edition seemed a little slow in this respect, but I can thankfully say that the 2004 Reference Library really flies off of the DVD just like the old CD-ROM versions used to. Every article contains various additional bits and pieces such as photos, sounds, video footage, 360-Degree views, charts, and tours.

So what improvements over the last release do we have, well for a start the visual browser is all over the place in Encarta 2004. What this does is add a scrolling 3-D animation to navigate through, so say you do a search for the Alphabet, you will get the chance to click on "Visual Browser" and this will then show you a 3-D scrolling menu of all the different alphabet types that available to you in Encarta 2004. It works quite well, but I do notice that it scrolls far too fast sometimes when clicking from one place to another simply because the scrolling speed is decided by where you mouse is on the screen.

We also have the new Discovery Channel videos which have been integrated into Encarta 2004, now these are quite long and are very detailed to watch when compared to all of the other videos that Encarta has to offer, the only problem I have here is that the quality of the actual video playback is not as good as I had hoped from a DVD version of the program, but I am likely to be one of the few to make this complaint as most users of Encarta 2004 will not care too much about the visual quality and only go with quality of the documentary, which is superb. The videos themselves contain information about animals, forests and much, much more.

Updating Encarta & Web Stuff

Next we have the "Update Encarta" option. This means you can keep your version of Encarta up to date with the latest articles and web links regularly. There are about 3/4 updates per week, these update articles and add new ones, while also adding a number of new "Web Center" links for you to go through. The Encarta web center has links from all over the world, these are all checked first by people in the know to make sure that all the information is valid and correct (well almost).

Research & Homework Tools

Once again Microsoft has made some steady improvements to the already excellent homework and researcher side of Encarta. As usual there are some excellent pieces of information on how to write essays, poems, do research and more. With the dictionary and thesaurus still at hand, you can't go wrong with letting your child or yourself use Encarta for studying.

Encarta Researcher helps you to quickly find, collect, and organize information so you can write first-rate reports. With Encarta Researcher, you can:

• Search to find the information you are looking for on the Web or within Encarta.
• Collect information with a click from the Web or within Encarta.
• Organize your research.
• Write your report in an HTML or Microsoft Word file.

They are very useful tools for those who have children still at school or anyone studying at college. Or those who want to write articles for websites! What you do is if you find an article you like in Encarta you can either drag over the specific text you want to put into your work or add the whole page by clicking on "Add to Researcher". It adds all of the text you want and informs you what the source of the writing is. You can then later save your work as a document or a web page.

With so many interactive parts to Encarta I won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the world around us.

Encarta Dictionary

The Encarta 2004 Reference Suite Dictionary hasn't gone through any changes, it still has the translation tool which works works very well, and is a great tool for those wanting to know the most basic of terms, words and sayings for difference languages. The dictionary contains over 31,000 synonyms and antonyms. Why change what is already excellent anyway.

What else?

It is hard to go into all of the details that Encarta has to offer to you, it has excellent chart makers for students to use, live media, news and weather reports (which is spot on every time I check it here in the UK), it has the brilliant world Atlas which I never seem to go into detail with. The web center as I have mentioned in previous reviews contains lots of links to sites that have been reviewed by the Encarta editors. You also have the great 3-D and 2-D tours that have been with us for the last few versions, I hope that Microsoft do a major update of these in the next version as I love to go through these but I have got tired of seeing the same old stuff here, and the 3-D version could probably do with a graphical make over in the next release too.

Final Comments

Another year, another Encarta update, but once again I can't find fault with it. There are a lot of new images here that were not in the previous releases, which was one of my previous complaints, as was the lack of new videos - but with the addition of the Discovery Channel videos things are getting better and better. For studying I can't recommend this highly enough, if you have a DVD-ROM player then make sure you get it.