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This website
is designed for very fast Internet connections
and was tested primarily on Netscape Navigator
3.0 and Internet Explorer 3.0.
For
best viewing:
Install the QuickTime
plug-in for your browser. The QuickTime
plug-in for Netscape can be obtained for
free from quicktime.apple.com.
The movie files in the story section are
large, but they are probably the best way
to get a feel for the interactive nature
of the KidsRoom. The movies include
sound.
Make sure your browser
can play MIDI files so that you hear the
background MIDI music. This is the same
music used in the actual room.
Adjust your computer's
volume controls so that the MIDI volume
is much higher than the synthesizer
volume. This will allow you to hear the
background MIDI music and also hear the
narration at the same time.
Worth
keeping in mind:
Audio files are in the
.aiff (also known as .aif) format,
sampled at 8kHz. On slow connections,
most of these sound samples will be
impractical to load. If that's the case
for you, think about playing just a few
to ascertain the personality of each
character in the story. Note that when
you click on an audio file before the
current page has fully loaded, you will
stop the loading process! If you are
planning on loading the videos, you will
hear many of the character narrations at
that time.
Depending upon how your
browser is setup, you may experience some
problems when playing .aiff files. For
instance, on Netscape Navigator 3.0, when
you click on a .aiff link to play a sound
in the story pages the animated gifs
(mostly located at the bottom of the
page) will stop playing. Hit refresh to
restart them.
If you are running Explorer, the
background midi files may stop playing
when you click on a .aiff file.
In general, the pages may work better if
you read/view the entire page listening
to the MIDI background music first and
once you have seen all the animated gifs
and heard the music, then click on some
.aiff files to hear the narration.
The quality of the MIDI
music is directly correlated with the
quality of your MIDI synthesizer. Unless
you have a Korg synthesizer, chances are
the music sounded a whole lot better in
the actual KidsRoom.
The QuickTime videos in
the story section are huge, but if you
really want to see how the room worked,
they are worth it. Even when the movies
are stored locally (i.e. on your disk or
on a CD-ROM) they can take about 10
seconds to load, so be patient! If the
sound "jitters," try stopping
the movie and restarting it, which seems
to fix the problem.
Finally:
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This Website