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BirdGuides Viewer (European Birds)

Using the BirdGuides Viewer on All the Birds of Europe

The BirdGuides Viewer is an application that allows you to view video clips and listen to sound clips from the extensive BirdGuides video library. These clips can be downloaded from our online video library. Included on CD-ROM #6 is a Rarities folder containing a selection of clips from the library covering about 110 rarer species, for your enjoyment.

Where should these rarities videos be stored?

You can either leave them on CD-ROM #6 or copy them to your hard-disk. If you do not copy them to the hard-disk you will only be able to access them when CD-ROM #6 is in your drive and you won't be able to add new movies from our website. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you copy them to your hard-disk if you have plenty of hard-disk space (the videos take up about 220MB).

How do I copy the rarities videos to my hard disk?

The best way is as follows:

  1. Insert CD-ROM #6 into your CD-ROM driver. Navigate to My Computer/aebirds6 and open the Rarities folder (not the one with the computer icon).
  2. Use your keyboard to press Ctrl+A (=select all), then Ctrl+C (=copy).
  3. Now navigate to My Computer/C:/Program Files/BirdGuides/BirdGuides Viewer/BirdGuides Movies.
  4. Open the 'BirdGuides Movies' folder and press Ctrl+V(=paste). This will copy all the movies into the BirdGuides Movies folder on your hard disk. You can then add to these movies by downloading additional movies from the online video library, effectively building up your own video library.

Once I've copied the rarities videos to my hard disk, how do I access them?

If you are using the CD-ROM guide, simply navigate to the Features menu and click on BirdGuides Viewer. Alternatively, navigate from the Start menu to Program Files/BirdGuides/BirdGuides Viewer. A species list should appear on screen from which you can select the movie you'd like to view. If the window is blank, simply click on File, then click on the line c:\program files\birdguides\birdguides viewer\birdguides movies, or use the Movies Folder… option on the File menu to select the BirdGuides Movies folder.

What if I choose not to copy the rarities movies onto my hard-disk?

You can access them in just the same way, either from the Features menu within the CD-ROM #6 (click on BirdGuides Viewer) or from the Start menu (navigate to Program Files/BirdGuides/BirdGuides Viewer)

A species list should automatically appear on screen from which you can select the movie you'd like to view. If the window is blank, simply choose Movies folder from the File menu. This opens a dialogue box called Select Movie Folder. In the upper drive-selection box click on the down-arrow to choose your CD-ROM drive (e.g. d:), and then double-click on the Rarities folder in the lower box. If necessary, double-click on rarities again the finally click "OK".

If you have not copied the rarity videos onto your hard-disk you should not try to access the BirdGuides Viewer while you are running any CD-ROM other than CD#6. If you do this inadvertently, you may be presented with a blue screen with an error message. You will then need to follow the on-screen instructions (eg re-insert disk #1) and press Enter, then try again.

If you have not copied the rarity videos onto your hard-disk, the correct procedure to go from CD-ROM #1 to the BirdGuides Viewer is as follows:

1. Insert CD-ROM #1

2. Click on one of the species on CD-ROM #6 and play one of the videos

3. Enter CD-ROM#6 when requested

3. Navigate to BirdGuides Viewer in the Features menu

How to compare the rarities with commoner species

Just open the BirdGuides viewer and move the window around the screen to place it so you can see the commoner species beside it. To compare videos of non-passerines from the BirdGuides viewer at the same time as videos from CD-ROM #1,#2,#3,#4 or #5 you have to copy the rarities videos from CD-ROM #6 onto your hard disk.

How do I view movies which I have just downloaded from the BirdGuides web-site?

Once the movie has fully loaded from our web-site and you can play it through completely on the web page, launch the BirdGuides Viewer and choose Grab Downloaded Movies… from the File menu.This will enable you to copy the downloaded movie to your BirdGuides Movies folder.

You can also accomplish this manually by copying the movie (a .mov file e.g. 027108q007_c1.mov) from your c:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files folder (Internet Explorer) to your BirdGuides Movies folder.

If you are using Netscape, look for the downloaded movie in the c:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\default\Cache folder.

Alternatively you can locate your downloaded movies by using the Find option on the Start menu to search for all .mov files.