Great Moments of Discovery Full Screen Video Screen Saver

John F. Cruz gave many people their first experience to watch video full screen on their new Windows 95 computer. Read the next Episode of his journey.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT, UNITED STATES, April 29, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- The year was 1994. Many people around the world would agree the undisputed champion of awesome video comes from the Discovery Channel. At least that is what innovator and founder of ImageMind Software, John F Cruz believed. And he wanted some of that awesome video for the next version of his new full screen video screen saver product.

The odds were against Cruz right from the beginning. Discovery was known worldwide. They make millions selling their video content. Cruz is a one-man shop and unknown, just starting to get visible in tech magazines. His small budget would not afford Discovery Channel quality video. And his video screen saver required eleven 3.5 inch installation diskettes offering videos that only played for 6 seconds each.
But Cruz knew challenges were part of the environment. And he felt Discovery Channel video was the perfect match for a full screen video screen saver 2.0. But how to convince Discovery? Cruz started pitching the idea at every tradeshow that featured Discovery Channel’s huge exhibit booth. “Would you be interested in show casing your video on the personal computer with my screen saver?”, Cruz would ask. Each time, he was just given a business card and told, “here, email this person”. Cruz never got any replies back.

It would be understandable, just get any video to get out another version. But Cruz’s vision was Discovery video. And shortly thereafter, Cruz got a break. PC removable storage technology took a huge leap forward and the new CD-ROM came to the market. CD-ROM is an optical disc removable data storage medium capable of holding large amounts of digital data. This included digital video files. And it slips into the CD-ROM drive that was starting to be built-in to the new personal computers. “That was the missing piece!”, Cruz said to himself.

For the next upcoming COMDEX electronics show in Las Vegas, Cruz designed new ImageMind screen saver brochures. He prepared a written proposal for joint partnering to create a Discovery Channel HIGH RESOLUTION video screen saver that would be shipped on CD-ROM. He walked into the DC booth and soon after heard, “We seen you here before. What is it you want?”. Cruz replied “I want to make a Discovery Channel full screen video screen saver.” Cruz explained he just needs 10-20 clips of thirty second nature video clips and he will do the rest. This time, they liked the idea and told Cruz it was an interesting proposal. Cruz left the booth with a soft verbal agreement pending upper management review.

In the following weeks, Cruz was given multiple video tapes from Discovery. Now Cruz had better video digitizing equipment and updated compression software. Meanwhile, Discovery Channel had assigned a marketing team to the project and started designing a retail box called Great Moments of Discovery Full Screen Video Screen Saver. Soon after, John F Cruz finished the master installation program which included Discovery Channel video clips and shipped it to Discovery HQ on a CD-ROM.

On December 12, 1994, Discovery Channel issued a press release announcing Great Moments of Discovery Full Screen Video Screen Saver. The product was shipped with 30 colorful videos using the high-quality nature footage produced by Discovery Channel and TV New Zealand's Natural History Unit. Customers had the option to play the natural audio background or instrumental music that Discovery’s music composing partners made for each video clip. This product was professional from start to finish. Cruz had realized another vision.

Great Moments was distributed in numerous electronic retail stores. Discovery also included Great Moments in its 100th anniversary celebration media kit. Supporting documentation is on display at www.ImageMind.com. Now, what was next for Cruz? Did his innovations just start with ImageMind and where did Cruz get his experience. Learning life lessons are seldom a comfortable experience. And for Cruz, it seldom was. Please look for next The Spirit of Innovations, Episode 4 for another short story of one man’s journey in innovation.

Benton
ImageMind
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