All this come through the most ambitious and costliest CD-ROM title ever produced in the country, ``Indian Cinema - A Treasure I''. The multimedia title has information on Hindi cinema and people connected with it since the advent of movies in India - from 1931 onwards to 1997.

It lists more than 13,000 individuals - both artists and crew members - linked with the showbiz world. It contains a listing of more than 8,200 Hindi movies made since 1931 to 1997 with 600 all-time film hits represented either in stills, video clips, or music.

With 36 video clips, 100 melodious songs, 850 stills and portraits and synopsis of more than 2,000 movies, it's really an immense pool of information at the click of the mouse. For instance, the genre itself has 46 categories from costume films to musical murder mysteries.

It was way back in September 1992 that the idea for the title was born when 75-year-old Kanti Mehta, considered the ``know all'' of Hindi films, came forward with a generous offer of Rs 20,000 and Data Kino was formed with Subhash Chheda, an avid film buff taking the plunge to create the database. Soon, the National Film Development Corporation funded the project with a generous grant of Rs 3,50,000.

The title is a joint effort of NFDC and Data-Kino, developed and designed by SNR Consulting Pvt Ltd, Pan Music, which has made notable films like Machis, Jayte and Nidaan invested around Rs 15 lakh into the project and will be marketing the title here and abroad.

The title has a particularly amazing search engine with nine different filters of various parameters performing synchronously, it can separate out any specific movie or person one is looking for out of the exhaustive list of around 13,000 people and 8200 movies.

For instance, if you're looking for a movie with Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore you just have to key-in the names. And, you are likely to get the name of the production house, the director, the music director, lyricist, etc.

The other fascinating features in the CD-ROM include `My Diary', an option of writing and maintaining specific information one needs to save for future reference. Also, there are the funny interesting one-liners like Mehboob Khan played the role of a thief in Ali Baba and 40 thieves or Meena Kumari played in Leatherface

For those who like video games, `Indian Cinema' has three interesting games like Milan, Snakes and Ladders and Antakshari. And if one is curious to know when his or her favourite star was born, his/her zodiacal sign, addresses and contact numbers, it's all there.

Indian Cinema-A treasure I is on Hindi cinema and the work on it started five years ago, says Chedda. Next in line are Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. He is on the lookout for information on these language films. And for a preview of this CD-ROM costing about Rs 1500, log in at http:www.snrindia.com