I paid £299+ steerer, seemed a lot more expensive everywhere else I tried.
Looks like it has facility for real life DVD but not bought any yet (have to wait until missus has recovered after finding out price of trainer). You could always ring redfrog to confirm before buying if you don't find anywhere else any cheaper.

cheers dave i have checked with redfrog and it does have the software to play the real life dvd!! £299 + steerer ! love to get it have not got the cash !! will save !! ahhhhhhhhhhh !!!

Yeah it's mainly the catalyst I was interested in, that's quite impressive too, I've ordered the velodrome software, as I thought that'd be good to 'race' etc in for more controlled conditions, the rolling nature of all the standard areas makes it fairly hard to keep to a very specific heart rate I've found.

Lee, the software to play the real life dvd's comes on the Real Life disc.

Anyone tried the Alpe de Huez dvd as I was hoping to get that one first?
Cycled the real thing last year so I'd be interested to compare.

thanks mike does the real life disc come with the i magic ??

There are 7 (?) real life discs which are available from TACX, AFAIK the iMagic still just comes with the original software inc catalyst.

ok thanks....working on the misses !!!!!!

does anyone know if the fortuis software will run on 256mb??? i have windows xp professional pent 4??

IME the graphics card is the important thing. I've had poor results with 512 ram and 64mb graphics, it's good with 1gb ram and 128mb graphics. This is while running Real Life video.

please help.... i have purchased one !!!
i visited my local bike shop and they were just taking down the showroom model and they offerred me a deal i can t refuse.
however they have given me some software called 'netathlon' which i dont believe is the correct software. this looks like some additional software you get. can anyone tell me what the cdrom for the imagic as on it please many thanks.

The netathlon software is for 'racing' over the imternet. The iMagic software comes on a green cd.

thats what i thought back to the shop tommorrow. cheers
lee

I am considering buying a high quality indoor trainer. I've narrowed it down to the Tacx Fortius and the Computrainer. I've lost the will to live reasearching these two so some help would be appreciated.
Is the Computrainer worth the extra money with the ability to create courses in 3d etc. or will the Fortius more or less do the same thing

I have installed and removed the fortius software several times and I can't seem to get the real live video to play on my computer. The button appears on the interface; however it is faint and I can't click on it.

I have tried disabling the USB driver, loading the course to hard drive, rebooting many times... no success. I haven't heard back from ANY of my messages to TACX support and I'm really frustrated. I've had this working on the computer the last time I tried; however, I made the mistake of removing the USB cable and have since lost the ability to use the VR routes.

Any help would be appreciated.

I've now had 3 I-Magic steering frames outta Fishers, and none have worked, so I'm giving up on that one!

The actual turbo has worked flawlessly from day one though, and is excellent.

I have just bought the Fortius vr and appear to be having similar problems as a couple of the guys above.I have tried to load the programme on 3 different pc and laptops(all less than 18 months ols)and tonight after reloading the programme for what seems like the 100th time it completely CRashed my pc. I have emailed both tacx and Fisher(the uk supplier)for some help on more than one occasion and tried to phone.No luck anywhere.The guys at Cyclesurgery have tried their best on my behalf but have found it difficult to get any help.They managed to ascertain that you have to shut down your firewall and any Polar heartrate programmes(which is great as tacx say you should use a polar heartrate strap).The lesson to learn from this is dont buy it unless you are willing to loose valuable/enjoyable training hours (and I mean hours)fiddling with your pc and trying to contact Tacx.ps cyclesurgery guys at selfridges were extremely helpful.
Sorry to appear alittle sour but these things can grind your gears!

Well I use the fortius software on my iMagic and can tell you that I haven't shut down the firewall (Norton) or the Polar software (ver 4.03.044). Without reading back through I would add that the main stumbling block for the installation seems to be that it's gets upset if you plug the interface in before you're told to. It reacts by not installing the usb drivers and throws a hissy fit. Once you've incorrectly installed it you have to completely remove everything Tacx before you try again.

You haven't been very specific about what actually happens and at which point you start having problems but it likes 256mb of graphics card memory and 1gb of RAM before it will get out of bed.

Although I run mine successfully on a laptop with 128 graphics and 712RAM, so it's not that picky!

I've not used the interactive element for ages, used it twice over winter for a 'time trial' to see if I was getting fitter, other than that, I just use the catalyst software, which I think is great, once you've taken the time to set up the training program at the beginning.