monsoor@cssexb.csus.edu (matthew monsoor) (03/21/90)
Press Release
March 16, 1990
Digital Creations is proud to announce
D C T V
What is DCTV (tm)?
DCTV (Digital Composite Television) is a revolutionary new display and
digitizing system for the Amiga Computer. DCTV includes powerful image
processing software for digitizing video images and converting IFF images
into DCTV graphics for display. It plugs into both the RGB video and the
parallel ports of any Amiga. A pass-thru for the RGB monitor is provided.
NTSC video input and output jacks complete the connections.
What does DCTV (tm) do?
DCTV uses normal high resolution display modes on the Amiga, however, it
interprets the Amiga video signal in a radically new way. By using a
revolutionary and very sophisticated video compression system, DCTV takes
the digital video signal that comes from the Amiga RGB port and converts it
into full color composite video with all the vibrant color and stunning
picture quality of broadcast TV.
DCTV Digitizes Video...
DCTV is also a "slow" scan video digitizer. Using any color camera, still
video camera, or still frame capable VCR, DCTV can capture a full color
composite video frame in about 10 seconds. Once the video image is captured,
powerful DCTV image processing controls allow complete picture manipulation
including conversion to any IFF format.
FEATURES...
>> Digitize and display full color NTSC video graphics on any Amiga.
>> Display full color video images with millions of colors.
>> Capture a video frame in 10 seconds from any color video camera.
Also works with still video cameras, video disk, and freeze frame VCRs.
>> Display and capture full color 24-bit high resolution IFF images.
>> Convert DCTV images to any IFF display format including HAM and 24-bit.
>> Animate in full NTSC color.
COST: Well under $500 retail U.S.
SHIPPING DATE: Early summer.
For additional information call
Digital Creations
(916) 344-4825
Or to receive a full color brochure with actual pictures of DCTV screens
send a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE-25") to
Digital Creations
Dept DCTV
2865 Sunrise Blvd., Suite #103
Rancho Cordova, CA 95742gilmore@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Neil Gilmore) (03/22/90)
Unfortunatly, this announcement points out most clearly what I hate in advertising. Let's see how it looks with a little editing.. (I promise I'll even try to make this useful). In article <1990Mar21.051034.17203@csusac.csus.edu>, monsoor@cssexb.csus.edu (matthew monsoor) writes... (header of ad removed) (note that the >'ed lines HAVE been edited. My comments appear as normal.) >What is DCTV (tm)? (useful for organization, but neutral) >DCTV (Digital Composite Television) is a new display and >digitizing system for the Amiga Computer. DCTV includes image >processing software for digitizing video images and converting IFF images >into DCTV graphics for display. It plugs into both the RGB video and the >parallel ports of any Amiga. A pass-thru for the RGB monitor is provided. >NTSC video input and output jacks complete the connections. I deleted the superfluous adjectives here. After all, if I'm going to buy the thing, I'll decide whether or not is is revolutionary and powerful. >What does DCTV (tm) do? >DCTV uses normal high resolution display modes on the Amiga, however, it >interprets the Amiga video signal . By using a >video compression system, DCTV takes >the digital video signal that comes from the Amiga RGB port and converts it >into full color composite video with the color and picture quality >of broadcast TV. Once again, hype deleted. And do you really believe that broadcast TV has 'vibrant color' or 'stunning picture quality'. So far, it sounds kinda like a genlock. >DCTV Digitizes Video... Aha! Now maybe some meat for this fluff... >DCTV is also a "slow" scan video digitizer. Using any color camera, still >video camera, or still frame capable VCR, DCTV can capture a color >composite video frame in about 10 seconds. Once the video image is captured, >DCTV image processing controls allow picture manipulation >including conversion to any IFF format. I always wonder when they say 'any'. My experience has been the same with 'one size fits all'. So it grabs frames. It should be superfluous to say that it can save frames in IFF format, but no harm being specific. >FEATURES... A list of features is a nice inclusion to this. >>> Digitize and display full color NTSC video graphics on any Amiga. >>> Display full color video images with millions of colors. Uh... How? Where, on the Amiga or somewhere else? This isn't very specific. A normal genlock could show a normal broadcast picture onto an Amiga monitor, thus getting those 'millions of colors'. >>> Capture a video frame in 10 seconds from any color video camera. > Also works with still video cameras, video disk, and freeze frame VCRs. Would it be better to say 'from any still video source'? Or isn't that accurate? >>> Display and capture full color 24-bit high resolution IFF images. It seems as though they've got some trick for this. This should mean that the device can display all 24 bits of color. >>> Convert DCTV images to any IFF display format including HAM and 24-bit. Like I said above, should go without saying, but no harm in being specific. Even if it didn't, a simple utility would suffice. >>> Animate in full NTSC color. How fast? Pumping NTSC color images takes up lots of time, even in an optimized format. >COST: Well under $500 retail U.S. $499.99? 'Well under' grates on me, it's another unquantifiable term. >SHIPPING DATE: Early summer. RSN, huh? Does this thing make bread for the Toaster? I won't hold my breath, but no flames either. (You could toast a lot of bread over all the flames the Toaster generated.) > For additional information call And now the obligatory contacts. If they were left out, I would've noticed. >Digital Creations >(916) 344-4825 >Or to receive a full color brochure with actual pictures of DCTV screens >send a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE-25") to Does my dealer have these pictures? Just a question. >Digital Creations >Dept DCTV >2865 Sunrise Blvd., Suite #103 >Rancho Cordova, CA 95742 All that and I'm still not sure what it does. It displays 'millions of colors'. This implies that it uses its own display hardware, perhaps genlocking its image onto the Amiga monitor, but the ad isn't specific enough to tell... It digitises. O.K. I know what that is, and it seems to do it from any still video source, but I'm not convinced of that. This ad (as are all typically) was full of hyped adjectives which I deleted, just to see what it would look like afterward. Since it's not shipping yet, and there's no fixed price, I won't sit around waiting. I'd have to see a lot more than this. Too bad this ad wasn't more specific about this unit's capabilities. Especially too bad bacause I might be interested. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Kitakaze Tatsu Raito Neil Gilmore internet:gilmore@macc.wisc.edu | | Jararvellir, MACC, UW-Madison bitnet: gilmore@wiscmac3 | | Middle Kingdom Madison, Wi | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (03/22/90)
I saw the DCTV at AmiExpo. They had the booth that NewTek usually has (location and size 8). It was excellent quality composite images. There were two display. The Amiga output showed a grayish screen. The DCTV output had that screen converted to the composite output. It actually used a screen. More than that I can't really say. I'm not a video type. -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu "If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'" -- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else
Michael.Witbrock@CS.CMU.EDU (03/23/90)
I thought it was pretty clear. It seems that the thing uses the normal video output of the amiga as a compressed code for the picture, and outputs an uncompressed picture at the other end. like, it could use 3 successive pixels colours as RGB information, giving 4096^3 possible output colours, then use run length encoding from the next pixel to undo the 4 to 1 data loss. I bet this isn't what it does, but it's probably a stab in the right direction. On another note. Briwall is actually advertising the Toaster, at $1600. Does this mean it can be bought (that's too steep for me, but...) micahel
bscott@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Ben M Scott) (03/23/90)
In article <oa2FvgK00XNI0J3nNl@cs.cmu.edu> Michael.Witbrock@CS.CMU.EDU writes: >On another note. Briwall is actually advertising the Toaster, at $1600. >Does this mean it can be bought (that's too steep for me, but...) No; but the price has been set. Our local store has been advertising it for months ($1599, "call for availability"...). Briwall is also advertising a Supra MNP5 modem (which I jumped at due to my beloved Supra 2400 and my bad experience with the Baud Bandit MNP5) for $158, but a call to Supra told me that it won't be out for another 6 weeks. It looks GOOD, though, that Supra is finally taking their wonderful telecommunications products a step further. My Supra is THE most 100% perfect, trouble-free, A-1 great electronic product of any kind that I've ever had, and even the speed increase of the Baud Bandit 2400 MNP5 wasn't enough to lure me away. . <<<<Infinite K>>>> -- _______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Someday, I'm going to make up a clever .sig file like everyone else has... | |_____________________________________________________________________________|
seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (03/25/90)
In-Reply-To: message from Michael.Witbrock@CS.CMU.EDU Word is, the Toaster will be available in about 60-days...regardless of the BriWall ad...mailorder companies have been advertising it for sale for more than a year now. Toaster 3D is supposed to be taking abit longer, but I believe Toaster Paint is packaged with the three, count'em, THREE boards. I wonder if they'r going to be three separate cards ribbon cabled together, or if it'll be a sandwich board for the video-slot. Sean
tell@oscar.cs.unc.edu (Stephen Tell) (03/27/90)
In article <oa2FvgK00XNI0J3nNl@cs.cmu.edu> Michael.Witbrock@CS.CMU.EDU writes: >I thought it was pretty clear. It seems that the thing uses the normal >video output of the >amiga as a compressed code for the picture, and outputs an uncompressed >picture at the other end. >like, it could use 3 successive pixels colours as RGB information, >giving 4096^3 possible output colours, then use run length encoding from >the next pixel to undo the 4 to 1 data loss. I bet this isn't what it >does, but it's probably a stab in the right direction. > >micahel I saw the thing at AmiEXPO, and knowning a bit about video grilled one of their tech people for a while. :-) You're basicly right. Without their adaptor to do the translation, the video out looks like garbage. After a 24-bit color picture is compressed by their software using their secret/proprietary scheme, any Hi-res display program can display the picture and the adaptor notices and starts putting out video. The pictures were quite impressive. The thing works purely in the Composite video domain as far as I can tell. The tech mentioned that they directly digitize incomming composite video at 14.318Mhz (Same rate as D-2 digital videotape). There must be some compression right in the digitizer box, since at that speed youre going to fill up memory real fast!. The digitizer is like Digi-view in that a still picture is required; but of course there's no changing of color wheeles. It seems about as fast at grabbing full color as digiview was at getting a monochrome image. (I saw a digi-view in action for the first time at a user-group meeting last night). I suspect that somthing similar is going on in the output, since the output is composite only, and they sell an external composite->RGB converter/switcher (see below). I saw no signs of NTSC artifacts on the demo pictures, but the one on the monitor I was close to for a long time didn't have any really sharp edges for me to tell. If this is true and the device doesn't add any artifacts from a conversion of composite to and from RGB, then it could look really good on a monitor with a comb filter and input with a Faroudja encoder. Supposedly their software can take targa and digipaint pictures and convert them to their format. I don't know if the device can gen-lock. I don't mean genlock in the usual amiga sense of providing overlay, they say nothing about that, so I'm sure it dosn't do that. I mean a pure genlock function, where the video output is locked to a sync input so that an external production switcher can do wipes and fades to that signal. (The actual genlocking is only a part of what most amiga "genlock" products do.) If it doesn't have this kind of feature, then its usefullness in the professional market is severely limmited. (Kind of a waste to buy a $4000 frame sync to use an otherwise nice $500 still store). They also had along with it another box that took the composite output, decoded it into RGB, and then mixed it with the Amiga's native RGB output, so that you could pull down screens and have part of each of a normal amiga screen and a DCTV picture displayed on the same monitor. Also, it would save the cost of a second monitor or the hassle of switching back & forth while using the thing. Even at AmiEXPO, they were having a hard time explaining what the thing really did to people who weren't video or EE jocks. This could be a real problem when it comes to marketing it. Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with Digital Creations. I don't even own any of their products. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Tell tell@wsmail.cs.unc.edu CS Grad Student, UNC Chapel Hill. Former chief engineer, Duke Union Community Television, Durham, NC.
eephdjh@pyr.gatech.EDU (Haleblian, Jim) (03/28/90)
According to the handout on DCTV, an additional product called the
DCTV-RGB converter will be available to allow the system to genlock
(as long as you have a SuperGen genlock :-).
--
James E. Haleblian "Mac II: The Volkswagen Cabriolet of Personal Computing."
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!eephdjh
ARPA: eephdjh@pyr.ocs.gatech.edu