wizard@accsys.UUCP (Christoph Brand) (08/04/89)
Another part of the story 'Will the Amiga survive?': I work together with a man in a company in Berne, Switzerland. That man was mainly in slide and photo business until 1986. Then he decided to go into low-cost computergraphics and bought an Amiga System (quite a well expanded one). I don't want to discuss the fact that it will take until August 1989 until every part of that system is fully functional, although after all the ads in Computer Magazines concerning what-you-can-do-with- your-Amiga-if-you-buy-this it should have worked already for about 3 years now. There's another point that's really nibbling at my faith in the Amiga. When I got into that company, the first week I was only destroying illusions. "No", I had to say, "it is NOT possible to enlarge a part of the picture without getting horrible jaggies. Yes, I know it's possible on the MacII, but a MacII would cost much more." This went on and on. Now the point seems to be the following: Amiga graphics are fine and fast, but for still pictures (e.g. a slide presentation of business charts) you just can't use the Amiga. 4096 colors at once are nice, but in what resolution?! MacII can display 256 colors at a time with a much higher resolution, and then you can get your pictures down onto film with a quality the Polaroid Palette pales in comparision. Beside that, you need a flickerfixer to work with the Amiga in hi-res, and if you've got a professional genlock, then your video port is already taken, so you have to switch the cards. Animation on the Amiga is great, and I'm sure you have to go up to pro-graphics-workstations to get the same possibilities. BUT...how many customers want a ray-tracing animation of a glass word? What people want, at least in Europe, are more traditional ways of presenting something, that is a slide show, also converted to video. OK, which programs are best to do Desktop Presentation? Deluxe Productions comes to mind, also LCA, TV*Text (which does not exist in a PAL version, so we can't use it here in Europe) and so on. To produce a nice image without disturbing jaggies, you have to work in hi-res/interlace. Now...have you ever tried to put a nice hi-res title onto video? It works, but you still see the flickering if you use both a professional genlock and videorecorder. Do you think the customers like flickering titles? Maybe in the US it's not so bad, because you work with 60 Hz, but in Europe.... What I want to say is that I don't see what you could use the Amiga for in business. Raytracing animations are great, but who wants them, still pictures is no good on Amiga and with Desktop Presentation you've got problems with the flickering. We don't have to speak about other ways to use an Amiga in business, because wordprocessing, spreadsheets and everything else like that are much better on IBM or Mac, and on Mac you've got the same comfort in using the software as on Amiga. Don't misunderstand me, I *love* the Amiga, I'd buy it again...for me at home. I'd never buy anymore a computer without multitasking, without both a mouse driven user interface AND a command line interpreter and so on! I just wish I could say the same about my business computer. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Brand Berne, Switzerland Wizard BANG: ...!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!impch!accsys!sosaria!wizard OR: ...!uunet!acad!acadch!impch!accsys!sosaria!wizard "Justice is the possession and doing of what one is entitled to" - Platon ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) (08/07/89)
In article <434@accsys.UUCP> wizard@accsys.UUCP (Christoph Brand) writes:
Another part of the story 'Will the Amiga survive?':
To produce a nice image without disturbing jaggies, you have to work in
hi-res/interlace. Now...have you ever tried to put a nice hi-res title onto
video? It works, but you still see the flickering if you use both a
professional genlock and videorecorder. Do you think the customers like
flickering titles? Maybe in the US it's not so bad, because you work with
60 Hz, but in Europe....
What I want to say is that I don't see what you could use the Amiga for in
business. Raytracing animations are great, but who wants them, still
pictures is no good on Amiga and with Desktop Presentation you've got
problems with the flickering.
The flickering is not the fault of the Amiga. It is the fault of the
video systems it was designed to be compatible with.
I notice the flickering you mention in network brodcasts, in visuals
generated by equipment much more expensive and capable than the Amiga.
Complaining about the Amiga's limited color bandwidth is probably
legitimate, but blaming it for problems it can't avoid (at least for
its intended market) isn't fair.
--
Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc.
portuesi@SGI.COMdca@kesmai.COM (David C. Albrecht) (08/09/89)
In article <434@accsys.UUCP>, wizard@accsys.UUCP (Christoph Brand) writes: > To produce a nice image without disturbing jaggies, you have to work in > hi-res/interlace. Now...have you ever tried to put a nice hi-res title onto > video? It works, but you still see the flickering if you use both a > professional genlock and videorecorder. Do you think the customers like > flickering titles? Maybe in the US it's not so bad, because you work with > 60 Hz, but in Europe.... > > What I want to say is that I don't see what you could use the Amiga for in > business. Raytracing animations are great, but who wants them, still > pictures is no good on Amiga and with Desktop Presentation you've got > problems with the flickering. One point that needs to be made here is that my understanding is that the flickering is intrinsic to the NTSC or PAL systems. No matter how much money you spend the video signals in these systems are still interlaced and thus still have the potential for flicker. Period. A more expensive system could allow you to use more colors than the Amiga hi-res allows to give a smoother contrast gradation and thus less flicker but a color title that isn't carefully contrast controlled will flicker just as badly on the most expensive workstation as it does on the Amiga when it gets transferred to video. David Albrecht