denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste) (01/14/88)
I bought myself a Digi-view for Christmas, and also a TV camera. I got the camera they recommend in the manual (Panasonic WV-1410, I think - I'm typing this from work and don't have it here), and I'm running it on a 1000 with an Insider (total 1.5M) with two floppy drives and a Cltd 24M HD. Since Digi-view implicitly comes with a "dongle" (the conversion module) they don't copy protect anything, so I copied the software onto my HD and it works BEAUTIFULLY! I am astounded! I've been using it continuously ever since 12/25 (and I'll have you know it was a significant struggle to keep from opening it before then). I've had no gurus, and only one strangeness has shown up - which is pretty remarkable for a software package as complex as this one. I can recommend this product without qualifications for quality and features and useability. (Some of the display modes are a little slow, but since I understand some of what they are doing, I'm surprised they are as fast as they are - if I had written them they would have been ten times slower! Nonetheless, I wonder: Would "sharpness" and "saturation" run faster with a 68881?) That one strangeness: In order to avoid any danger of etching the video camera, I've taken to converting 7-10 pictures at a time and storing them in ".RGB" format (which takes between 250K and 300K per picture - DAMN HD's are nice), then powering down and lens-capping the camera and going back and post-processing them to convert into HAM format. When I do this, the picture that results has a distinct green tinge. I originally thought I was being zapped by the auto-exposure of the camera combined with too wide an iris setting (which causes the camera to throttle down the red more than the green, so the net effect is a relative boost in green. Indeed I was doing this, but I have figured out how to avoid that and it isn't now my problem. Let me describe the experiment I did last night to prove to myself that there was a problem: I captured a picture (after making sure the light levels weren't too high) and with all "color" settings at neutral saved a "4096" HAM image. I then saved the "RGB" and executed "new". I reloaded the "RGB" and saved another "4096" HAM image, then exited (actually used LEFT-A-N to get back to my main CLI) ran "show" (PD, so far as I know) and looked at both. The second image was unquestionably dimmer, less contrasty and greener than the first. Just to prove that this isn't subjective, the second HAM file was also about 2.5% smaller than the first, though it could just as well have been larger. The point is that given the same data, I would have expected the same output or very similar (given the random effects of dithering, set to 1). I did this with 320*400 mode. The info-frame says "Digi-View V2.0 Rev 0". I have a conjecture as to what has happened: There is a function they call after a camera capture which normalizes the color. You can see its results in the second B/W sweep after the capture of each color, usually in the image getting more contrasty and less layered. The "RGB" file format should be, and is advertised in the manual as being, the actual raw capture data. I conjecture that when an RGB file is read this same function should be, but isn't being, called. As a result, you are now operating on the unnormalized data the second time - and you don't have a manual control which allows you to do this normalizing by hand (I think it is multiplicative, and the color sliders appear to be additive). The results have always been less satisfactory, since in order to get something approaching a normal color I have to run the contrast, brightness, saturation and color sliders all over the place - and by doing this effective data is lost and the picture gets noticable layers. If there are other Digi-View owners out there, I would appreciate it if they would run the same experiment and see if they get the same result. Is it me, or is it Memorex? -- Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP)
joe@ut-sally.UUCP (Joe Hitchens) (01/15/88)
In article <5998@cc5.bbn.COM> denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste) writes: >I bought myself a Digi-view for Christmas, and also a TV camera. I got the >camera they recommend in the manual (Panasonic WV-1410, I think - I'm typing >this from work and don't have it here), and I'm running it on a 1000 with an >Insider (total 1.5M) with two floppy drives and a Cltd 24M HD. A VERY similar set up to mine. I might as well note my system for others as you have: A1000 External Drive Spirit Inboard internal 1.5M board Comspec external 2M board Digiview 2.0 Panasonic WV1410 b&w video camera. >don't copy protect anything, so I copied the software onto my HD and it works >BEAUTIFULLY! I am astounded! > >I've had no gurus, and only one strangeness has shown up - which is pretty >remarkable for a software package as complex as this one. I can recommend this >product without qualifications for quality and features and useability. (Some My sentiments exactly. Digi-View is an extremely good product. It is one of the VERY few software bits I am GENUINELY impressed with. I wish I could say the same for Digi-Paint. Digi-View NEVER Guru's. Seems to co- exist with others very pleasantly. Digi-Paint Guru's on me continuously. (Though it didn't as much when I first got it. Hmm.) >That one strangeness: In order to avoid any danger of etching the video camera, >I've taken to converting 7-10 pictures at a time and storing them in ".RGB" >format (which takes between 250K and 300K per picture - DAMN HD's are nice), >then powering down and lens-capping the camera and going back and >post-processing them to convert into HAM format. > >When I do this, the picture that results has a distinct green tinge. > >If there are other Digi-View owners out there, I would appreciate it if they >would run the same experiment and see if they get the same result. Is it me, or >is it Memorex? >-- >Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA >denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) Well I'll be damned. It's Memorex. I just tried it myself, and sure enough, if you reload the RGB.IFF file and re-save it in the same mode as when you first digimized, the second file is smaller and has a very noticable leaning into the green, just as you said. Perhaps NewTek would be able to supply the poop on why this is. j.h. (Concerning another issue about MultiTasking: A Nightmare? Upon reading this article, I thought I would give it a try myself. Push VT100 screen to the back, Fire up Digiview run the tests, Ponder the results, Kill DigiView, Pull VT100 back up front, Respond to article which is still waiting patiently on the screen. :-) I wish all my nightmares were like this.)