Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com (03/10/91)
> 1. As you might know, the Amiga is not able to display more than > 32 colors at a time in FULL MULTICOLOR. Your information is way out of date. Without ANY hardware modifications, on a standard Amiga monitor, Macro Paint lets you display all 4096 colors in high resolution overscan (704 x 440) on any Amiga with 1 meg of memory (more is better, but it runs in 1 meg). Plus with extra memory, you can create much larger virtual screens (32,000 pixels square, e.g. 2000 x 800 pixels) which can be output to high resolution film recorders, slides or desktop publishing programs. "By taking full advantage of the Amiga's graphics co-processor (the copper), Macro Paint makes it possible to draw with all 4096 colors in the Amiga's high resolution graphics mode .... it is possible to change which 16 colors out of the 4096 are available on a line by line basis .... it records the true 12-bit color of each pixel in fast memory and is able to read and modify 32, 64, and 4096 color pictures ... can even read in standard 24-bit scanned or digitized IFF pictures and convert them to Macro Paint's 12-bit high resolution format." (Disclaimer: I am not connected with Lake Forest Logic, publishers of Macro Paint. This info is from the packaging and I've seen the images. They look great.) > 3. As far as I know, there is no Amiga program that can handle more > than 6 bitplanes.... The Firecracker ($1400), Colorburst ($1500), the Video Toaster ($1600), HAM-E ($299), DCTV ($299), Macro Paint ($139.95) all let you work with 256,000 and/or 16.7 million colors. You'd better research products that have been released in the last 8 months. The 24-bit wars on the Amiga started a long time ago. > The problem is: There is no standard for 24-bitplane-pics. Strike 3. It was defined about a year ago for the Amiga. > Marco Eichelberg Item #2. A previous poster mentioned that Amiga IFF standards were kept under wraps, available only to developers. NOT AT ALL. Most computer stores and book stores carry (or will order) the ROM KERNEL MANUALS, the same documents used by Amiga developers. IFF has never been a secret. And it's actually quite straightforward. It's just that the first documents released on its format made it seem unnecessarily complicated. The well-intended writers may have been programmers rather than technical writers. The IFF ANIM formats aren't secret either. Commodore is just a little erratic at times about disseminating information. That's why we have Usenet. Right? / \ / / \\\' , / // \\\// _/ //' __ _________________________________________ \_-//' / //<' /// Julie Petersen (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com \ /// <//' /// Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com) / >> \\\` __ /// /,)-^>> _\` \\\ /// Computer Artist/Writer (/ \\ / \\\ \\/// // //\\\ ---------------------------------------------------- ((`
kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (03/12/91)
In <39983@cup.portal.com> Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com Writes: >> 1. As you might know, the Amiga is not able to display more than >> 32 colors at a time in FULL MULTICOLOR. >Your information is way out of date. Without ANY hardware modifications, >on a standard Amiga monitor, Macro Paint lets you display all 4096 >colors in high resolution overscan (704 x 440) on any Amiga with 1 I don't know the context of the first message (been offline for a week), but it seems to me that the writer meant having a full color choice per pixel. Changing the palette register contents each line will give more color choices over the entire screen, sure, but that's hardly the same thing as being able to choose any color for any pixel _anywhere_. >"By taking full advantage of the Amiga's graphics co-processor (the >copper), Macro Paint makes it possible to draw with all 4096 colors >in the Amiga's high resolution graphics mode .... it is possible to >change which 16 colors out of the 4096 are available on a line by line Again, changing palette contents per line is nothing extraordinary. The important diff on the Amiga is that the display list Copper can be programmed to do those palette data writes faster than a cpu could. But even if you changed all 16 palettes/line, it would take 256 totally differently-colored lines to show all 4096 colors in this hires mode. > [...] it records the true 12-bit color of each pixel in fast memory > and is able to read and modify 32, 64, and 4096 color [and 24-bit] Okay, Micro Paint stores lots of data, and can read files which contain more res than a stock Amiga can display. Nice; but not amazing. > [ list of Amiga addon video products ...] all let you work with >256,000 and/or 16.7 million colors. You'd better research products that >have been released in the last 8 months. The 24-bit wars on the Amiga >started a long time ago. Most of those products have large palettes, yes. But few are true 24-bit per pixel displays. A 24-bit palette doesn't = 24-bit display, any more than an 18-bit palette on an IBM video card = 18-bits display. >> The problem is: There is no standard for 24-bitplane-pics. >Strike 3. It was defined about a year ago for the Amiga. But several companies had defined their own before CBM jumped in. Those other formats still float around in use. >Item #2. A previous poster mentioned that Amiga IFF standards were >kept under wraps, available only to developers. NOT AT ALL. That's true, they are available. - kev <kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu>
rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (03/12/91)
In article <1991Mar11.223827.21988@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >> [ list of Amiga addon video products ...] all let you work with >>256,000 and/or 16.7 million colors. You'd better research products that >>have been released in the last 8 months. The 24-bit wars on the Amiga >>started a long time ago. > >Most of those products have large palettes, yes. But few are true 24-bit >per pixel displays. A 24-bit palette doesn't = 24-bit display, any more >than an 18-bit palette on an IBM video card = 18-bits display. Wrong. Both Firecracker24 and Colorburst are TRUE 24bit display devices., They use 24bitplanes, ergo, they can display any color out of 16.7 million every pixel. Colorburst costs $499 and is a 48bit display device that works on ALL Amigas. It is the only true 24bit card that can do animation. in 48bit the Colorburst uses another 24bits for overlay information and special effects. Colorburst is to be released at the AmigaEXPO in New York this Friday. Colorburst contains 1.5 mb of onboard ram, a custom VLSI co-processor, and video modes ranging from 320x200 to 768x480 (1bit to 24bit color). BTW, I'm not affiliated with MAST, I'm just excited at the price and performance of this device. What is the price of a comparable product on the Mac/IBM. (Keep in mind, colorburst can Animate full 24bit). HAM-E is an 8bit display device. It has a palette of 16.7 million colors and can display 256 colors at once. It also (as the name implies) has an enhanced HAM mode. In this mode it can do 18bits (with error) by using the HAM trick of specifying delta's from the base color to be changed. This time, instead of a base of 16 colors with a single delta gun, HAM-E has a base of 240 colors, it then (like HAM) specifies which _2_ color guns to change from the last pixel displayed. This allows 262,000 simulaneous colors out of 16.7 million using only 8 bitplanes. Unlike normal HAM, fringing is almost NON-EXISTANT. You will agree, HAM is a nice video compression method to display more color information using the same amount of pixel data. DCTV is an NTSC composite device which allows 4million colors, with whatever amount normal Television allows simultaneously to be displayed. If you like Television, you'll like this. DCTV also comes with a digitizer. All of the above devices can animate in real time. All of them cost below $500 (with the exception of Firecracker) All of them work with all Amiga models including an Amiga 500. All of them(or most) contain code to render 24bit intuition/workbench windows and gadgets on the screen. HAM-E works will all normal Amiga software with no patches, including Amigavision. >>> The problem is: There is no standard for 24-bitplane-pics. >>Strike 3. It was defined about a year ago for the Amiga. > >But several companies had defined their own before CBM jumped in. >Those other formats still float around in use. Mostly all video software today will read and write most of those formats. Image professional is a free alternative to Art Department Professional, and PBM utilities convert from almost any format. >>Item #2. A previous poster mentioned that Amiga IFF standards were >>kept under wraps, available only to developers. NOT AT ALL. > >That's true, they are available. - kev <kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu>
kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (03/12/91)
rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >> Most of those products have large palettes, yes. But few are true 24-bit > Wrong. Both Firecracker24 and Colorburst are TRUE 24bit display devices., What "wrong"? The original implication I got was that all the devices mentioned were 24-bit. I said a few were. That's still correct. > Colorburst costs $499 and is a 48bit display device that works on ALL > Amigas. It is the only true 24bit card that can do animation. > in 48bit the Colorburst uses another 24bits for overlay information > and special effects. [...] > What is the price of a comparable product on the Mac/IBM. I personally don't care, since I own neither (I do own an A1000). Mac/IBM/Amiga wars don't interest me. As a techie tho, I admit to not being one to ignore hype, missing info, and misuse of terms, no matter what the machine is. Yes, the Colorburst has a dual 24-bit display mode, where two 24-bit images (of res's which can fit within its 1.5M memory) can be switched pixel by pixel. But that's not "48-bit", no matter what you read from their ads. Another thing to consider: I read that its RAM is loaded by sending the R,G,B components as separate images from the Amiga video output lines. In the highest res mode, that would take 6 Amiga display frames to do. > [HAM-E device] In this mode it can do 18bits (with error) > by using the HAM trick of specifying delta's from the base color to > be changed. This time, instead of a base of 16 colors with a single > delta gun, HAM-E has a base of 240 colors, it then (like HAM) specifies Close. It can on-the-fly select one of four base banks of 59 colors each, from which the next pixel can then do its extended HAM delta stuff on. > DCTV is an NTSC composite device which allows 4million colors, with > whatever amount normal Television allows simultaneously to be > displayed. If you like Television, you'll like this. > DCTV also comes with a digitizer. It doesn't currently work with a genlock tho, which might be crucial info to someone working with TV, and shouldn't be left out. > HAM-E works will all normal Amiga software with no patches, A nice way of saying that all the others require custom software :-). I do think that people like being kept up to date, but it'd probably be more interesting if we all waited until someone's actually used all these cards instead of relying on ads. cheers - kev <kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu>
rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (03/13/91)
In article <1991Mar12.082113.16351@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >>> Most of those products have large palettes, yes. But few are true 24-bit >> Wrong. Both Firecracker24 and Colorburst are TRUE 24bit display devices., > >What "wrong"? The original implication I got was that all the devices >mentioned were 24-bit. I said a few were. That's still correct. I had the feeling that you were implying that there are no true 24 bit devices on the Amiga. There's three that I know of now. >> Colorburst costs $499 and is a 48bit display device that works on ALL >> Amigas. It is the only true 24bit card that can do animation. >> in 48bit the Colorburst uses another 24bits for overlay information >> and special effects. [...] >> What is the price of a comparable product on the Mac/IBM. > >I personally don't care, since I own neither (I do own an A1000). >Mac/IBM/Amiga wars don't interest me. As a techie tho, I admit >to not being one to ignore hype, missing info, and misuse of terms, >no matter what the machine is. WHat misuse of terms? 48bit? It does use up to 48bits of information for each pixel. 24bits of that are color, the rest is extra information to be interpreted in anyway the video coprocessor sees fit. >Yes, the Colorburst has a dual 24-bit display mode, where two 24-bit images >(of res's which can fit within its 1.5M memory) can be switched pixel by >pixel. But that's not "48-bit", no matter what you read from their ads. >Another thing to consider: I read that its RAM is loaded by sending the >R,G,B components as separate images from the Amiga video output lines. >In the highest res mode, that would take 6 Amiga display frames to do. 48bit color would be useless since we can't see anywhere near that amount of color, but Why isn't it '48bit'? Haven't you ever heard of alpha channel?If the colorburst can internally maintain 48bits of information per pixel, regardless of what that extra info is used for(color, overlay, zbuffer, cycling, whatever) it's 48bit. The Colorburst transfers data at 5.5 megabytes/sec through the db23 port. A lo-res screen is 40bytes widex200 lines deep x 24 bits. That's 192k, at 5.5mb/sec gives up 30 frames per second. At 400 lines deep, we get 15fps, and in hires(640x400) we get 7.5fps. The onboard VLSI processor can be used to decode compressed data, so its possible to shunt anim5 type data through it. If you want faster animation you can always drop back to 21bits deep, or 18 with not much loss in quality. If you don't belive this, go see Colorburst in action at this Friday's AmiEXPO in New York, or call MAST's BBS and talk to the engineer who created colorburst. Don't judge Colorburst by the marketing hype some marketroid put in the adds, go download the technical specs and developer source code for the colorburst from MAST's bbs. >> [HAM-E device] In this mode it can do 18bits (with error) >> by using the HAM trick of specifying delta's from the base color to >> be changed. This time, instead of a base of 16 colors with a single >> delta gun, HAM-E has a base of 240 colors, it then (like HAM) specifies > >Close. It can on-the-fly select one of four base banks of 59 colors each, >from which the next pixel can then do its extended HAM delta stuff on. Tell me more, what is the exact format of the bits(which bits in the pixel designate what) and what is the 'magic cookie' that they use to trigger the HAM-E mode. >> DCTV is an NTSC composite device which allows 4million colors, with >> whatever amount normal Television allows simultaneously to be >> displayed. If you like Television, you'll like this. >> DCTV also comes with a digitizer. > >It doesn't currently work with a genlock tho, which might be >crucial info to someone working with TV, and shouldn't be left out. Hmm, that's strange Digital Creations recently reported on Bix that the versions shipping now do work with a Genlock, or so I heard. The Toaster can accept DCTV input, so that solves that problem regardless. >> HAM-E works will all normal Amiga software with no patches, > >A nice way of saying that all the others require custom software :-). DCTV works with any display software too. That's because the Amiga doesn't know DCTV is a different screen, it just thinks it's a normal hires screen. Same goes for HAM-E. >I do think that people like being kept up to date, but it'd probably be >more interesting if we all waited until someone's actually used all these >cards instead of relying on ads. cheers - kev <kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu> HAM-E's have been shipping for a long time now. On compuserve there are tons of pictures produced with HAM-E along with animations. Most of the people say HAM-E works as advertised, ditto for DCTV. Once again, call their bbs's and talk to the people who bought the devices, they all seem quite happy with the results. Really, from a hardware standpoint, the concepts are dctv and ham-e are simple. Since they are using normal hires screens, (and we all know the Amiga can animate hires screens), animation will definately work as advertised. MAST distributes a video of colorburst in action doing animation, so it must work. By a simple computation, you can see that animation is possible. The Amiga's max frame resolution is 768x240(non interlace). This is 96 bytes wide, 240 lines high, 4 bitplanes deep. This comes to about 92,160 bytes transmitted every frame. In 60 frames, it's 5,529,600 bytes a second. I've already shown above that 15 frames per second animation can be gained without compression. Neverless, it's an extremely good deal for $400, since the closest competitor, Firecracker24, costs $1600 and it can't animate.
aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley) (03/13/91)
Please take this thread to comp.amiga.advocacy or
alt.religion.computers. Thank you.
____
\/ o\ Paul Crowley aipdc@uk.ac.ed.castle \ /
/\__/ Part straight. Part gay. All queer. \/kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (03/13/91)
In <1991Mar12.193951.634@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>In article <1991Mar12.082113.16351@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >>Another thing to consider: I read that its RAM is loaded by sending the >>R,G,B components as separate images from the Amiga video output lines. >>In the highest res mode, that would take 6 Amiga display frames to do. > > The Colorburst transfers data at 5.5 megabytes/sec through the db23 port. > A lo-res screen is 40bytes widex200 lines deep x 24 bits. That's 192k, > at 5.5mb/sec gives up 30 frames per second. Yes and No. Here's the bottleneck: CPU --> DISPLAY RAM --> COLORBURST slow--^ fast--^ Sure, you can easily get 5.5 megabytes/sec coming out the video connector, or around 100K per 60Hz field. Assuming the data is sent out continously, the Amiga could output the 192K needed for a static 320x200x24-bit picture in 1/30th second, just as you said. The question is: _Where_ does all that data come from? :-) It comes from data being placed into the Amiga display RAM. A friend and I sat down this afternoon and did some animation figuring: At the res needed to output 100K/second, the cpu access to Amiga CHIP ram (display ram to others) is tied up by video DMA around 80% of the time. Nothing unusual; this shut-out is well known when using the Amiga display in higher res modes. But in blunt terms, that means only around 3,000 16-bit transfers into the CHIP ram can be done (obviously fewer if the cpu is doing it), per field, at the same time as the data is being sent to the Colorburst. At 24-bits/pixel, that's roughly a 50x40 pixel area every 1/60th second. Maybe double that on an Amiga 3000 with 32-bit CHIP access. Now sure, you can fill up the CHIP ram with a limited amount of preset data, use lower bits/pixel, slow down fps, and so on. You can bet that demos do just that. But any way you cut it, their 5.5MB/s figure is akin to those common hard disk xfr specs which ignore seeks, etc.... it's a best-case, limited duration transfer rate... dependent upon source data availability. It's a useful board, but at the same time, reality must be observed :-). Followups to c.s.a.graphics, where I'll also be happy to answer your HAM-E questions, if you still wish. best - kev <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>