bill@videovax.Tek.COM (William K. McFadden) (03/19/87)
In this week's _TV_DIGEST_, there is an article about a new system unveiled at last week's CD ROM conference in Seattle which makes possible 60-72 minutes of NTSC or PAL quality digital video (with digital audio) on a CD. It was developed by RCA and another big company whose name escapes me at the moment. The system is claimed to be completely interactive and the demonstration drew a standing ovation from the crowd of 1000. The heart of the system is two VLSI chips developed by a third company (the article mentions who, but I don't have it in front of me, and can't remember). The demonstration took Philips by surprise, because this system is sure to threaten their CD-V system, which contains up to 5 min. of analog video plus 20 min. of CD digital audio on a CD. Also threatened is their CD-I interactive system, since the new system (CVI ?) is interactive. Data compression is used. Without compression, the system's developers say 30 sec. of video would take an hour to play back. I assume this means they are using a 120:1 compression ratio (you can bet the audio is compressed, too). This system is sure to cause a rethinking about the way video is encoded on optical discs and may upset the entire video disc industry, according to experts. I'll post more as I find out more. DISCLAIMER: The publishers of _TV_DIGEST_ get particularly nasty when they discover someone has been copying or reproducing their articles, so let me say that the above is my interpretation of the facts presented, and nowhere is the article quoted directly. -- Bill McFadden Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 500 MS 58-639 Beaverton, OR 97077 UUCP: ...{hplabs,uw-beaver,decvax}!tektronix!videovax!bill GTE: (503) 627-6920 "How can I prove I am not crazy to people who are?"
cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) (03/19/87)
> In this week's _TV_DIGEST_, there is an article about a new system unveiled > at last week's CD ROM conference in Seattle which makes possible 60-72 minutes > of NTSC or PAL quality digital video (with digital audio) on a CD. Actually it is called DVI for Digital-Video-Interactive. The technology was shown by RCA (and developed by them) but *no* product plans were announced. It is an amazing system, and the chips which were designed by RCA and produced by some custom silicon house consist of a video processor and program storage. One of the things the video processor can do is 're-map' video so that a frame taken by a 15mm fisheye lens can be viewed interactively by the viewer who can select the viewing angle from 90 degrees left to 90 degrees right, thru 90 degrees up or down. The video processor remaps these views from the one fish-eye view. This makes things like the MIT 'Walk thru Aspen Colo' possible with a lot fewer frames needed. It isindeed a neat and wizzy technology. --Chuck I believe EE Times also had an article on this stuff. -- --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu) (03/20/87)
In article <4286@videovax.Tek.COM> bill@videovax.Tek.COM (William K. McFadden) writes: >In this week's _TV_DIGEST_, there is an article about a new system unveiled >at last week's CD ROM conference in Seattle which makes possible 60-72 minutes >of NTSC or PAL quality digital video (with digital audio) on a CD. It was >developed by RCA and another big company whose name escapes me at the moment. >The system is claimed to be completely interactive and the demonstration drew a >standing ovation from the crowd of 1000. The heart of the system is two VLSI >chips developed by a third company (the article mentions who, but I don't have >it in front of me, and can't remember). The demonstration took Philips by >surprise, because this system is sure to threaten their CD-V system, which >contains up to 5 min. of analog video plus 20 min. of CD digital audio on a CD. >-- >Bill McFadden Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 500 MS 58-639 Beaverton, OR 97077 The other big company in question is GE which recently "merged with" (read: bought) RCA, and the "third company" probably refers to the Sarnoff labs, formerly RCA's and the birthplace of color TV, laserdiscs, and God knows what else, which GE donated to SRI. For a decent write-up, consult last week's Infoworld; for a better write-up, look at last week's EE Times. I believe the latter article mentioned that (1) RCA/GE will continue to fund the research despite no longer owning Sarnoff, and that (2) it won't see product for at least another year or two. -dave -- David "bd" Hsu Professional Undergrad & System Fascist ARPA: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!mimsy!eneevax!hsu USNAIL: EE Computer Facility, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park, MD 20742
sdp@omssw1.UUCP (03/20/87)
In article <4286@videovax.Tek.COM> bill@videovax.Tek.COM (William K. McFadden) writes: >In this week's _TV_DIGEST_, there is an article about a new system unveiled >at last week's CD ROM conference in Seattle which makes possible 60-72 minutes >of NTSC or PAL quality digital video (with digital audio) on a CD. > ... >The heart of the system is two VLSI >chips developed by a third company (the article mentions who, but I don't have >it in front of me, and can't remember). From this, I'm guessing that when this emerges as a product, it will be a complete player, not an accessory for a standard CD player. If that's the case, then why limit the size to that of a CD? There's not enough space for your average movie. I must be missing something here. -- Scott Peterson, Intel Corp., Hillsboro, OR, ...!tektronix!ogcvax!omssw1!sdp
richd@sci.UUCP (03/21/87)
in article <4286@videovax.Tek.COM>, bill@videovax.Tek.COM (William K. McFadden) says: > Xref: sci rec.video:772 rec.audio:1114 sci.electronics:353 > > The heart of the system is two VLSI > chips developed by a third company (the article mentions who, > but I don't have it in front of me, and can't remember). RCA developed two chips using our Genesil silicon compiler and fabricated by VTI. Thought I'd let you know, since we're all gushy proud of ourselves over here. RCA asked us not to say too much, but man those chips are amazing! I saw a demo of their system and it was pretty exciting. ------------------- Rich Doherty -- Silicon Compilers decwrl!sci!richd
wjh@wayback.UUCP (03/27/87)
> > The other big company in question is GE which recently "merged with" > (read: bought) RCA, and the "third company" probably refers to the Sarnoff > labs, formerly RCA's and the birthplace of color TV, laserdiscs, and God > knows what else, which GE donated to SRI. > Don't make GE look so generous. When they bought RCA, they got Sarnoff Labs, seemingly a very valuable research facility. GE already had their own labs and thought Sarnoff was redundant, so they tried to sell the labs. Turns out that anyone with enough money to buy the labs already had their own labs and wasn't interested. So GE donated the labs to non profit Stanford Research Institute (private, not part of Stanford University). The tax write off will be worth on the order of 100 million dollars; SRI is immediately cutting staff 25%; SRI has a 200 or so million dollar contract to finish up research in progress at the labs in support of the RCA lines of business. The donation did NOT include the land, a very valuable piece of land just outside Princeton; SRI is leasing the land back. (One rumor befor the donation was that GE was considering shutting down the labs and selling the land to developers for really big dollars.) Bill Hery
sa@crlt.UUCP (03/30/87)
In article <15323@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis@sun.UUCP writes: > > > In this week's _TV_DIGEST_, there is an article about a new system unveiled > > at last week's CD ROM conference in Seattle which makes possible 60-72 minutes > > of NTSC or PAL quality digital video (with digital audio) on a CD. > > Actually it is called DVI for Digital-Video-Interactive. The technology was > shown by RCA (and developed by them) but *no* product plans were announced. > It is an amazing system, and the chips which were designed by RCA and > produced by some custom silicon house consist of a video processor and > program storage. One of the things the video processor can do is 're-map' > video so that a frame taken by a 15mm fisheye lens can be viewed > interactively by the viewer who can select the viewing angle from 90 > degrees left to 90 degrees right, thru 90 degrees up or down. The video > processor remaps these views from the one fish-eye view. This makes things > like the MIT 'Walk thru Aspen Colo' possible with a lot fewer frames needed. > It isindeed a neat and wizzy technology. > > --Chuck > I believe EE Times also had an article on this stuff. > > -- > --Chuck McManis > uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com > These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. This sounds very interesting. I was wondering if a current high end cd player with digital outputs could be used to "read" the data on one of these new video cd disks. Or will I have to go out and puchase another player to be able to use these new disks? What format is the data encoded on thes e video disks? Scott Almburg ...!ihnp4!itivax!crlt!sa Interface systems Inc 5855 Interface Dr. Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103