trohling@uceng.UC.EDU (tom rohling) (01/03/90)
When all the video chatter occupied the net a while ago, did anyone happen to have saved all or most of the articles concerning the recording of computer images on tape, or is there a repository somewhere where I can ftp to where they would be stored at? I just looked at vgr.brl.mil and the last info-iris file that was posted was last January? (I thought it may be there) I'd appreciated a bunch. Thanks Tom Rohling
tarnoff@cme.nist.gov (Nicholas Tarnoff) (01/03/90)
Here is a record of what I have on RGB scan converter discussions.
I can't offer you any advice because we did not purchase one.
-Nicholas
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME: Nicholas Tarnoff (Robot Systems Division)
USMAIL:National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly NBS)
Bldg. 220 / Rm B127 Gaithersburg, MD 20899
TELE: (301) 975-3464 ARPA: tarnoff@cme.nist.gov
FAX: (301) 990-9688 UUCP: uunet!cme-durer!tarnoff
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Article 4053 of comp.sys.sun:
Path: cme!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: tomlin@hc.dspo.gov (Bob Tomlinson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: NTSC output from Suns and other hi-res workstation monitors (L
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <15799@hc.DSPO.GOV>
Date: 18 May 89 01:34:17 GMT
References: <8905042046.AA22765@cs.utexas.edu>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 114
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
in article <8905042046.AA22765@cs.utexas.edu>, pcinews!observer@cs.utexas.edu says:
> My company is looking for some type of device to allow us to capture the
> images on a 386i/250 screen and convert them to NTSC (US television)
> devices, such as a common video recorder.
The following is my opinion from trying out all boxes except the YEM box
and the new Lyon-Lamb box (but hearing about them). I am VERY new to
video (NTSC is mysterious and bizarre to people from the digital world) so
I may have some of the following incorrect. If so, please forgive me and
correct me.
Also, note that this is a FAST moving technology right now. My comments
are likely to be obsolete at SigGraph and certain to be obsolete by the
next NCGA and NAB.
Most of the boxes are also available in PAL versions for people outside
the US.
The following are the companies that make such boxes (in aproximate
order of perceived quality. Note that cost and quality don't
necessarily coorelate.):
Lyon-Lamb
California: (818) 843-4831 or
New Jersey: (201) 530-0501
Photron
Distributed by Electro Communication Systems, Inc
(214) 358-5195
RGB Technologies
(415) 848-0180
YEM (Yamashita Engineering Manufacture)
Distributed by Lake Systems Corp. 287 Grove st. Newton, MA 02166
(617) 244-6881
Folsom Research, Inc.
(916) 983-7236
Actually, I think you can get several of the different boxes from Electro
Communications Systems (see their number under Photron above). We found
them to be VERY knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly.
The Folsom, YEM, and RGB Technologies box all take the entire screen and
convert the greater resolution of the Sun or other workstation to the
lesser resolution of NTSC. You necessarily loose resolution. Of these
the RGB Technologies box looks best.
The RGB Technologies box does one thing that none of the other boxes do
(not even the Photron and Lyon-Lamb boxes): it can merge a NTSC video
source with the hi-res source and put the merged video on its NTSC output.
We haven't figured out a real utility for this feature for our
applications, but it's neat. Possibly you can use it in place of a
digital effects box if you only need chroma key (put a picture of someone
in the corner to talk about what's being displayed).
Lyon-Lamb and Photron have a couple boxes out. The new Lyon-Lamb is the
box I'm refering to (the one introduced at NAB). The old one didn't
operate at full video rates (30 frames per second). The new Photron box
I'm refering to has "EZ" appended to the part number (the old one did line
dropping instead of line averaging). These are also just out (only a
couple boxes are in the US).
The boxes by Lyon-Lamb and Photron can do what the first set of boxes
do (except for RGB Technologies video mixing) and can also capture a
smaller NTSC size window at full resolution. This allows you to see
a portion of your screen without any loss of resolution.
Lyon-Lamb/Photron differences:
- The Lyon-Lamb box comes standard with an RS-232 input to
the box to control operating parameters (amount of smoothing,
partial screen/full screen mode, what portion of the screen
to capture when in partial screen mode, etc). The Photron
box doesn't have that standard although I understand it can
be added; apparently they dropped it because it wasn't used
on older boxes (although it's important to us).
- The Lyon-Lamb box has adaptive circuitry to adapt to adapt to
different hi-res monitors (see below for a description of this).
- The Lyon-Lamb box can take as input not only a NTSC
resolution sized window on the workstation, but can also tak
an arbitrary sized window (whatever aspect ratio) and do a
reasonable job at putting it into a NTSC signal. I've not
seen this, but it sounds really neat.
- The Lyon-Lamb box is said to do a better job (better quality)
to others who have seen both it and the Photron box.
- The Lyon-Lamb costs less than the Photron box.
Features/Things to be careful of:
- Be careful for boxes that simply drop lines instead of doing
averaging/smoothing. Otherwise if you have a one pixel wide
line on a raster scan that is to be dropped it will be gone
on the NTSC.
- Can you control the amount of smoothing? Hi-res monitors are
usually ~60KHz monitors. NTSC video is 30KHz. Therefore these
boxes draw alternating horizontal traces down the screen
(interlaced). If you have a black horizontal line and then a
white horizontal line these will be drawn at alternating times.
You will therefore see a beating between the two lines. This
can be negated by smoothing (averaging neighbor pixels with
a drawn pixel). The more smoothing means less beating, however
smoothing fuzzs the lines (or characters) making things less clear.
- Is the internal encoder a quality encoder or do you need an
external encoder? An external Farujda (sp?) encoder (high quality)
is ~$8K by itself.
- When seeing a demo, is it going to a normal monitor or is it
going to a SVHS (Super VHS) monitor (more scan lines)? Does
the box have an SVHS out?
- How do you change from monitor type to monitor type (Sun to
uVAX, etc)? Some have adaptive circuitry. Some you must
change a crystal. How hard is it to change the crystal?
I have heard claims that the adaptive circuitry is less
reliable and gives you a lower quality image (although
I haven't examined that).
- Bob Tomlinson
tomlin@hc.dspo.gov
Bob Tomlinson -- tomlin@hc.dspo.gov -- (505) 667-8495
Los Alamos National Laboratory -- MEE-10/Data Systems
----------------------------------
MISC SUGGESTIONS AND EXPERIENCES
==================================
Article 3048 of comp.sys.sun:
Path: cme!uunet!husc6!rice!sun-spots-request
From: rmr@mimsy.umd.edu (Randy M. Rohrer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Workstation video Summary
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <16587@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 5 Apr 89 01:08:38 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: University of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Sci.
Lines: 188
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: 28 Mar 89 13:58:26 GMT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 226, message 1 of 12
A while back, I asked for suggestions for capturing live video from
workstations. Thanks to everyone who responded (this net is great). The
following is a summary of responses. I might add that we are considering
buying the YEM real-time product.
Randy Rohrer
rmr@mimsy.umd.edu
__________
From: "Norman C. Kluksdahl" <uunet!haven!ames!asuvax.asu.edu!enuxha.kluksdah>
We have been using the Lyon-Lamb encoder/sync generator in conjunction
with a graphics workstation which has a Genlock option. Without this
option, encoding the color may be unstable. SGI does make a Genlock board
for their workstations, and I have seen that work.
The Lyon-Lamb high-res:NTSC encoder I saw (last year) was not capable of
converting in real time; it captured an image and then produced the NTSC
image: net time was about 1/10 sec. Folsum (I don't have an address-- if
there is a Stellar office nearby, they would know) can produce an NTSC
encoded image from high-res in real time, but we had some questions about
the stability of their converter. That box is ~10K. Lyon-Lamb's was ~20K.
If you use a frame-capture procedure, then you MUST get an animation
controller if your video will consist of multiple scenes. Again, we use
the Lyon-Lamb box-- the VAS 4 is ~ 9K, and will directly control a VTR.
When it comes to the VTR, by all means go with a 3/4" machine if at all
possible. The VHS machines only give ~250 lines, and the resolution
sucks. We use a Sony 3/4" VO-5850 machine (~8K). The videotape is
excellent.
Good luck with whatever graphics equipment you choose. If you have any
further questions, feel free to get in touch.
Norman Kluksdahl Arizona State University
..ncar!noao!asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah
__________
From: wyatt%cfashap@harvard.harvard.edu (Bill Wyatt)
A research group here (Smithsonian) recently purchased the Yamashita unit.
It's great! I've seen very nice RGB / RS170 converting from a VaxStation
8000 at 1024x864. I am not directly part of the group, but they are across
the hall from me so I've picked up a lot. The guy who did the product
research (Bob McMahan, mcmahan@cfa.harvard.edu) says the other units
lacked important performance features. The LL unit, for example, is only
about 10 Hz, and drops scan lines. The Yamashita does 60Hz and
interpolates to get 512 line output. It's pricey (~22k list) but he thinks
well worth it compared to the others, as it can convert to several formats
simultaneously.
Bill Wyatt, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
UUCP: {husc6,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt
ARPA: wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu
(or) wyatt%cfa@harvard.harvard.edu
SPAN: cfairt::wyatt
BITNET: wyatt@cfa2
__________
From: <cws@bigfoot.math.ufl.edu>
There was a stream on this problem a while back -- e.g. from sun-spots.v6.176:
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 88 18:57:35 EDT
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu
Subject: Re: Sun video to VCR
>Does anyone have any experience capturing the video output from a Sun
>workstation to video tape? ...
There is a non-trivial problem here, because the Suns (at least, the ones
I'm familiar with) use very non-standard high-speed video that your video
tape gear will not understand. No way, no how. Scan conversion between
video formats is possible but outlandishly expensive. Almost certainly
the simplest thing to do is to just point a video camera at the screen.
This works better than you'd think. We did it quite a bit in the CHI+GI
87 demos sessions (which I was co-chair of), and had only one real
problem: you must bear in mind that conventional video gear simply cannot
reproduce the resolution of a Sun screen, meaning that you have a choice
of a sharp closeup of one part of the screen or a fuzzy overall view. If
you want detail, you'll need an alert cameraman who can zoom in on the
right parts of the screen at the right times.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
----------------------------------------------------------
From rmr@mimsy.umd.edu Tue May 30 18:57:24 1989
Return-Path: <rmr@mimsy.umd.edu>
Received: from cme.nbs.gov ([129.6.32.4]) by r2d2.cme.nbs.gov (4.0/SMI-3.2-del.5)
id AA09792; Tue, 30 May 89 18:57:21 EDT
Received: from mimsy.umd.edu by cme.nbs.gov (4.0/SMI-3.2-del.5)
id AA12721; Tue, 30 May 89 18:56:50 EDT
Received: by mimsy.umd.edu (5.58/4.7)
id AA05776; Tue, 30 May 89 18:54:33 EDT
Date: Tue, 30 May 89 18:54:33 EDT
From: Randy M. Rohrer <rmr@mimsy.umd.edu>
Message-Id: <8905302254.AA05776@mimsy.umd.edu>
To: tarnoff@cme.nbs.gov
Subject: RGB -> NTSC
Status: R
Here are the addresses for the previously mentioned
companies that market scan converters:
1. Lyon Lamb Video Animation Systems, Inc.
4531 Empire Ave. 12 Broad St.
Burbank, CA 91505 Suite 408
(818)843-4831 Red Bank, NJ 07701
TELEX 298-185 (201)530-0501
TELEX 6503035711 MCI VW
2. Yamashita Engineering Manufacture Inc. (YEM)
made in Japan but distributed in the US by:
Grunder & Associates, Inc. (if you call, they'll give
5925 Beverly you the local person to contact)
Mission, Kansas 66202
(913)831-0188
FAX (913)831-3427
TELEX 437126
3. RGB Technology
2550 Ninth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(415)848-0180
FAX (415)848-0971
Also one that I failed to mention before:
4. PHOTRON Limited
Jingumae 6-12-15
Shibuya-Ku
Tokyo 150, Japan
phone: TOKYO (03)486-3471
FAX: (03)486-8760(GIII)
As an update, we decided to buy the YEM CVS-950A. It does
real-time conversion and auto-adjusts to scan frequencies of
47 KHz - 80 KHz. Costs $17,995 (not cheap).
Lyon Lamb initially did not have anything that did real-time.
They're products were geared towards frame animation. However, they
were supposed to come out with a real-time product around April-May
1989 time frame. We couldn't wait at the time (had to spend before we
"lost" the money). We haven't received it yet, but expect it within
the month.
It looks like the YEM is going to suit our needs. However, you may find
something better. An excellent place to look at these products is at the
ACM SIGGRAPH conference. (ACM Special Interest Group in Graphics).
The week-long conference includes a huge vendor exhibit and all of these
type of vendors are always there.
This year's conference is in Boston, MA from July 30 - August 4.
Good luck in your endeavors!
Randy Rohrer
US Department of Defense
rmr@mimsy.umd.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article 4665 of comp.graphics:
Path: cme!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!xanth!nic.MR.NET!shamash!tciaccio
From: tciaccio@shamash.cdc.com (Tom Ciaccio)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,comp.ivideodisc
Subject: UNIX video products, a summary
Message-ID: <12700@shamash.cdc.com>
Date: 22 May 89 14:27:22 GMT
Organization: Control Data Corporation, Bloomington, MN.
Lines: 34
Xref: cme comp.graphics:4665 comp.ivideodisc:160
- Parrallax Graphics of Santa Clara CA (408) 727-2220 has a board and
X server software that allows live and still video to be displayed in an X
window. The software currently operates on Sun OS v3.5 and on Ultrix
2.0.
- Sun Microsystems just announced a product called Sun Video, a
hardware/software product offering live video in a Sun window.
Currently an option for SPARCstation370, 3/470, and all existing VME
systems on OS4.0.3.
- A company called Abekus apparently has a video product, no further
information available.
- Silican Graphics, INC also apparently has a video product, but again
no further infomation.
Finally, and this isn't a product but Athena Labs at MIT has an active
project called X-video to control still and moving video in the X
environment.
Thomas R. Ciaccio, Control Data Corporation
2800 E. Old Shakopee Road, m/s HQM234
Bloomington, MN. 55425
EMail address - tciaccio@shamash.cdc.com
---------------------- END ------------------------------------------------