[comp.ivideodisc] Are we alive here?

ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry) (03/12/88)

sheesh, this group is too quiet!  Maybe we should find a nifty
controversey.  Like how how we can abort interactive video discs :-)

Anyway, did anyone go to the CD-ROM conference?  (Yeah, I know some
people get pissed about talking about CD-ROM here, but what ELSE is
there to talk about right now?  Besides, it's a transitional question :-))
Supposedly, DVI (Digital Video Interactive) was shown there.  I would be
interested in knowing if anyone checked it out and what they thought.

We are still experiencing a "training lull" around here.  No real IVD work
until next month.  So we are doing consulting for others in the IVD field.
It's quite interesting how many people receive contracts to do IVD work when
they have never even written a driver before.  Has anyone else experienced
people with no track record of IVD work bidding against you for projects?

So, let's start talking again....

Mikki Barry
Learning Tree Software
"Over 150 videodiscs served"

psych36@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (21045000) (03/13/88)

A while ago I saw some info on a videodisc SIG in which several
participants could get together to inexpensively print a disk.
Pointers would be appreciated.

daford@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Daniel Ford) (03/15/88)

Both DVI and CDI were demo'd at the CD ROM conference, both were impressive.

Microsoft, Lotus, Intel and RCA/GE announced that they would would be
supporting DVI (from RCA/GE) as the standard.

The DVI demo looked good but you could see some problems when the image
changed very fast.  Their subjects seemed to be choosen so that only a small
part of the image would change (people spinning/walking/running/jumping).
The demo was basically straight "movie" type video, little interaction
was shown in the main demo.  They also demo'd their live video editing. If 
I remember correctly they called it ELV (Edit Level Video).  Pretty good, it
allowed you to capture video from a hand held camcorder (or equiv.) and store
it on hard disk for play back.

The CDI demo was a bit different.  It stressed the interactive nature of the
Philips/SONY standard.  Fewer moving images and the ones they did have
were small (no surprise).  There was a music video of Olivia Neutron Bomb, it
sounded great and the picture was acceptable.  They also had cartoons,
still screen pictures and some special effects (fades, wipes, multilingual).

To make the DVI stuff work takes an IBM PC, video monitor and 5 full size
cards crammed with RAM and VLSI, that is just for playback.  To do development
requires an additional 2 piggy back digitizing boards.  Someone I met
on the shuttle bus told me that they wanted $20000 for the boards.

My impression was that all though DVI could produce more and better 
quality images, that CDI was more advanced from an interactive point of view.  
CDI also seems futher along in terms of becoming a consumer product.  
DVI looks like it is in dire need of some input from the marketing boys.  
I saw little in the way of creative applications or thought about the
use of DVI technology.  The two demos reflected this, one could easily imagine
more advanced applications of the type seen in the CDI demo but this was
a little more difficult for DVI.  This may not be a consequence of the
technology itself but it may drastically affect its success.

It looks like the Americans (DVI) against the world (CDI) again.  






-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel A. Ford 					daford@watdragon.uucp
CS Department                         daford%watdragon@waterloo.csnet
U. of Waterloo       daford%watdragon%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa

terry@wsccs.UUCP (terry) (03/16/88)

In article <8464@eddie.MIT.EDU>, ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry) writes:
> sheesh, this group is too quiet!  Maybe we should find a nifty
> controversey.  Like how how we can abort interactive video discs :-)
> 
> We are still experiencing a "training lull" around here.  No real IVD work
> until next month.  So we are doing consulting for others in the IVD field.

	What exactly does that have objective?  How can one "consult" on an
IVD?  What kind of bucks do you make doing it?

> So, let's start talking again....

Well, here's one.  A freind and myself each have an Amiga.  He has a pioneer
disc player (home model) that has no method of interfacing it.  Other models
have RS-232 control.  I have figured out an interface to write (centronics
paralell) seek addresses to the thing, albiet with the track displayed for a
single frame, using the centronics paralell as a keyboard matrix.  I suppose
if I were industrious, I could get all of the functions going... however, I
am not industrious.

The problem is this:  My freind has purchased a number of videodisc's to go
and play around with (Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, and Cliff Hanger).  While
the investment was under $30 each, we would really like to play with them.
We can't.  Turns out that due to timing considerations, our Amiga's do not
both agree with the number of cycles it takes to get from the start location
to the end of the sequence (mine has a 68010).  In addition, we realize that
not all players run at the same rate.  This means we really need to be able to
receive status info from the player to avoid having to have the user "tune"
the software by hand.  This would also allow porting to other machines,
preferrably those with composite video in on their monitors.

What we would really like to see are some panasonic<=>rs-232 diagrams for
circuitry for the player.  We know that there are other players out there
that impliment this, but don't want to have to buy another.  It would have to
be simple enough for the home abuser to hook up.  We wouldn't need status any
more than every n tracks or so, although we'd prefer n be 5 or less to prevent
us from having to "guess" too drastically.


Another thing we have open for discussion:  Would anybody miss the "boop"?
It turns out that that is generated by the controlling hardware, and is not
on the disc.


| Terry Lambert           UUCP: ...{ decvax, ihnp4 }                          |
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