venkat@ARISIA.XEROX.COM (Venkat Rangan) (10/09/89)
I have some questions regarding multi-media hardware. Any information will be greatly appreciated. (1) Are there inexpensive (less than 5K) video frame grabbers that take in motion color video (in NTSC format) and display it on a Sun workstation console? (2) Does anyone know of video mixers that can take in upto 4 NTSC inputs and output a picture in which each of the four inputs appears in an equal partition (if four inputs, each input is displayed in 1/4 of the output picture)? (3) Are there inexpensive (less than 12 K) Video Disc Recorders with RS-232 interface ? (4) Are VCRs with RS-232 interface available? (5) Are there audio digitizers (with less than 4K price tag)that plug into the VME bus of a Sun Workstation? Your time in providing information about any of the above questions will be greatly appreciated. I'll post a summary of the replies if it turns out to be interesting to many of the people on this mailing list. Regards, -- Venkat (venkat@arisia.xerox.com)
alves@aludra.usc.edu (William Alves) (10/10/89)
In article <8910082247.AA28634@arisia.Xerox.COM> venkat@ARISIA.XEROX.COM (Venkat Rangan) writes: >(5) Are there audio digitizers (with less than 4K price tag)that plug into >the VME bus of a Sun Workstation? I did some research to find a music quality A/D D/A for the VMEbus of the Sun some time ago. The only one I found is made by MicroTechnology Unlimited of North Carolina called the DigiSound-16. Unfortunately, it does not fit your price requirement, because of the difficulty of the VMEbus interface, I'm told. All together it comes to about $7K. But it does do stereo, 44.1Khz, 16 bit recording and playing back, and can be used in conjunction with any number of UNIX computer music software packages. If you are interested, send mail and I will look up the address (also, I posted it not too long ago in comp.music and rec.audio). Burr-Brown makes a variety of digitizers, but they are designed for scientific applications. That is, they generally have many more channels, but a smaller bandwidth and probably no audio-frequency filters. It is possible, however, that one of these may work for you, and they tend to be less expensive. Bill Alves USC School of Music / Center for Scholarly Technology
hlison@bbn.com (Herb Lison) (10/11/89)
In article <8910082247.AA28634@arisia.Xerox.COM> venkat@ARISIA.XEROX.COM (Venkat Rangan) writes: >(5) Are there audio digitizers (with less than 4K price tag)that plug into >the VME bus of a Sun Workstation? I've been working with a voice/telephone product from Natural MicroSystems called VBX. It lists for under $800. Unfortunately, it works only on the Sun386 workstation, but does have a UNIX driver. It uses a telephone for input/output or can take an optional speaker. It is primarily designed for voice applications, but can do digitization up to 64kbs. Voice quality is excellent at 32 kbs. If you want to call Natural Microsystems you can reach them at 508-655-0700. Herb Lison
hagens@CS.WISC.EDU (10/11/89)
> > In article <8910082247.AA28634@arisia.Xerox.COM> venkat@ARISIA.XEROX.COM (Ven kat Rangan) writes: > >(5) Are there audio digitizers (with less than 4K price tag)that plug into > >the VME bus of a Sun Workstation? > I've been working with a voice/telephone product from Natural MicroSystems > called VBX. It lists for under $800. Unfortunately, it works only on > the Sun386 workstation, but does have a UNIX driver. It uses a telephone > for input/output or can take an optional speaker. It is primarily designed > for voice applications, but can do digitization up to 64kbs. > Voice quality is excellent at 32 kbs. > If you want to call Natural Microsystems you can reach them at > 508-655-0700. > Herb Lison Beware the VBX. It has a 1 byte window for communication between the host and the card. Furthermore, a strict busy-wait protocol must be followed to transmit data through this window. Typical PC-braindead, hardware design mentality I would look for a card that was designed more intelligently. There is a company in the Bay area that claims to support a large amount of dual memory. I think it is called talking technologies. Rob Hagens University of Wisconsin