[comp.sys.next] NeXTDimension

garnett@cs.utexas.edu (John William Garnett) (02/21/91)

In article <e30oX1w163w@ersys.uucp> ersys!drin@nro.cs.athabascau.ca (Adrian Smith) writes:
>smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu (Dr. William V. Smith) writes:
>
[stuff deleted here]
>> The NeXTdimension is *still* scheduled for March I hear. 
>> Several NeXT people told me this, so take it for what its worth.
>> -Bill
>> --
>
>However, I heard it today from our campus rep (he tends to get things 
>right) that NeXT has a *major* problem with the Dimension board. The 
>C-Cube chip (real-time video compression) has a bug, and - doesn't
>work!!! They're in a quandry as to whether to:

Yes, this is apparently true.  I saw a public NeXTdimension demo on Feb. 15
which didn't use the C-Cube chip because of the bug you mention.
They did demo JPEG compression using the 040.  It took about 9 seconds
to compress a medium-sized image (I don't remember the exact dimensions)
instead of the ~ 1/30 second that the C-Cube chip should (will?) offer.

At least part of the real-time video capabilities do work though... they
had a laser disk player attached to the NeXTdimension playing a space
movie in a NeXTstep window in real-time.  At the same time, Molecule.app
was running an animation.  I didn't notice any slowdown of either window.



-- 
John Garnett
                              University of Texas at Austin
garnett@cs.utexas.edu         Department of Computer Science
                              Austin, Texas

randall@redfish (Dave Randall) (05/11/91)

Does anybody know if NeXTDimension is shipping yet?

melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (05/11/91)

In article <14837@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> randall@redfish (Dave Randall) writes:

   Does anybody know if NeXTDimension is shipping yet?

I called NeXT today and they said that it would ship at the end of May.

-Mike