mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) (05/01/91)
Greetings, A friend of mine and I are both looking for video boards for our Mac II-series macines (my IIx, his IIci) which will allow us to put live video in a window on our color monitors, and digitize images to a graphic format, preferably in 24-bit. Other nice features would be: graphic overlay, NTSC scan-rate output, and combined frame-buffer/digitizing hardware, to eliminate shipping video over NuBus. Obviously, price is a factor. $6000 is out of the question. We'd like to stay in the $1-2,000 range. Any input from folks as to which boards from which manufacturers are best would be much appreciated. BTW, is there an Apple product which will do this kind of stuff? Thanks! --Mike
lemke@radius.com (Steve Lemke) (05/01/91)
mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) writes: > A friend of mine and I are both looking for video boards for our Mac >II-series macines (my IIx, his IIci) which will allow us to put live video in >a window on our color monitors, and digitize images to a graphic format, >preferably in 24-bit. > Other nice features would be: graphic overlay, NTSC scan-rate output, and >combined frame-buffer/digitizing hardware, to eliminate shipping video over >NuBus. Sounds like you're after RadiusTV, winner of several awards, including Byte magazine's Product of the Year for 1990. (Disclaimer - please don't flame this as an advertisement - he *did* ask, and so I shall answer... :-) Anyway, the RadiusTV Video Capture System provides 8 or 16-bit full motion video in a moveable, and FULLY resizeable window up to 640 x 480 pixels. It also digitizes audio for playback through the Mac speaker. The built-in tuner includes CATV tuning, and the software also provides closed-caption decoding and transcription. Switchable video inputs include 2 RF, 2 NTSC, and 1 RGB. It works with the Radius DirectColor Series video interfaces (for color Two Page Displays) as well as the Radius DirectColor/GX for the Apple 13". The DirectColor/GX interface also provides NTSC (or PAL) scan-rate output. RadiusTV does not include a frame buffer, but rather utilizes NuBus block transfer to move video from the frame grabber board to the display board. > Obviously, price is a factor. $6000 is out of the question. We'd like to >stay in the $1-2,000 range. The retail price of the RadiusTV was just reduced from $2795 to $2195, and street prices are often even less... Of course, Radius also offers special pricing for Apple Developers (to save me from getting swamped with email on how to get developer pricing, I'll just post the phone number of the Sales department: (408) 434-1011). In addition, Radius Developer Services can provide developer documentation on the RadiusTV Developer Toolkit, which allows you to write your own custom applications using the RadiusTV hardware. > Any input from folks as to which boards from which manufacturers are best >would be much appreciated. BTW, is there an Apple product which will do this >kind of stuff? Unfortunately, I didn't save all of the messages, but there was a rather lengthy discussion of RadiusTV in this newsgroup about six months ago - the only complaint I can recall was the high price, and that's been adjusted. >Thanks! No problem - you're welcome. -- ----- Steve Lemke, KC6QDT - Software Engineering, Radius Inc., San Jose ----- ----- Reply to: lemke@radius.com -- U.C. Santa Barbara ECE Class of '89 ----- ----- "I'm not a UNIX wizard, but I play the Postmaster at radius.com." -----
Eric.J.Baumgartner@dartmouth.edu (Eric J. Baumgartner) (05/02/91)
I thought I'd follow up the Radius plug with a RasterOps plug. We've been using the RasterOps 364 for a while and it does most of what you want: it is a 24-bit 640 x 480 video display board as well as a 30 fps digitizer. Its main drawback is that it doesn't do any kind of overlay, and you're on your own for audio. I've seen (and we've bought) the 364 for street prices of around $900. However, RasterOps is discontinuing the 364 in favor of a new board, the 24STV, which adds overlay capability as well as daughterboard slots for an accelerator and a image compression board. (The daughterboard design is nice if you've got a IIsi.) We're waiting for our first 24STV to arrive so I can't comment on its performance, but I thought the 364 was a great board, especially at under $1000. The street prices for the 24STV seem to be around $1250 and up... check ClubMac, for example. If you want more information e-mail me or give RasterOps a call. I've been real pleased with the company. Std. disclaimer: I don't work for RasterOps, I just use their products. Eric Baumgartner * ebaum@dartmouth.edu Interactive Media Lab * - When in danger or in doubt, Dartmouth Medical School * run in circles, scream and shout.
peter@cs.uwa.oz.au (05/06/91)
Hello All, We've been using the RO 364 and are particularly impressed with the developer support that is available (if you are lucky enough to have access to AppleLink). We have produced our own HyperCard video capture stack for recording student photos and are currently working on modifying the "Image" software (available via ftp from alw.nih.gov) to allow analysis of video images from an optical microscope. Just one note on a previous posting, Eric.J.Baumgartner@dartmouth.edu (Eric J. Baumgartner) writes: > We've >been using the RasterOps 364 for a while and it does most of what you >want: it is a 24-bit 640 x 480 video display board as well as a 30 fps >digitizer. That is 30 frames per second video display. Not to be confused with capture rate, which is of course dependent on cpu speed, memory available and image size. Peter Dodd (peter@cs.uwa.oz.au) MacLabs Programmer Computer Science Department The University of Western Australia