mikep@hpmwtd.HP.COM (Mike Powell) (04/05/91)
I have a proposal for Commodore and it's CDTV.... Commodore, give Digital Creations a call, and see what they think about incorporating the DCTV decoder hardware/software into the CDTV. As CDTV is pointed primarily as a NTSC device, DCTV would be right at home in the CDTV, and would give it an AMAZING jump on the competetion... HAM is ok. but 16 million NTSC colors is FANTASTIC! And the way DCTV works, .anim files could be made to playback in all 16M colors... full or partial screen... at a reasonable rate. After all, DCTV frames are really nothing more than Hi-res/interlace 16 color IFF images as far as the Amiga hardware is concerned. DCTV would perform all the rest of the magic.... Other views on this??? -Mike-
xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) (04/07/91)
In article <10000026@hpmwmat.HP.COM>, mikep@hpmwtd.HP.COM (Mike Powell) writes: > > > I have a proposal for Commodore and it's CDTV.... > > Commodore, give Digital Creations a call, and see what they think > about incorporating the DCTV decoder hardware/software into > the CDTV. > > As CDTV is pointed primarily as a NTSC device, DCTV would be right > at home in the CDTV, and would give it an AMAZING jump on the > competetion... HAM is ok. but 16 million NTSC colors is FANTASTIC! > > And the way DCTV works, .anim files could be made to playback > in all 16M colors... full or partial screen... at a reasonable rate. > > After all, DCTV frames are really nothing more than Hi-res/interlace > 16 color IFF images as far as the Amiga hardware is concerned. DCTV > would perform all the rest of the magic.... > > Other views on this??? > > -Mike- I think the DCTV is a tad bit too expensive to incorporate into the CDTV and still keep the price of the CDTV under $1000. A better solution might be to use the HAM-E instead. BTW, doesn't the CDTV have an A2000-style video slot (intended mainly for use with genlocks)? If so, Black Belt could redesign the HAM-E to fit into the CDTV's video slot, and sell it for that purpose, with a CD-ROM of software to use with it. Fitting the HAM-E for the video slot instead of the RGB port might actually make the HAM-E less expensive, because the circuitry to decode the analog RGB output back into digital form would no longer be needed. -MB- ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ----------------------------------------------------------
kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/07/91)
mikep@hpmwtd.HP.COM (Mike Powell) writes: > As CDTV is pointed primarily as a NTSC device, DCTV would be right > at home in the CDTV, and would give it an AMAZING jump on the > competetion... HAM is ok. but 16 million NTSC colors is FANTASTIC! A good idea, but I'm afraid that it would hardly "give it an amazing jump" on CD-I, which is CDTV's competition. In fact, not even close. CD-I has two main image planes, each with a full video chip and 512K RAM. Either one _alone_ has modes superior to Amiga gfx... but they can also be swapped in priority, each can be of almost any mode (see below), and the planes can be color-keyed, dissolved, or overlaid, all in hardware. Of course, modes can be changed on a line/line basis, just as in the Amiga. The main modes have 4/7/8 bits/pixel from a choice of 4 or 16 million colors. In other words, 256-colors in a 360x480 screen mode, with a 3/7-bit screen also available for overlays. There are also 3/7 bit color RLE modes: the data consists of color RLE lines (perfect for cartoons), which the chip decodes/displays _on the fly_ instead of having to have the cpu unpack the data in memory first. Then there is the Delta-YUV (DYUV) mode, which is superior to HAM [ I've been told the Amiga was originally supposed to have DYUV ] because it allows luminance changes on a per-pixel basis while the color changes slower. As the eye is more sensitive to luminance, the pic looks better. Finally, both planes may be combined to form a 15-bits/pixel direct RGB mode. Each plane can also be fitted with its own blitter. CPU->video RAM accesses are always interleaved half and half... meaning gfx updates are faster than the equivalent Amiga modes. The cpu is also around 50% faster than CDTV's. To be blunt, CD-I gfx is what the basic Amiga gfx should've been by now. Perhaps CBM should use CD-I chips. best - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (04/07/91)
In article <1991Apr7.003336.3219@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >mikep@hpmwtd.HP.COM (Mike Powell) writes: > >> As CDTV is pointed primarily as a NTSC device, DCTV would be right >> at home in the CDTV, and would give it an AMAZING jump on the >> competetion... HAM is ok. but 16 million NTSC colors is FANTASTIC! > >A good idea, but I'm afraid that it would hardly "give it an amazing jump" >on CD-I, which is CDTV's competition. In fact, not even close. > >... > >To be blunt, CD-I gfx is what the basic Amiga gfx should've been by now. >Perhaps CBM should use CD-I chips. best - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu> Kevin, you should take a look at the CDTV before being so judgemental. Yes, the graphics modes are better. But Gail Wellington made a good point: Who's going to buy a home machine that can't play games? Where the blitter? The advantage that CDTV has is that it is an Amiga. It has the whole library of Amiga software if you add a diskdrive. There were 7 different titles being sold at the show, a list of 50 titles which will be shipping by the end of June, and 150 titles promised to Commodore. The applications were excellent. There was the World Atlas, which had a full digitized atlas you could scroll around in. It had digitized voices and music from different countries. It had digitized pictures from all around the world as well. Those 600MB were well used. The best thing was how easy it was to use. There was no keyboard, just the IR control, and it was still easy. It is basically just very well thought out. I've also seen the American Heritage Dictionary, which was very well laid out, easy to use, had digitized pictures and a hypertext style to it (every word in a definition could be jumped to). Basically, it is shipping. There are titles. It is selling for about $800. Commodore has excellent distribution for it. To make it even better, without any additional hardware they were doing 1/4 screen (1/2 x 1/2) animation in HAM in 12fps. Loading was done directly off the CD. And although you may be saying "1/4 screen", you have to realize that most applications will be supplementing their normal program with the animation, and for those 1/4 screen is fine. And of course if you slow down the frame rate you can get larger area. And we all know what can be done in a 512K Amiga 500 with animation and these come standard with 1MB. The big-names are developing for it, including Grolier's, Sieera On-Line and Psygnosis. I really don't see how CD-I can possibly succeed. The Amiga operating system has had 4-5 years of thorough in-use testing and there are already lots of programmers familiar with programming it. CD-I isn't shipping. It seems like it keeps getting new and new screen resolutions and nothing ships. Also, Commodore can cut prices a lot better than the CD-I people can, the CDTV is made of already mass-produced contents. CD-I was delayed too long. I'd recommend you look at CDTV and its applications before condemning them. -- Ethan Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb A: None. It's a hardware problem.
kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/08/91)
In <1991Apr7.023811.5758@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: > > Kevin, you should take a look at the CDTV before being so judgemental. Hi Ethan. Umm. It doesn't sound like you read the articles at all. This thread was about making CDTV gfx amazingly better than the capabilities of its competition. Obviously you can't start on that road until you know what the competition has. So I posted specs. Here, I'll summarize again: A 68xxx (base cpu is 15Mhz 68070) computer with _dual_ video subsystems, each of which has a copper and blitter, DYUV/3/4/7/8/15-bit gfx out of at least 4 million colors; plus hardware special effects between the two. You honestly wouldn't wish features like those for the Amiga? If not, then I guess you have no need for DCTV or Colorburst or HAM or Firecracker or any kind of basic gfx upgrade ;-). But seriously... The rest of your message I might respond to in .advocacy, since most was non-hardware/technical in nature. thanks - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
hill@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Adam Hill) (04/08/91)
In article <1991Apr6.185336.26417@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: > BTW, doesn't the CDTV have an A2000-style video slot (intended mainly >for use with genlocks)? If so, Black Belt could redesign the HAM-E to >fit into the CDTV's video slot, and sell it for that purpose, with a >CD-ROM of software to use with it. Fitting the HAM-E for the video slot >instead of the RGB port might actually make the HAM-E less expensive, >because the circuitry to decode the analog RGB output back into digital >form would no longer be needed. > -MB- The HAM-E device is BIG people -- Prolly a 7" x 7"box. Unless they did VLSI or Suface Mount I don't think it could get much smaller. The CDTV video slot is connected to a pullout board that has RF, Comp output on it. So one could build a Genlock, Toaster :-) whatever to plug in. -- adam hill -- hill@evax.uta.edu ASOCC - University of Texas at UTA I programmed for three days Make Up Your Own Mind.. AMIGA! And heard no human voices. Amiga... Multimedia NOW! But the hard disk sang. - TZoP Born To Run SVR4