peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (06/13/91)
In article <1991Jun12.205030.4401@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes: >In article <1991Jun12.192948.20028@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >> >>One new feature, CDXL, will let developers display video images >>from a CD-ROM disk on screen. Limited to images covering about one >>third of the screen because of the amount of data that must be >>transferred, CDXL is an interim solution until the Motion Picture >>Expert Group (MPEG) standard is completed. > > Wasn't the MPEG standard completed last December? If so, I don't >know what Commodore is waiting for. No, it's not yet completed. Perhaps you mix this up with JPEG, the standard for still pictures. >>Commodore announced plans to make CDTV compatible with Kodak's new >>Photo CD system. > > This sounds nice, but the problem is that the CDTV's color >capabilities are hardly photographic, especially compared to the CD-I >systems. Unless the color capabilities of the CDTV are drastically >improved, the limited color of the CDTV will not do justice to >digitized true-color stills. Typically Marc. You *must* (you all, not only Marc!) look at those pictures found in the World Vista Atlas CDTV title (others tell me that also that CD with "New Weapon technology" or similar has outstanding images, didn't see them myself until now)!!! Many of these pictures are really photo quality. I only saw comparable quality in that one Fish disk (was it 196?) with racing cars, a honda cycle and an airplane. - This boils down for me that the HAM mode of the Amiga still can beat very 256 color VGA plain to the ground, if, yes *IF*, you use a VERY GOOD algorithm to convert your raw picture into HAM. There must be some black magic with dithering and all this. For me, I didn't succeed with such an algorithm, I tried, but got always very clear bandings with weird transition colors. Funnily, also a few pictures on the mentioned World Vista CD show these aliases, but they are really few, compared to all the beautiful ones. Now if somebody could teach us a little about the magics of HAM algorithms... I crosspost this to c.s.a.multimedia. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (06/15/91)
In article <1349@cbmger.UUCP>, peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: >In article <1991Jun12.205030.4401@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes: >>In article <1991Jun12.192948.20028@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>> >>>One new feature, CDXL, will let developers display video images >>>from a CD-ROM disk on screen. Limited to images covering about one >>>third of the screen because of the amount of data that must be >>>transferred, CDXL is an interim solution until the Motion Picture >>>Expert Group (MPEG) standard is completed. >> >> Wasn't the MPEG standard completed last December? If so, I don't >>know what Commodore is waiting for. > >No, it's not yet completed. Perhaps you mix this up with JPEG, the >standard for still pictures. Give me a break! I know what JPEG is, and what the differences are between JPEG and MPEG. At least two who should know about such things have said themselves that there are conflicting reports about MPEG's completeness. > >>>Commodore announced plans to make CDTV compatible with Kodak's new >>>Photo CD system. >> >> This sounds nice, but the problem is that the CDTV's color >>capabilities are hardly photographic, especially compared to the CD-I >>systems. Unless the color capabilities of the CDTV are drastically >>improved, the limited color of the CDTV will not do justice to >>digitized true-color stills. > >Typically Marc. You *must* (you all, not only Marc!) look at those >pictures found in the World Vista Atlas CDTV title (others tell me >that also that CD with "New Weapon technology" or similar has >outstanding images, didn't see them myself until now)!!! Many of >these pictures are really photo quality. [stuff about Amiga pictures deleted] Give me a break, again! I have been using Amigas longer than many of the people at Commodore, so I am very well aquainted with what the Amiga's graphics are capable of. True, the Amiga can display up to 4096 colors at once. However, none of the Amigas graphics modes are capable of going beyond 12-bit color, in any resolution. When you are talking about photgraphs, the number of shades of each color that you have in the color palette is *FAR* more important than the number of total colors that you can display at once. For instance, on the Amiga you only have at most three dozen shades of skin tones. This compares to the CD-I, VGA, and MAC systems, where you have 3-4 HUNDRED shades of skin tones. This is the reason that 256-color GIFs of people look far better on a MAC or VGA system than on an Amiga, even though the Amiga can display more colors at once than the CD-I, VGA, and MAC systems. >I only saw comparable >quality in that one Fish disk (was it 196?) with racing cars, a >honda cycle and an airplane. - This boils down for me that the HAM >mode of the Amiga still can beat very 256 color VGA plain to the >ground, if, yes *IF*, you use a VERY GOOD algorithm to convert your >raw picture into HAM. See above. On the Amiga, the theoretical best that you could ever do is 12-bit color. This compares to the CD-I systems, which have 24-bit palettes and can display 15-bits of color at once (I think). If pictures of people look far better on systems with 8-bit color than on an Amiga,you can be pretty damn confident that the CD-I systems -- which will make even the systems with 8-bit color look pretty lame -- will make the Amiga look very silly. > >-- >Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... >Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk ------------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett -MB- | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ------------------------------------------------------------ \ The great thing about standards is that / \ there are so many of them to choose from. / -------------------------------------------------------
kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (06/15/91)
>>> Wasn't the MPEG standard completed last December? >> No, it's not yet completed. > At least two who should know about such things have said themselves that > there are conflicting reports about MPEG's completeness. The conflicting reports were real enough. I remember saving off a news report saying the audio portion was finished last September. But don't listen to us... what we need is someone who _does_ know for sure :-) In any case, I asked someone whom *I* thought would know <chuckle>, and was told that of the three MPEG sections (video, audio, system integration), only the video is done. And that's the best I could find out so far. regards to all - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
skank@iastate.edu (Skank George L) (06/15/91)
In article <1349@cbmger.UUCP> peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: > >Typically Marc. You *must* (you all, not only Marc!) look at those >pictures found in the World Vista Atlas CDTV title (others tell me >that also that CD with "New Weapon technology" or similar has >outstanding images, didn't see them myself until now)!!! Many of >these pictures are really photo quality. I only saw comparable >quality in that one Fish disk (was it 196?) with racing cars, a >honda cycle and an airplane. - This boils down for me that the HAM >mode of the Amiga still can beat very 256 color VGA plain to the >ground, if, yes *IF*, you use a VERY GOOD algorithm to convert your >raw picture into HAM. There must be some black magic with dithering >and all this. For me, I didn't succeed with such an algorithm, I >tried, but got always very clear bandings with weird transition >colors. Funnily, also a few pictures on the mentioned World Vista CD >show these aliases, but they are really few, compared to all the >beautiful ones. Now if somebody could teach us a little about the >magics of HAM algorithms... > >-- >Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions...>Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk O.K., this is something I've noticed. The pictures on that particular Fred Fish disk are absolutely stunning HAM images, and I believe that the poster even said that NO antialiasing had been performed on the images, even so, they look AWESOME! To reiterate Peter's question, "Why is that?" I've also noticed that digitizers for the Amiga, like DigiView, seem to generate much better images than, for instance, .gif files that have been converted. Is, or isn't, this my imagination? Assuming it's not my imagination, is this caused by the substantial differences between HAM mode on the Amiga (with it's pallet selection or however it works), and .gif-type modes (i.e.: 8 bit-planes) on PC's?? Further, has anyone used TAD or TAD Pro out there? How well do these programs convert 21+ bit images to HAM? More bits equals better conversion doesn't it? Finally, (this is something I'm really dieing (sp?) to know the answer to) I know people buy DigiView, so where are all the great HAM images?? Questions, questions, questions, --George -- George L. Skank |Five years ago I couldn't spell engineer. /// Senior, Electrical Engineering |Now I are one. /// Iowa State University, Ames, IA | \\\ /// skank@iastate.edu |Phone: (515) 233-2165 \\X//
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun14.174930.28222@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes: >In article <1349@cbmger.UUCP>, peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: > > Give me a break, again! I have been using Amigas longer than many of >the people at Commodore, You don't mean me, do you? (Amiga user since 1985) > True, the Amiga can display up to 4096 colors >at once. However, none of the Amigas graphics modes are capable of going >beyond 12-bit color, in any resolution. > > When you are talking about photgraphs, the number of shades of each >color that you have in the color palette is *FAR* more important than the >number of total colors that you can display at once. I don't buy that. You see, for my eyes, these 4096 simultaneous colors actually do, and also with shades of skin tones I have no problem. You really should look at those pictures in the World Vista Atlas. > See above. On the Amiga, the theoretical best that you could ever >do is 12-bit color. This compares to the CD-I systems, which have >24-bit palettes and can display 15-bits of color at once (I think). >If pictures of people look far better on systems with 8-bit color than ^^ yeah! But they don't! >on an Amiga,you can be pretty damn confident that the CD-I systems -- >which will make even the systems with 8-bit color look pretty lame -- >will make the Amiga look very silly. I'm not shivering. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
kawai@gssm.otsuka.tsukuba.ac.jp (Tadahiko Kawai) (06/19/91)
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jerry@truevision.com (Jerry Thompson) (06/25/91)
In article <1991Jun14.214206.1510@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >>>> Wasn't the MPEG standard completed last December? >>> No, it's not yet completed. >> At least two who should know about such things have said themselves that >> there are conflicting reports about MPEG's completeness. > >The conflicting reports were real enough. I remember saving off a news >report saying the audio portion was finished last September. But don't >listen to us... what we need is someone who _does_ know for sure :-) > >In any case, I asked someone whom *I* thought would know <chuckle>, and >was told that of the three MPEG sections (video, audio, system integration), >only the video is done. And that's the best I could find out so far. > The JPEG spec has been frozen but the final draft circulating has not been signed off yet. MPEG has not been finalized. -Jerry -- Jerry Thompson | // checks ___________ | "I'm into S&M, I loved the peace and solitude | \\ // and | | | | Sarcasm and so much, I invited my friends. | \X/ balances /_\ | /_\ | Mass Sarcasm."