ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) (04/09/91)
First, let me say that I have been a firm believer in CDTV ever since I
first heard about it. I have one of those "feelings", like I had when the 64
first came out, that CDTV will be a smash hit. After all, what better computer
to use as a multimedia engine than an Amiga? However, after hearing about a
few of these CD-I "features", I am beginning to second doubt my feelings.
I'd like to start this off by saying a few good things about CDTV that I like
very much. The idea of Commodore's to insist that CDTV not be placed near
computers and linked to being a type of computer is a good one. Most of the
general public doesn't want to buy a "computer", they want to buy this neat
little electronic component that brings multimedia to their home in a way
never thought possible before. Secondly, I'm glad they provided some expansion
ability to the machine. Thirdly, you can't help but believe that they know
what they are doing this time, by holding the machine back until the software
was ready and making deals with many mass electronic outlet stores. But now
comes some questions that need to be addressed in my mind. I'm hoping we can
clear the air about CDTV vs CD-I so everybody knows what is going on.
What follows are questions that I keep wondering about. The answers to these
questions should give us all a better understanding on what potential CDTV
has.
1. Is Commodore still rumored to be selling the chips to 3rd parties for
CDTV clones? I heard rumors of this before and would think that CDTV clones
would do much to insure it's success.
2. I hear that CDTV currently provides for (in the OS, I guess) 1/4 screen
full motion video. What graphic mode is this in and how good does it look?
Weren't people like GVP doing full motion video by simply reading the stuff
off of hard disk, and weren't people saying that the quality of such was at
"laserdisc" level?
3. Isn't a TV incapable of displaying detail much beyond that of the Amiga's
graphic ability? If so, what advantage will the higher resolution of CD-I
have over CDTV? In other words, will people be able to notice a better image
produced by CD-I?
4. What features does CDTV have that CD-I doesn't? IE: The video ports,
expansion ports, ability to hitch up drives, better sound, etc?
5. What features does CD-I have that CDTV doesn't?
6. Is the blitter in CD-I faster than the famous Amiga blitter with all it's
hardwired instructions and such?
7. What is the projected cost of CD-I and is it as "cleanly constructed" OS-
wise as the Amiga? I heard that CD-I is has a poorly constructed WINDOWS OS
with all kinds of extensions hanging off it. Being that WINDOWS is a memory
and CPU hog, shouldn't it cut down on what CD-I can do in comparison to CDTV?
8. I heard that CD-I was still at least two years away? When will a unit aimed
at the home market and costing under $1000 be shipping?
9. I thought I heard that CDTV supports that "electronic component language"
that allows one device to control another device? (IE: The receiver controls
the tape deck, etc?)
10. What other reasons, if any, can one give to justify CDTV being a much more
able multimedia device than CD-I? The original features I heard of CD-I made
it sound like it was a pig compared to CDTV, but now I am hearing that this
thing is some type of video wizard that will blow the socks off of CDTV.
Beyond it's video, does CD-I have other more powerful features than CDTV? For
instance, does it have better sound and expansion ability? What is it about
CD-I that makes it a better all around multimedia player, or vise versa?
I'm really looking forward to reading some good hard facts on this subject.
Like I said before, I had the feeling that CDTV was going to storm the market
like Nintendo did in the game market. Now I have a few doubts about it's
multimedia ability versus CD-I. But then again, a Sega Genesis makes a
Nintendo look like a blackboard. The big reason why Nintendo is the better
seller- timing. It was out just at the right time and the others came after
it did. CD-I can't have that big of a feature ability over CDTV as does the
Genesis over the Nintendo. A very interesting concept...
Tom
--
Why purchase a MAC when an Amiga with the same CPU will run 99% of all
__ MAC software..and FASTER at that?! The same can be said of the IBM and
__/// Atari computers, and I can run those in a window. IBM's greatest sales
\XX/ tool is ignorance on the consumer's part. Only the Amiga! DEVO Anyone?es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (04/09/91)
In article <23238@know.pws.bull.com> ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes: > > >2. I hear that CDTV currently provides for (in the OS, I guess) 1/4 screen >full motion video. What graphic mode is this in and how good does it look? >Weren't people like GVP doing full motion video by simply reading the stuff >off of hard disk, and weren't people saying that the quality of such was at >"laserdisc" level? > CDTV can do 1/4 screen HAM animation at 12fps or so. That isn't anything special, that is simply a factor of how fast the CD plays. Without compression you can't do much better. As to GVP, etc., they are showing DCTV which is almost as good as TV (the differences are very minimal), but that requires speed. It takes up more bus bandwidth than HAM so even in 1/4 screen it won't be as good as HAM. However, it is still useful for stills or pre-loaded short animations. >3. Isn't a TV incapable of displaying detail much beyond that of the Amiga's >graphic ability? If so, what advantage will the higher resolution of CD-I >have over CDTV? In other words, will people be able to notice a better image >produced by CD-I? > The difference is in colors, not pixel resolution. >4. What features does CDTV have that CD-I doesn't? IE: The video ports, >expansion ports, ability to hitch up drives, better sound, etc? > Good question. >7. What is the projected cost of CD-I and is it as "cleanly constructed" OS- >wise as the Amiga? I heard that CD-I is has a poorly constructed WINDOWS OS >with all kinds of extensions hanging off it. Being that WINDOWS is a memory >and CPU hog, shouldn't it cut down on what CD-I can do in comparison to CDTV? > This is also a good question. I can't believe that this can be produced at as good a price as CDTV. And if it comes down to a quality/price issue, we all remember Sony/Beta. >8. I heard that CD-I was still at least two years away? When will a unit aimed >at the home market and costing under $1000 be shipping? > Two years is unrealistic. Kevin is claiming September or so, but I don't know about that. I'll believe it when I see it. I HAVE seen CDTV and it is shipping. >9. I thought I heard that CDTV supports that "electronic component language" >that allows one device to control another device? (IE: The receiver controls >the tape deck, etc?) > If the CD has MIDI imprints on it you can control MIDI devices. You can put a genlock in it as well. > I'm really looking forward to reading some good hard facts on this subject. >Like I said before, I had the feeling that CDTV was going to storm the market >like Nintendo did in the game market. Now I have a few doubts about it's >multimedia ability versus CD-I. But then again, a Sega Genesis makes a >Nintendo look like a blackboard. The big reason why Nintendo is the better >seller- timing. It was out just at the right time and the others came after >it did. CD-I can't have that big of a feature ability over CDTV as does the >Genesis over the Nintendo. A very interesting concept... > If CD-I ships doing everything that Kevin says without any catches or negatives and it sells for $1,000, then maybe it will dominate CDTV. Of course, the feeling I'm getting from Kevin's post (mainly because I've never heard anyone else say these things about CD-I) is that you are getting a dream system for a ridiculously cheap price. Reminds me of the NeXT, except I know that Panasonic, etc., are in this for the money. > Tom > >-- > Why purchase a MAC when an Amiga with the same CPU will run 99% of all > __ MAC software..and FASTER at that?! The same can be said of the IBM and > __/// Atari computers, and I can run those in a window. IBM's greatest sales > \XX/ tool is ignorance on the consumer's part. Only the Amiga! DEVO Anyone? -- Ethan Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb A: None. It's a hardware problem.
jonabbey@cs.utexas.edu (Jonathan David Abbey) (04/09/91)
(Ethan Solomita) writes: > This is also a good question. I can't believe that this >can be produced at as good a price as CDTV. And if it comes down >to a quality/price issue, we all remember Sony/Beta. The reason that VHS blew the doors off of Betamax included the fact that only Sony supported Betamax, whereas the rest of the industry were making cheaper and better VHS machines. In this case, the Betamax lesson points the wrong way at Commodore, unless the rumour of Commodore licensing of the CDTV technology comes true in a serious way. [...] > Two years is unrealistic. Kevin is claiming September or >so, but I don't know about that. I'll believe it when I see it. I >HAVE seen CDTV and it is shipping. Undeniably a point in our favor, but I would believe the projected release date.. [...] > If CD-I ships doing everything that Kevin says without >any catches or negatives and it sells for $1,000, then maybe it >will dominate CDTV. Of course, the feeling I'm getting from >Kevin's post (mainly because I've never heard anyone else say >these things about CD-I) is that you are getting a dream system >for a ridiculously cheap price. Reminds me of the NeXT, except I >know that Panasonic, etc., are in this for the money. I've not heard that CD-I came with a blitter, but everything else he's said holds with what I've heard. The mere presence of a quality compression scheme in hardware gives CD-I an immediate technological advantage. The rest of the specs sound very good as well, and a large number of manufacturers will be making it. Commodore has the advantage of a large base of software that could be quickly transferred onto CD's from existing floppies.. Shadow of the Beast et al. They also have the advantage of first release and name brand recognition in the home computer market as a good value. (Those durn C64 adds were potent.) And, they've got the nice James Sachs artwork, a better name for their device (although whether third party manufacturers would want to throw their manufacturing support behind a standard called Commodore Dynamic Total Vision.. 8-), and a small horde of loyal Amigans that could give it a bit of a push in the states and a whale of a push in Europe. Still and all though, it grieves me that CD-I should be so far in advance of the Amiga technologically speaking.. it does make sense, though. Intel and company are not dull-witted, they have just been locked to a lackluster standard in the PC world. I would trust them to do a bang-up job when given a fresh page, and CD-I has been in development for years. It'll be interesting to see if Commodore advertises this thing well... > -- Ethan > >Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb >A: None. It's a hardware problem. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan David Abbey \"Take your place on the great Mandela" P,P&M the university of texas at austin \ jonabbey@cs.utexas.edu "Love me, love computer science/math?/psychology? \ (512) 472-2052 my Amiga" -Me
kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/09/91)
ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes: > I'm hoping we can clear the air about CDTV vs CD-I so everybody knows > what is going on. Yes, the more information, the better. I've been following CD-I for years (I first used a CD-I player in 1988, about the same time I bought my Amiga) and believe I know more than a fair amount about the capabilities of both. Small disclaimer: CD-I video excited me so much, that I'm now involved in helping with two new personal computers which use some of the chipset. That includes working with Amiga developers in porting apps over to them. And in the future, that might include creating a card for the Amiga. In any case, it wouldn't hurt me one iota if everyone bought CDTVs. > 1. Is Commodore still rumored to be selling the chips to 3rd parties for Interestingly, about two days ago I noticed an AP report whose last line read that CBM was willing to license the chips. This was the FIRST time I'd seen anything other than wishful rumors. Unforch, I cannot re-find it. I did hear a few months back that CBM was working on a less expensive chipset. Whether true or not, or connected with CDTV or not, I cannot say. > 2. I hear that CDTV currently provides for (in the OS, I guess) 1/4 screen > full motion video. What graphic mode is this in and how good does it look? > Weren't people like GVP doing full motion video by simply reading the stuff > off of hard disk, Whatever an A500 could do, that's what CDTV can do. As I told Ethan in email (and he then said here), one limitation is the max disc data xfr rate. This is approximately 170K bytes/second. You can figure things from there. However, there are other factors to take into account... for example, if audio data is also being streamed off the disc, anywhere from 12% (AM radio quality) to 50% (Hi-Fi) to 100% (CD-Audio) of the xfr rate is used up. I'm barely scratching the surface of what you need to know; when I get more spare time I'll try to catch you up on the details. > 3. Isn't a TV incapable of displaying detail much beyond that of the Amiga's > graphic ability? If so, what advantage will the higher resolution of CD-I > have over CDTV? In other words, will people be able to notice a better image > produced by CD-I? This is a good question, but the best quick response is: if the current Amiga color resolutions are sufficient, then why is there so much interest in the addon NTSC cards now being sold by Amiga third parties? > 4. What features does CDTV have that CD-I doesn't? IE: The video ports, > expansion ports, ability to hitch up drives, better sound, etc? > 5. What features does CD-I have that CDTV doesn't? Umm. The terminology doesn't invite easy comparisons here. "CDTV" is a specific name for CBM stuff right now. "CD-I" (beyond the base features covered in previous articles) is more like "CD-A". You wouldn't ask "what options do all audio disc players have"... you'd look at each model instead. CDTV has all the usual Amiga key/mouse/floppy/ser/par ports, plus MIDI, plus a DMA slot (SCSI, etc), and a video slot (for genlocks,etc). The obvious advantage is that all base machines have the same ports. CD-I? It will depend on the model you buy (cost, feature level, handheld or not, etc), just as with today's CD-Audio players. Some will have MIDI; some will have genlocks built-in; some will have expansion connectors for the other oomputer peripherals. Depends on the consumer's needs/$$. > 6. Is the blitter in CD-I faster than the famous Amiga blitter with all > it's hardwired instructions and such? Unknown, as I haven't been able to get docs. To be honest, I'm not positive all CD-I players will come with one. I do not think a blitter is critical here, altho I can argue pro/con. Ask me this again later. > 7. What is the projected cost of CD-I [?] The price breakpoint in a consumer's mind <g> has been calculated at $999, which is why both CD-I and CDTV are retail tagged at that. The original plan (1988) for CD-I was that Sony/Philips would underwrite any extra cost themselves... however, I severely doubt think that will be necessary now. CDROM drive, RAM and video chip costs have dropped dramatically since then. Again, it will depend on the model/brandname. Certainly many units will be under $1000. Portables will be more, I'm sure. The projection is for units to drop down to the $400-500 range within a year or two of release. > [...] and is it as "cleanly constructed" OS-wise as the Amiga? > I heard that CD-I is has a poorly constructed WINDOWS OS with all kinds > of extensions hanging off it. Being that WINDOWS is a memory and CPU hog, > shouldn't it cut down on what CD-I can do in comparison to CDTV? Yikes. I think some have confused CD-I with Microsoft/Intel's DVI for PCs! CD-I is for interactive-video standalone units, and was conceived of in 1985 by Sony and Philips, who created the CDROM and CD-Audio discs/standards. The OS won't matter to consumers, but since you ask, it's a version of OS-9 (CD-I is a 68xxx-based computer). They wanted a small, fast and solid realtime multitasking OS. The A-V parts were created for interactive TV. I'm sure you're aware that OS-9 is as cleanly constructed as you can get. > 8. I heard that CD-I was still at least two years away? When will a unit > aimed at the home market and costing under $1000 be shipping? No, it's two years _late_ <g>. First consumer sales were planned for 1988. Heck, Computer Shopper carried coverage of EA and Aegis working on CD-I as far back as 1986! Part of the delay was because they realized that it was critical that the first applications be as good as possible at intro. It does take a _long_ time to create a truly beautiful interactive disc. Simply porting over data/games is a cruel hoax of Interactive TV potential. A good disc can be an interactive odyssey, not simply dry facts/graphics. > 10. What other reasons, if any, can one give to justify CDTV being a much > more able multimedia device than CD-I? Technically, none that I can think of; sorry. But how about if I twist around and argue for CDTV for a while? Here we go: The best thing going for CDTV, as others have said, is the fact that some Amiga applications (games mostly; remember this is interactive TV, not a home computer) can be ported quickly. And yep, there are a lot of Amiga programmers. OTOH, high quality titles require much audio/video work and equipment for gathering data. For example, a CD-I studio often has PCs w/digitizers, 32-bit color Macs for touchup, Sun workstations for programming, all networked together with CD-I emulators. (There are also much lower cost development setups, but we're talking commerical studios). Now, visualize say, a Civil War buff club creating their own low-volume history discs from stuff they know or have, using AmigaVision (or CanDo). THAT could be exciting, if CBM makes mastering discs cheap/simple enough. > [...] now I am hearing that this thing is some type of video wizard that > will blow the socks off of CDTV. The video difference will be quickly apparent in some titles, but I don't think it will be the single most important factor, just as it wasn't for most consumers when buying home VCRs or PCs (us techno-junkies aside ;-). What _will_ be important is the interest-quality, selection, cost, advertising and availability of players and titles. We can only wait and see about the title situation. The player part seems to be heavily tipped in favor of CD-I, altho Commodore could make a C64 style attempt at flooding inexpensive players into the marketplace. I would be a heckuva lot happier if CBM simply made CD-I players instead. The most important thing about CD-I is that there will be price/feature competition from many player manufacturers. I like that a lot. > jonabbey@cs.utexas.edu (Jonathan David Abbey) adds: > Still and all though, it grieves me that CD-I should be so far in advance > of the Amiga technologically speaking... It grieves me too! It could be a whole different slant if CBM had the better technology. A good thing about CDTV is that it may have finally pushed CD-I out the door. A good thing about CD-I is that it may push CBM into upgrading Amiga gfx (and add MIDI??). Both things are winners to me. The only personal beef I have against CDTV is that it messed up a high baseline I-TV disc standardization... and worse, gave an excuse for Apple to throw in their own hat. What next, MSDOS home players? Arrrgh! :-) So in return for a quick buck from CBM devotees and unaware consumers, Nolan Bushnell has opened a Pandora's Box that I think will hurt us all, and _Commodore_ could lose more than anyone in the end. Think about it. Hey, but then again, maybe I just worry too much <g>. Regards - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu> (Not a student. I'm 37 yrs old :)
kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/09/91)
In <1991Apr8.191453.13243@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: >In <23238@know.pws.bull.com> ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes: >> >>8. I heard that CD-I was still at least two years away? When will a >> unit aimed at the home market and costing under $1000 be shipping? >> > Two years is unrealistic. Kevin is claiming September or >so, but I don't know about that. I'll believe it when I see it. I >HAVE seen CDTV and it is shipping. Ooops, Tom, sorry... I forgot to mention September is the latest word, tho I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a media blitz starts sooner, or if a trade show display took place before then. Of interest perhaps: at the Tokyo Electronics Trade Show last fall, over 30 exhibitors were showing CD-I players and/or titles. That was also where Sony showed off the LCD handheld player (see Popular Science Jan '91, page 41 for a picture) which is about the size of a 5" floppy drive. And over 180 companies worldwide have joined a CD-I Consortium; more expected. > Of course, the feeling I'm getting from Kevin's post (mainly because > I've never heard anyone else say these things about CD-I) [...] You weren't looking, is all ;-). Nothing unusual about that, altho *surely* most of us have a copy of the Amazing Computing issue which sneak-previewed the A3000 (V5.N5 May 1990)?? If so, check page 40 for a mostly accurate full page description of CD-I and its threat to CDTV. I have a lot of other references, but not in Amiga magazines, sorry. Will post some either here or in the <c.s.a.advocacy> CDTV thread. > ...is that you are getting a dream system for a ridiculously cheap price. > Reminds me of the NeXT, except I know that Panasonic, etc., are > in this for the money. Right. Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Magnavox, RCA, Sharp, Sanyo, Pioneer, Yamaha, JVC, Matsushita... they've invested millions. Dream system? Not MY dream system (I dream of cheap virtual-reality :) But I'm utterly dumbfounded that so many people are convinced that nice but hardly amazing (these days) NTSC graphics must cost a lot. Either you've been reading only Amiga postings for too long, or been stuck in college <grin - ie: not the real world>. Good golly. You can already buy some of the CD-I chipset right now at a "ridiculously cheap price". So your feeling is correct: just as with mass-produced CD-Audio players, VCRs, and TVs, you'll be getting neat technology at amazingly low cost. Nothing special about that, tho. Welcome to the wonderful world of home consumer electronics :-). cheers - kev <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr9.101605.7964@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: > > Unknown, as I haven't been able to get docs. To be honest, I'm not >positive all CD-I players will come with one. I do not think a blitter >is critical here, altho I can argue pro/con. Ask me this again later. > That could be a problem because, as is apparent from the Amiga market, people will program for the lowest common denominator. >pushed CD-I out the door. A good thing about CD-I is that it may push CBM >into upgrading Amiga gfx (and add MIDI??). Both things are winners to me. I believe that CDTV comes with MIDI builtin. > >Regards - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu> (Not a student. I'm 37 yrs old :) -- 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) (04/10/91)
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: >In article <1991Apr9.101605.7964@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >> >> Unknown, as I haven't been able to get docs. To be honest, I'm not >>positive all CD-I players will come with one. I do not think a blitter >>is critical here, altho I can argue pro/con. Ask me this again later. >> > That could be a problem because, as is apparent from the >Amiga market, people will program for the lowest common denominator. Perhaps, altho since CD-I programmers use system calls, it might also only mean that some players would be faster. Depends on how the video sequence timings are programmed. Interesting point. >>pushed CD-I out the door. A good thing about CD-I is that it may push CBM >>into upgrading Amiga gfx (and add MIDI??). Both things are winners to me. > I believe that CDTV comes with MIDI builtin. Sorry, I was unclear. I meant adding MIDI to the Amiga. Since they added it partly to the CDTV motherboard (I assume), it's possible that future A500 boards would have it also. Wouldn't that give ST folk fits? ;-) kev
drxmann@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dustin Christmann) (04/10/91)
In article <296@atacama.cs.utexas.edu> jonabbey@cs.utexas.edu (Jonathan David Abbey) writes: >(Ethan Solomita) writes: > >> This is also a good question. I can't believe that this >>can be produced at as good a price as CDTV. And if it comes down >>to a quality/price issue, we all remember Sony/Beta. > >The reason that VHS blew the doors off of Betamax included the fact that >only Sony supported Betamax, whereas the rest of the industry were >making cheaper and better VHS machines. In this case, the Betamax lesson >points the wrong way at Commodore, unless the rumour of Commodore licensing >of the CDTV technology comes true in a serious way. Yeah, but this reminds me of the mid-80's when a whole slew of Japanese manu- facturer got together behind the so-called MSX computers, which, if you lis- ten to all the experts, were supposed to take over the home computer market. What happened? This never happened and the Commodore 64 kept chugging along as the best-selling computer in the world. The moral of the story is: Just because everybody and his brother are behind something doesn't necessarily make it an instant success. I think the large existing software base will prevail for CDTV. >Still and all though, it grieves me that CD-I should be so far in advance of >the Amiga technologically speaking.. it does make sense, though. Intel and >company are not dull-witted, they have just been locked to a lackluster >standard in the PC world. I would trust them to do a bang-up job when given >a fresh page, and CD-I has been in development for years. Who's technically superior does not matter to the market at which CDTV is aimed. What matters is that you can go down to your local retailer and get pro- grams for it. That's why the NES continues to do well against technically su- perior competition. That's why the MS-DOG computers continue to do well. Again, the existing software base will be the thing that will help CDTV prevail. >It'll be interesting to see if Commodore advertises this thing well... They will. They've got the opportunity to have a near-monopoly on a product that has never been done before. This is unlike the Amiga, which was, when you got down to the essence, still a computer. -- Thanx, Internet: drxmann@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Dustin R. Christmann Bitnet: DRXMANN@UTXVM "Mein ganzes Leben hab ich nicht an sie geglaubt - Ausserirdische haben mein Maedchen geraubt!" -Die Aertze
slewis@sugar.hackercorp.com (Steve Lewis) (04/10/91)
Kevin, thanks for adding your insight about CD-I to the discussion. Its good to get a perspective about CDTV/CD-I from outside of the Amiga communtiy. CD-I sounds very interesting, but even more interesting is computers based on the CD-I technology. What can you tell us about them?
kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (04/11/91)
slewis@sugar.hackercorp.com (Steve Lewis) writes: >Kevin, thanks for adding your insight about CD-I to the discussion. >Its good to get a perspective about CDTV/CD-I from outside of the >Amiga communtiy. CD-I sounds very interesting, but even more interesting >is computers based on the CD-I technology. What can you tell us about them? Umm. Basically that it's premature to say much, mostly because they don't yet have the glitzy applications to interest most people. Hackers, yes. I should note here that a few of the CD-I players will be expandable in the same way as CDTV players (keyboard, disk, memory, SCSI, net, etc). I doubt (because of not wanting to alienate technophobic consumers) that this route will be officially pushed in the US, altho overseas might be another story. US third-party expansion is a real probability tho. At least two small companies will soon be selling systems based around the Signetics 68070 cpu, and 66470 VSC (Video System Controller) chips. That gives you a nice, tiny 68K card (perfect for controllers too, btw) with up to 720x480 16-color or 360x480 256-color, color RLE mode, some amiga-copper-like processing, a pixel-logic unit, and NTSC or PAL output. One of them was recently being promoted for $875, which included: a 15Mhz 68070 cpu, VSC with 1-meg RAM and a 16-million color DACRAM, DMA SCSI port and 3.5" 1.44meg floppy, 5 serial ports, 2 parallel ports, XT keyboard port, RTC, slots for Mac/PC SIMM expansion to 3/9 megabytes, analog joystick port, DMA-driven stereo 8-bit sound output AND input. Software includes multitask/user OS-9 with c compiler, basic, uucp, windows, networking, and a slew of utilities. Optional low-profile case/pwr $100. Future computers in this vein will have 68030s (prototype already in use), dual VSCs (like the CD-I players), perhaps even a built-in video digitizer. I'll keep you informed. Thanks! kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>