cmp9133@sys.uea.ac.uk (A.C. Lock) (06/13/91)
I read this morning in "New Computer Express" (a UK magazine) that a CD-I machine has finally been released in the US by Philips. Obviously with names like Sony and Philips making these things, Commodore are going to have to pray that the CDTV makes a big impact before the others get into the battle. But wait ! What's to stop CDTV and Amiga owners from using emulators which can read CD-I disks ? Afterall CD-I is only the protocol, all the different machine models that will appear will all have different specifications in terms of screen resolution,colour capability,sound channels etc. , and I am pretty sure that some of these will be comparable to that of the amiga. Does anyone else have any ideas/criticisms about this subject ? Adam Lock
kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) (06/13/91)
cmp9133@sys.uea.ac.uk (A.C. Lock) writes: > But wait ! What's to stop CDTV and Amiga owners from using emulators which > can read CD-I disks ? Afterall CD-I is only the protocol, all the different > machine models that will appear will all have different specifications in > terms of screen resolution, colour capability, sound channels etc., and I > am pretty sure that some of these will be comparable to that of the amiga. > > Does anyone else have any ideas/criticisms about this subject ? <Readying fingers for a 200-line explanation, then deciding to take pity :-> Umm. CD-I _is_ also a base hardware specification. What you're wanting is roughly the equivalent of asking an Atari ST to emulate all Amiga graphic capabilities, and at something approaching decent speed. And in many ways, the same would apply if you asked CD-I to emulate an CDTV. They're just too different, audio/graphics-wise, for realtime conversions. Actually, the subject of a more machine-independent (eg: CDROM-XA) disc was something I really wanted to get into a few months back during the "CD-I/CDTV Wars" here. But no one would let us get that far along <sigh>. I do want to thank you for a perfect opening question tho. It _was_ very tempting to ask you how a CDTV player could possibly emulate even a simple CD-I case of a 100-color animation overlaid on a 170,000 color photograph, with hardware transparency effects. Ooops. Sorry! Like Dr Strangelove, I just couldn't help it :-) :-) best - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (06/14/91)
In article <1991Jun13.121935.25554@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: > >I do want to thank you for a perfect opening question tho. It _was_ very >tempting to ask you how a CDTV player could possibly emulate even a simple >CD-I case of a 100-color animation overlaid on a 170,000 color photograph, >with hardware transparency effects. Ooops. Sorry! Like Dr Strangelove, >I just couldn't help it :-) :-) best - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu> I'm sure that the CD-I specs, as well as the chips involved, are available to Commodore. One thing CBM may be considering doing is making MPEG and CD-I compatible graphics chips as the next-generation Amiga chipset. Then they could run CD-I emulation, as well as have a graphics chip set to lead them for 2-3 more years (assuming it were out now 8). Well, it's an idea, don't know if there are any thoughts about it at West Chester. -- Ethan Now the world has gone to bed, Now I lay me down to sleep, Darkness won't engulf my head, Try to count electric sheep, I can see by infrared, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night. How I hate the night. -- Marvin