aman@xroads.UUCP (Chris Minshall) (02/16/91)
Here is the real info. on colorburst from MAST. Any ?'s, send me e-mail.
***** COLORBURST *****
TRUE 24 BIT COLOR!
At last! An affordable 24 bit colorcard with high resolution and great
flexibility. ColorBurst delivers TRUE 24 bit color with 16.8 million
colors per pixel in full overscan. With a resolution of up to 768 x 580
pixels,this is a professional graphics card at a consumer price.
ColorBurst is more than just a display card. It includes a powerful
graphics coprocessor that generates many real time video effects.
ColorBurst is a complete ready to use system, including a slideshow
program, Sculpt, Silver, and DigiView loaders, and a 24 bit IFF paint and
image processing program.
ColorBurst allows you to freely mix Amiga and ColorBurst Video, (WorkBench
could be displayed with a 24 bit picture behind it, and because ColorBurst
has its own memory, it doesn't tie up any Amiga memory).
ColorBurst is compatible with ALL Amigas, and is fully transparent
allowing your Amiga to work in normal graphics mode. ColorBurst gives the
impression that the new graphics modes are an inbuilt part of your Amiga.
ColorBurst connects to the RGB connector and does not tie up any ports.
Once installed there are no switches to set. ColorBurst is available in
PAL or NTSC and is fully GenLock compatible for extremely high quality
Broadcast video. No special monitor is necessary. You can use your
standard Amiga monitor!
ColorBurst has 1.5 megabytes of video memory built in for its own use.
Pictures can be loaded into this memory and use no Amiga chip RAM. Up to
four full screen overscan 24 bit images can be stored in memory.
ColorBurst's Video Coprocessor makes many realtime video special effects
possible, including:
* Continuous Hardware Vertical and horizontal scrolling in 24 bits (for
video titling and games)
* Dual playfield displays, freely mixing Amiga graphics in front of or
behind ColorBurst graphics. Video priority can be set for every pixel
on the screen, e.g. an apple and an orange could be displayed
overlapping side by side and an Amiga-displayed man could walk in front
of the orange and behind the apple
* Dual 24 bit display - two 24 bit images can be stored in memory and
switched pixel by pixel with Hardware stencil. (24 bit image with 24 bit
overlay)
* 24 Bit virtual sprites (even as large as screen)
* Change graphics modes, priority modes, display modes and palettes on any
scan line
* Double buffered and page flipped animation. (up to 60 fps)
* Hardware Stencil for video priority when mixing Amiga and ColorBurst
Graphics. Every pixel's priority can be independantly controlled.
Stencil defines if that region of the ColorBurst picture will appear
in front of or behind Amiga Graphics.
* Display modes, Palettes and Priority can be controlled on every scan
line.
* Explodes, dissolves, wipes in any shape or pattern between ColorBurst,
Amiga and live GenLocked video
* Many Display resolutions and modes including hi-res 8 bit VGA, 15 bit
true color.
Because ColorBurst is true RGB, it is vastly superior in resolution and
picture quality to composite video. For video production you can output
in high quality composite or Y/C video with over 700 lines of resolution,
by using a GenLock or Video modulator. The visual difference between RGB
video and composite video is like the audio difference between Compact
Disc and low quality Audio Cassette. Unlike some composite display cards,
a special attachment is NOT required to use ColorBurst with a GenLock.
ColorBurst has 3 times the effective video bandwidth of DCTV.
ColorBurst picture quality is sharp and clean. Image manipulation and
processing is a lot faster than Hold and Modify (HAM) graphics because
each pixel is purely described by its own 24 bit number, avoiding the
bleeding, dithering, streaking, inaccuracies, and slow processor
intensive algorithms required for HAM picture manipulation. ColorBurst
has twice the pixel resolution and far superior shading to any HAM card
available.
Once loaded into Amiga Memory, picture update is instant, allowing fast
realtime image processing and painting in full 24 bits before your eyes.
ColorBurst is capable of continuous double buffered, full overscan,
flicker free 24 bit animation at up to 20 frames/second or
60 frames/second in 8 bit mode. ColorBurst also supports 24 bit virtual
sprites; allowing you to move 24 bit brushes or images (even as large as
the whole screen) around in real time. When animating in 24 bits it is
important to consider the Amount of data that you are moving. Full
overscan hires interlaced 24 bit screens require 1.2 M of memory!
Animation that moves subscreen areas of a picture on a full screen is
much faster than updating a completely new screen each time. The only
bottle neck to animating speed is how fast you can load from memory or
your hard drive. Subscreen animations though, can easily realize speeds
of 20 frames/sec. Also, you can use some of the other modes such as 15
bit or 8 bit to achieve faster animation. For full independant frame
animations in real time (30 fps) you will need to go stop frame edit.
Some display cards such as the Video Toaster and the Mimetics frame
buffer require you to edit and paint your pictures in a HAM paint
program because they cannot update their pictures fast enough, then you
must do a SLOW transfer and wait before seeing the picture. ColorBurst
updates the changes to your screen instantly so you can paint and image
process with 16.8 million colors in real time! See your results as you
go!
All of the display modes are palette-mapped and can be updated at 60
frames/second. This makes many more real time special effects possible.
These include:
* Complex color cycling animations
* 'Smooth as butter' digital fade in/out to any palette or color.
* Solarizing, paint effects, negatives, color schemes smoothly growing
from one palette to the next.
* Realtime white balance correction.
ColorBurst is set to become the standard for the Amiga because of its low
cost, universal compatibility, powerful features, very high quality, and
accessibility by the Copper, Blitter and Intuition for Amiga friendly
access to the device.
Full comprehensive Developers kits are available, and strong developer
support will be provided through the MAST BBS (702) 359 0132. Full 'C'
and 68000 source code will be provided.
Beware of others insinuating 24 bit video, but are inferior in image
quality, such as some HAM or composite cards and are not TRUE 24 bit.
TRUE 24 bit is HERE NOW. This is the Most Affordable and powerful 24 bit
card available.
Maximum resolutions chart
Bits per Pixel Maximum resolution Screens in memory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
48 384 * 580 (480 NTSC) 1
24 768 * 580 (480 NTSC) 1
18 768 * 580 (580 NTSC) 1
15 768 * 580 (480 NTSC) 1
12 768 * 580 (480 NTSC) 2
8 768 * 580 (480 NTSC) 3
7 to 1 768 * 580 (480 NTSC) up to 96
____________________________________________________________________________
Full overscan is supported. Lower resolutions can be used to provide more
screens in memory if required.
A 6 megabyte expansion may be provided if there is sufficient demand.
One other piece of info regarding the colorburst. The routines that control
the colorburst (callable from C and assembly) allow 24-bit screens to be
opened in FAST MEM or on a hard drive. This allows one to open up a 24-bit
virtual screen that could conceivably be the size of the hard drive!!!!!
Have I got your attention yet?????
--
\ / C r o s s r o a d s C o m m u n i c a t i o n s
/\ (602) 941-2005 300|1200 Baud 24 hrs/day
/ \ hplabs!hp-sdd!crash!xroads!amanmark@calvin..westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) (02/19/91)
Anthon_Pang@mindlink.UUCP (Anthon Pang) writes: >>Sounds like MAST marketing hogwash to me. 24bit RGB NTSC at 20 frames per/sec >>is roughly 20MB/sec. I don't think so. >Isn't it a fallacy to assume that every frame must reside in memory, in whole? >If they can get 20 frames/sec, surely they can use double buffering, and blit >deltas in real time... >The claims aren't so "ridiculous" when one considers that this is almost >precisely the technique used by MovieSetter for "animation". It is completely ridiculous if you are working with 768 x 480 24bit images with any reasonable amount of image movement. If only 20% of the image changes from frame to frame, a sustained data rate of 4.5MB/s is required. You will not achieve this with your hard drive >In article <1220@xroads.UUCP> aman@xroads.UUCP (Chris Minshall) writes: >Here is the real info. on colorburst from MAST. Any ?'s, send me e-mail. > ***** COLORBURST ***** > TRUE 24 BIT COLOR! ACK!!! more marketing hype!!!! I received a reply from Gary Rayner, the designer of ColorBurst and he gave me a very informative run down of what the board truly does. I have to thank him heartily for the no-bull description and commend him on a fine product. Here is what he wrote (note that the animation he mentions is only ~900KB/s): ------------------------------------- Addressing your scepticism about ColorBurst:- My name is Gary Rayner, The Designer of ColorBurst. I independantly designed ColorBurst. an M.A.S.T. will be manufacturing and distributing my product. I won an Australian Design Award for ColorBurst. I am sorry that you have been a little disinformed about ColorBurst. ColorBurst is ALIVE and WELL and many well informed people have seen ColorBurst Operating:- Talk to Jean Braun ( one editor for AmigaWorld) who is very familiar with ColorBurst:- He is a video GURU and has seen all of the other products as well. (eg Video Toaster and Fire- Cracker ... and DCTV) He was Blown Away by the ColorBurst and the Sharp crystal clear RGB output. Let me address to a few of your Questions and tell you about ColorBurst. ColorBurst has 1.5 megabytes of video RAM onboard. ColorBurst also supports double buffered 24 bit animation (in lo-res 384 * 480 mode). I agree that you CANNOT load 20 - 30 megabytes per second from any Hard drive. maybe > 1megabyte a second with a fast Hard drive and Controller. You CAN do deluxe paint style animation (update the partial changes to the overall picture) with considerable speed because you can use the Amiga's Blitter to manipulate objects. Also you can glitch free animate this with the double buffering at 20 frames second. We can animate a 150 * 100 pixel 24 bit screen in realtime (20 frames a second) from the MAST fireball harddrive with a Fujitsu 180 meg drive. other drives and controllers would have similar performance. The ColorBurst Has a Coprocessor (similar in operation the the Amiga's Copper.) that allows you to change video modes on any scan line, update video RAM address counters ( to give you perfect-ly smooth real time continuous scrolling for video titling etc.), Change resolutions and change memory banks for Animating and switch stencils on and off. ColorBurst has 2 hardware stencils. (1) gives pixel by pixel control over which 24 bit playfield will show in 48 bit mode (24 bit screen with 24 bit over lay). The (2) second stencil allows pixel by pixel switching and priority con- troll between Amiga and ColorBurst graphics (YES! you can freely mix ANY Amiga and ColorBurst graphics on a pixel by pixel basis , sort of like a genlock but you can actually specify with the stencil that ColorBurst graphics appear over the top of Amiga Graphics. You can backdrop or overlay ColorBurst graphics to any Intuition Screen. Eg: Deluxe Paint or Workbench) The DMA transfer rate of data from the Amiga to ColorBurst is 5.5 megabytes per second. The ColorBurst has a 23 way video "D" connector that is functionally identical, and is a pass-thru of Amiga video. ColorBurst is compatible with all external Genlocks and the SCAN RATE is NTSC, PAL, or SECAM in RGB output. Operation is -lways been a part of your Amiga. Some technical specs on display output. SAMPLE RATE 14.37 Msamples/sec. (better than CCIR601 standard of 13.5 mhz). EFFECTIVE VIDEO BANDWIDTH 7.15 mhz VIDEO DYNAMIC RANGE 48db per Red, Green, and Blue channel PIXEL SWITCH 20ns These specifications are greater than the CCIR601 standard (D1 format) set down for broadcast video and has higher resolution than the standard Quantel Paintbox Painting onscreen is in real time WYSIWYG and ColorBurst comes complete with a 24 bit realtime paint program and slideshow loader. If you want to talk tech or know a lot more about ColorBurst call the MAST BBS on (702) 359 0132 and leave a message for me in conference #9 (ColorBurst Conference). Full developers kits and full routines are freely available. Thanks for your interest. Be assured that this product is here now (see us at the New York show) P.S. You can program the ColorBurst also with Intuition and Blitter calls (have 24 bit Gadgets and requestors) Read Bulettin #1 or Conference #9 for more Color-Burst info. Regards Gary Rayner - Designer. ----------------------------------------------- My sincere apologies if anyone thought I was slamming this product, I was not. I was merely trying to separate the hype from the facts. The facts seem to indicate that this is an outstanding board, especially for the price. Hope this clears things up. %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% % ` ' Mark Thompson % % --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com % % ' Image ` ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark % % Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 % % % ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
n350bq@tamuts.tamu.edu (Duane Fields) (02/19/91)
Is there any word on 3000 compatibility? What I was REALLY wondering was how would that work with the VGA, 'flicker-fixer' mode, since it hooks to the 23 pin D port. Would you have to hook it to another monior, or just not use the VGA port? Duane | Duane Fields | Friends don't | President, aTmiga club | | Box 1315 | let friends use | Fone# (409) 847-6760 | | College Station, Tx 77841 | MS-DOS. | n350bq@tamuts.tamu.edu |
akk@trantor.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Andy Klingler) (02/19/91)
In article <61725@masscomp.westford.ccur.com>, Mark Thompson writes: > The facts seem to indicate that this is an outstanding board, especially > for the price. > OK. Maybe I missed it somewhere, but what`s the price? --- Andreas Klingler akk@trantor.informatik.uni-erlangen.de If you have enough patience, everything can be simulated Marvin Minsky
n368bq@tamuts.tamu.edu (Raoul Rodriguez) (02/19/91)
Allright, now, to the people who have put info up on the Colorburst, thanks! (especially from the designer), and everyonw has said that this is a great product, especially at the price.... well, WHAT IS THE %&^% PRICE??? NO ONE HAS SAID YET!!! I am talking about the average mail order price (although the suggesyted retail price would be nice as well... Thanks... Raoul "My 500 Has a Detachable Keyboard" Rodriguez n368bq@tamuts.tamu.edu Standard Disclaimers Apply (Within)
fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu (02/20/91)
The price of the Colorburst is a measly $495 list...
--Rick Wrigley
fhwri@conncoll.bitnet
~~~---second-hand smoke is THEFT---~~~SteveX@omx.UUCP (Steve Tibbett) (02/21/91)
In article <1220@xroads.UUCP> aman@xroads.UUCP (Chris Minshall) writes: >ColorBurst has 1.5 megabytes of video memory built in for its own use. >Pictures can be loaded into this memory and use no Amiga chip RAM. Up to >four full screen overscan 24 bit images can be stored in memory. Is this memory mapped into the Amiga address space, or addressed through a port? >* Complex color cycling animations How can you color cycle a 24 bit image? >ColorBurst is set to become the standard for the Amiga because of its low >cost, universal compatibility, powerful features, very high quality, and >accessibility by the Copper, Blitter and Intuition for Amiga friendly >access to the device. How much does it cost? And, if it doesn't take any Amiga memory, how can the Copper and Blitter access it? And how can Intuition access it? The Blitter and Copper can only access Amiga Chip RAM yet you said >Pictures can be loaded into this memory and use no Amiga chip RAM. and if Intuition is going to access it, that'd mean that you've written your own graphics.library and intuition.library and layers.library? -- ...Steve Tibbett...bix=s.tibbett...Plink=STEVEX...BBS=613-731-3419... ...VirusX=4.01...Insert Disclaimer Here...