ghost@bucsf.bu.edu (Jay Adelson) (01/24/91)
Could some people post some comments on the framegrabber? I'm interested in purchasing one, and was wondering if anyone had any reviews/comments. Thanks! -- """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" [ Jay Adelson | BIX: j.adelson ] [ T.G.C. ] [ ghost@bucsf.bu.edu | Channel One: ] [ 1039 Commonwealth Ave. #18 ] [ GEnie: J.ADELSON1 | Jay Adelson ] [ Boston, MA. 02215-1008 ]
cgehman@hubcap.clemson.edu (Corey Gehman) (01/24/91)
ghost@bucsf.bu.edu (Jay Adelson) writes: >Could some people post some comments on the framegrabber? >I'm interested in purchasing one, and was wondering if anyone had >any reviews/comments. >Thanks! You're talking about Progressive Peripheral's FrameGrabber right? OK, I've had one since they came out (almost) and it works great. The biggest problem/limitation is the NTSC and amiga standards. It's limited to a 4096 palette and to 320x400 in ham mode which is fine if all you have is an Amiga but not so good if you want to display it on a 1024x800 display with 256 colors (very small pictures). I find the Framegrabber much easier to use than Digi-view. You have three potentiometers that you adjust for the picture and then press a button and about 30 seconds later you have a picture. It does it all real-time so you don't need to pause your vcr (LIVE! sucks). It even has a pass- through for the video so you can see the image on your monitor, but it looks far worse than what would be digitized so you can't really use that for adjustments. It does multiply minor problems into major problems. For example, I have a digital VCR that can freeze a picture perfectly (well as far as jitter goes), but there is a small amount of color aliasing. The framegrabber multiplies that error and makes something that was just barely noticable into a real problem. I hope this helps a little. Doesn't the Toaster have a video digitizer included? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Corey Gehman | "you will get to watch the Amiga | | cg377170@lion.eng.clemson.edu | FIREWORKS_DISPLAY mode." | | cgehman@hubcap.clemson.edu | - Intuition Reference Manual |
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu ("J. Eric Townsend") (01/24/91)
In article <GHOST.91Jan23174942@bucsf.bu.edu> ghost@bucsf.bu.edu (Jay Adelson) writes: >Could some people post some comments on the framegrabber? I'll assume you're talking about the Mimetics Framebuffer+grabber... I've got one, and it seems to work quite well. I have a couple of complaints, however, that are resolvable: 1. It's slow saving and loading anything other than "raw dumps". The image must be converted from the Mimetic's internal format into IFF of the appropriate size and resolution. This is not a trivial problem (compute wise), and my stock A2000 is not exactly the fastest machine in the world. Solution: buy a GVP '030 card of some sort. 2. Really non-intuitive and somewhat hostile user interface. It *is* release 1.0something, so I'm not too surprised that it's painful. My developer's kit is supposed to be on its merry way, so maybe I can do something about this sometime in the near future. -- J. Eric Townsend Internet: jet@uh.edu Bitnet: jet@UHOU Systems Mangler - UH Dept. of Mathematics - (713) 749-2120 Motorola skates on Intel's head!
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu ("J. Eric Townsend") (01/24/91)
Going to add some stuff to my previous post... The Mimetics unit uses a Zorro slot (*not* the video slot), has NTSC in/out, and a max res (with Mimetics' software) of 746x484x24bits. I don't know what the hardware limitations are... I think 746x484 is close to max on NTSC -- is there a "resolution" for the scan line? My svideo vcr hits something around 500 lines resolution on it's s-video out. -- J. Eric Townsend Internet: jet@uh.edu Bitnet: jet@UHOU Systems Mangler - UH Dept. of Mathematics - (713) 749-2120 Motorola skates on Intel's head!
frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David J Frerichs) (01/24/91)
What is a Zorro slot? "chimes from an alien to amiga" [dfRERICHS University of Illinois, Urbana Designing VR systems that work... Dept. of Computer Engineering IEEE/SigGraph Looking for cyberspace? frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Well stop your snivelin', son, frerichs@well.sf.ca.us you've been in here all along! ]
mark@calvin..westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) (01/26/91)
In article <12768@hubcap.clemson.edu> cgehman@hubcap.clemson.edu (Corey Gehman) writes: >Doesn't the Toaster have a video digitizer included? Actually it has a video frame grabber (lets split some hairs here) which implies real-time digitization, where as a digitizer may (and often is) a slow scan device like digi-view. What is unique about the Toaster frame grabber is that it captures 8 consequtive fields (4 frames) of video in order to achieve full NTSC color resolution. I believe it takes 4 fields to fully define NTSC color. A software a gadget is provided to remove any motion that may occur in those frames. What I am wondering is how other broadcast freeze frames deal with this problem. Anybody know? And what about other Amiga frame grabbers? %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% % ` ' Mark Thompson % % --==* RADIANT *==-- mark@westford.ccur.com % % ' Image ` ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark % % Productions (508)392-2480 (603)424-1829 % % % ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu ("J. Eric Townsend") (01/26/91)
In article <61658@masscomp.ccur.com> mark@calvin.westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) writes: >I believe it takes 4 fields to fully define NTSC >color. A software a gadget is provided to remove any motion that may occur >in those frames. What I am wondering is how other broadcast freeze >frames deal with this problem. Anybody know? And what about other Amiga >frame grabbers? The Mimetics unit grabs four full fields as well. However, two fields == one frame, so you get two full frames mixed in at once. If there's motion, things get ugly. So, with the Mimetics, you have to save off the first two fields as an RGB file, then reload them and resave in whatever format you want. This is really silly, IMHO. Why not just have a "save 2/4 fields" option, and save in whatever format you need? Maybe my dev kit will get here soon, and all my troubles will end... -- J. Eric Townsend Internet: jet@uh.edu Bitnet: jet@UHOU Systems Mangler - UH Dept. of Mathematics - (713) 749-2120 Motorola skates on Intel's head!