Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!ogicse!ucsd!ames!amdahl!twg.com!obelix!david From: david@twg.com (David Herron) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Apple... Message-ID: <5790@gollum.twg.com> Date: 6 May 90 05:52:35 GMT References: <2498@crash.cts.com> Sender: news@twg.com Reply-To: david@twg.com (David Herron) Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 55 In article<2498@crash.cts.com>seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) writes: >networking products for the Amiga are cheaper (and for those of you worried >about networking the A500, according to the latest Amazing, the A560 is an >Arcnet card for the A500, under development). The ONLY thing we're missing is >a good true-color system...but I'm confident that there will be one, if not >many, soon. oh good.. somebody else noticed the arcnet-for-A500 card. I was gonna mention that. As for "good true-color". At FAUG the other night there was a presentation by Digital Creations of DCTV, you can see it mentioned in the current Amiga World too. DCTV is slightly similar to HAM-E in that it encodes bitmaps in a funny way to pass a compressed video image out to special hardware which decodes the compressed image into a real one. But that's where the similarity ends.. DCTV does varying bits/pixel the most being 24 bits/pixel. The data stored on the system is the same size as, for instance, a full size HAM picture. That is, ~150 Kbytes as opposed to 1.5 megs for a normal 24 bit image. The pictures are displayable with normal ILBM display programs, by simply wrapping the bits in an ILBM IFF wrapper. This is apparently a slight misuse of the standard but is a good expedient because they were able to show Deluxe Paint III doing an animation their data files -- in full 24 bit glory. (mis)using ILBM is only one of many possible storage formats they support.. How does it look? It looks like a real picture! Well.. a real picture that has a fuzzy lens. I mean, there's natural looking gradations of color from place to place, no abrupt changing from one tone to another, etc. Some of the sample pictures were of fuzzy/hairy animals (bears, people) and unfortunately the individual hairs were too fuzzy to make out -- even when I was standing right next to the monitor and watching *CLOSE*. Somehow a digitizer snuck its way into the design. The digitizer is the way they got all the pictures used in the demonstration. During the talk portion of the demo, an assistant was busily digitizing away. It was as easy as pointing the camera, clicking something, and watching a 24 bit image come up on the screen. It did take 6 seconds though so you're limitted to stills. The animation I mentioned above was a claymation sort of thing generated by setting a godzilla toy on a lazy susan and turning it around, waving it's arms, moving a car through the background and snapping pictures from time to time. Hey, it worked.. This thing is really really good ... Expected availability is mid summer. expected price is $500. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF weenie, <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <- <- (funny quote under construction)