Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!scslwide!wsgw!headgw!shigw!cvgw!yamanaka From: yamanaka@cv.sony.co.jp (Brian YAMANAKA) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re:Multimedia == AmigaVision! Message-ID: Date: 11 Oct 90 10:06:05 GMT Sender: news@cv.sony.co.jp (Usenet News System) Distribution: comp.sys.amiga Organization: Sony Corporation, Consumer Video Group Lines: 52 In response to the question "What do you think of AmigaVision," I must say that it is an good product with a lot of features. BUT after having just attending the International Multi-Media Show in Tokyo, I find that the Mac has some truly exciting ideas for multi-media. The interface on AmigaVision while easy to program with doesn't hold up to products I have seen at the show. I'm not putting down the developers of AmigaVision - the work put into it was well done - I just want to make several suggestions. First of all I think that it is necessary to represent icons by the actual data that they represent. Picture icons should be a small version of the image, sound icons may have an image of the sound wave, and live images sould also have an icon (perhaps via something like A-Live!) All of the Mac products I saw provide these features. Secondly, we need hyper-links! This is something that no multi-media product will live without (at lest in the presentation market). The Amiga is still one of the best platforms to deliver the presentation. The Mac without DMA cannot handle moving large pieces of data and the programs had noticeable scroll-lag with large graphic images. I think the weakest link is in the types of human-interfaces people have been leaning towards. The other guys are catching up fast in the Mac market so Commodore should put a lot of work in helping developers to create programs with great interfaces and that use all of the features of the Amiga. One last point, I've tried to use the dBase feature of AVison and found it lacking in many commands. Especially in the market of search criteria. The method of suing icons seems very awkward for this process. I hope that someone will expand the database features and incorperate the aforementioned hyper-links. I hope that this will help get some people really thinking at Commodore at how they will approach the multi-media market. Speaking for myself they are not doing enough to push it's ability and rallying the support of software developers in this field. Apple does a gret job of supporting their developers, and gets the co-operation of other companies to help them in the design of their products. I think Commodore should consider or work more hard towards creating relationships with developers and provide many tools for them. I've said more than enough so let the discussion begin. Brian yamanaka@cv.sony.jp <----I think. I've only been here a week and it's all Japanese to me. -- --------------------------------------------------- Brian YAMANAKA Sony Corporation, Consumer Video Group Email: yamanaka@cv.sony.co.jp