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From: Radagast@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: DCTV, Ham-E and AmiExpo ...
Message-ID: <35115@cup.portal.com>
Date: 21 Oct 90 17:59:48 GMT
References: <4957@crash.cts.com> <35075@cup.portal.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 68

Re: Ham-E .vs. DCTV
> 
>Any and all impressions/suggestions regarding which might be better would be
>sincerely appreciated.  My budget is too stretched to be able to purchase bot
>or to make a mistake and get the wrong one.  I'm sure there must be a LOT of
>other people out there trying to decide.  (The Toaster and Firecracker boards
>are beyond my budget right now.)
>                                         Julie (LadyHawke)

Rather than compare the two (since I haven't seen both) I'd like to point out
what I consider some strengths of the HAM-E.

*	It performs as advertised.  I have no complaints about the images
	rendered to HAM-E format.  It will take a while though before 
	utilities start supporting the device directly.

*	It has RGB outputs.  If I want to go to video, I also want to be
	able to choose the Genlock that will do that myself.  I believe in
	modularity, meaning that I can replace any part of a system as it
	begins to fall below my expectations.  The HAM-E does not try to 
	be anything other than a display device.

*	The Paint program is available in Source form from the vendor. 
	This makes the HAM-E very attractive as a hackers upgrade.  Personally
	I find that appealing.

*	The hardware is very adjustable.  The end user has incredible latitude
	in control over the contrast, brightness, and color balance of the
	device.  Presumably these levels could be adjusted to allow a good
	Genlock to use the full range of output from the device.  (On the
	other hand, installation is a pain, as I've said before.  Getting it
	to work is easy, but getting it to match the Amiga output levels 
	isn't.)
 
>         Ham-E with hardware and paint software runs $300
>         Add a DigiFX (sp?) encoder to go to video     99
>                                        Price        $399
> 
>         DCTV (apparently encoder is built in)       $399

My brochures say:

	HAM-E   	$299.95
	DigiView 4.0	$140.
			====
			$440

	DCTV		$495
 
Obviously DigiView can be found discounted more than that.  With these systems
the differences would be the output format (NTSC .vs. RGB --- SuperGen2000
(also by Digital Creations) would add another $1800 or so to get to NTSC, but
at an arguably better quality), software (both have in house paint packages,
DigiView comes with the DigiView Software), and about $45 in cost which is 
IMHO relatively inconsequential. 

                           -Sullivan_-_Segall (a.k.a. Radagast)
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