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From: tph@tex.asd.sgi.com (Tim Heidmann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Video Creator vs. Video Framer
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.183626.20702@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 28 Jan 91 18:36:26 GMT
References: <11439@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
Reply-To: tph@tex.asd.sgi.com (Tim Heidmann)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Corporate Marketing
Lines: 28

The Video Creator is primarily for getting realtime videofrom the screen.
Scan conversion hardware compresses the 1024 line screen to a 525 line
video image in realtime.  Since the board has its own frame buffer,
you can also download still images to do single-frame recording as
a background process (not requiring any screen real estate). The Video
Creator does not do video input of any kind, and it produces only
analog video output (RGB, Y/C, and Composite).

The Video Framer is intended for single-frame input and output.
The board can output or grab a single video frame in Composite, Y/C, RGB,
YUV, or D1.  The Digital video I/O makes the board particularly
well suited for our broadcast animation customers.  The composite output
is generated by a software encoding process, so advanced filtering
techniques similar to a Faroudja encoder can be used, eliminating many
of the artifacts present in a computer-generated signal.  The board
has no realtime capabilities, in or out.

Both products include VLAN master hardware, used for controlling videotape
decks for single-frame recording, frame accurate frame grab, or even
multiple machine editing.  This application requires an editing VCR and
additional VLAN hardware for each VCR.

The Video Creator lives on a 9U VME card or an external box with SCSI
interface for single frame downloading.  The Video Framer is a 6U VME card so
it can be used in the single VME slot of a Personal IRIS, or the slots
of a Power Series workstation using a 9U expansion card.

Hope this helps.