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From: jason@cbmami.UUCP (Jason Goldberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: AmigaExpo - DCTV, HAM-E, and Colorburst Impressions
Message-ID: <18d90924.ARN0f35@cbmami.UUCP>
Date: 18 Mar 91 22:07:16 GMT
References: <13948@life.ai.mit.edu> <1991Mar14.231042.26446@ncsu.edu> <14058@life.ai.mit.edu>
 <1991Mar18.154731.4785@dialogic.com>
Reply-To: jason@cbmami.UUCP
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Lines: 67

In article <1991Mar18.154731.4785@dialogic.com>, Gerry Lachac writes:

  [ Stuff deleted ]

> WARNING - these are my impressions of the companies and their devotion
> 	  to their products by their appearance at the show.  This is
> 	  what caught my eye, which I feel is the most important,
> 	  since we are talking about graphicsproducts that will be
> 	  used for multi-media presentations.
> 	  Eye-catching is very key to this.  This show had a very
> 	  professional "feel" to it - more like a UNIXExpo than a
> 	  consumer-oriented show.  
> 
> 
> DCTV	Very impressive!  By far the most impressive of the three
> 	because of the marketing.  Seriously.  The booth was huge,
> 	they were very well organized, and it looks like they spent a
> 	lot of time and money.  They give the impression that they are
> 	extremely serious about their product. The had a nice
> 	dual-company demo with ISV (? - I don't remember the acronym).
> 	It was a 4 minute full-motion/full-stereo sound video of the
> 	last part of Back to the Future III, using a 16-bit audio card
> 	by ISV and DCTV.  All straight from hard disk.  I was left
> 	speechless.

I agree about DCTV, the company that they were doing the demos with is IVS
(Interactive Video Systems), makers of the Trumpcard, Trumpcard Pro, and
Printerface.

> 
> HAM-E	Not as impressive a booth.  The literature gave a nice
> 	side-by-side comparison of HAM-E vs. DCTV.  They seemed
> 	serious, but either didn't have the money to invest in a
> 	flashy booth, or the marketing expertise or both.  They
> 	however seemed to have a well-staffed booth with people who
> 	knew what they were talking about.  This impressed me.
> 
[ stuff deleted ]

I have to agree about HAM-E not knowing how to market.  I recently got to
see a demo of HAM-E and they only showed there pre-made images, when I
asked to see the paint program, the guy told me that hw wasn't much of an
artist so he couldn't.  Well, a few days latter I got to put one through
its paces and I am very disappointed (I really wanted it to be better than
DCTV so I could use it with my genlock).  When I loaded images made from
the Toaster or DCTV they looked awfull, there was HAM-like fringing on all
the edges of the picture (the pre-made HAM-E picutres conviently all have
dark borders...).  The paint program seemed to have enough features but was
not too intuitive and paled in comparision to DCTV Paint.  The manual (which
fell apart in my hand) did not mention how to use th "hi-res" switch on the
box, and I was not able to make the switch do anything.  When I showed
scaneed images on both DCTV and HAM-E side by side every customer I had
picked the DCTV output.  I can't imagine why any dealer would want to sell
it since in each package they include an add for HAM-E advertizing a price
direct from Black Belt of $299 which is below what they sell to dealers
for!

On a more positive note, I just recieved a $400 Chroma-Keyer for the Amiga
which will work with any External Genlock and it looks pretty good.  I will
post a review when I get to test it out better.


-Jason-

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Jason Goldberg				UUCP: ucsd!serene!cbmami!jason
Del Mar, CA