Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!taco!hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu!kdarling From: kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: CDTV and CD-I (last) Message-ID: <1991Apr13.062749.6607@ncsu.edu> Date: 13 Apr 91 06:27:49 GMT Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System) Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 65 In <1991Apr12.131236.5282@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: > [out of order quote] If those big Japanese companies ... Make that "big Japanese, Dutch, and American" companies :-). > What about when CD drives improve in a few years and get better > transfer rates? HDTV? What about cheap MPEG chips and 24bit color vs > RLE compression? What about having a 68040 as the standard processor It seems to me that you're making a great argument against CDTV's existence. Anyway :-), those improved CD drives and HDTV are very likely to come from those same CD-I companies. Realize that all this has already been considered. The MPEG chips had a lot of input from the CD-I people, and Motorola is designing next-generation cpus for CD-I. You can look at it another way: one reason for long CD-I delays was to have the best (and affordable) base technology before intro. CDTV may have forced CD-I to not wait until all players could have MPEG and 68020+ cores (they probably will late next year instead). Feel any better? I don't. I'm mad. > You see, CD-I doesn't make any significant improvements in graphics > rendering, or CD-ROM technology. Instead, it's been kludged on top of > the old hardware except for a few VLSI chips. It doesn't even have a > blitter as standard. I bet CD-I games will fall very short of Amiga games. Uh, one system was designed from scratch for home interactive TV, the other was definitely kludged on top of old hardware. Which one was which, again? Ignoring that highly debatable statement on graphics, I'll tell you a secret: you don't _need_ a blitter when you have a faster cpu, no bitplanes, a one r/w cycle pixel logic combiner, and are not 70% locked out of video ram in the resolutions people will expect to see. And remember, all of CDTV ram is slow Chip ram. Think hard about that. I have. But bless you, you make me think. So I will take your bet, but in a different way than even I had imagined: CDTV will become just another Sega game machine competitor. It will sell okay, but have little impact on true interactive TV. All applications other than games will fall short, sometimes horribly, of CD-I. The only exceptions will be ports of CD-I titles, and on those the gfx suffers. Ports to CD-I of some CDTV games, on the other hand, will become spectacular. > All the faults CD-I has, CDTV also has. The reason > I'd rather have a less capable machine promoted ahead of a mediocre > machine because what's good for Commodore (profit) is good for the Amiga. The core of that argument is that CD-I is mediocre (what does that make CDTV?) and since this is my reply, I get to dismiss that claim out of hand :-) :-). But ouch, you sure know how to put me in a hard spot to reply kindly. Hmmm. So in return, let me grant you the same boon: I suppose you know that because CBM jumped into what was considered a taboo area for 5 yrs by everyone else, Apple has now done an aboutface (*) and announced they will also make players? Please tell me what _your_ reply would be to a Mac fan who says what you did, except concerning an inferior Apple player. No four-letter words allowed ;-) Plus not all markets are smart OR profitable to get into. Would you also promote CBM microwave ovens? And what profits will CBM have if it has to cut them to the bone against CD-I? best - kev (*) Apple hated CD-I, partly because it requires a non-Mac multitasking OS. Nevertheless, they previously had no intention of getting into very wicked territory: home A/V electronics components, against Sony/Philips/et al. But against Commodore at least, they must figure they stand a good chance.