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From: rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re: What the heck IS "Interactive TV"? (long)
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.020525.26370@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
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Organization: The Internet
References: <1991Apr11.090415.5276@ncsu.edu> <1991Apr11.143222.13728@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <5967@mcrware.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 02:05:25 GMT
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In article <5967@mcrware.UUCP> jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) writes:
>In article <1991Apr11.143222.13728@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
>>  I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and say that I don't think
>>interactive TV will be the next revolutionary home device. People are
>>used to being passive watchers/listeners.
>
>I'm not sure how to reconcile that with the success of video games, though
>OTOH I don't know how many video game units are out there.
>
>>  Sure CD-I has better specs, and is backed up by major Japanese companies.
>>So what? The C64 stood up to the same kind of opposition, and won!
>
>Won in what sense?  Seen any articles on C64 programs in many computer
>mags lately?  The C64 has perhaps survived as a niche item with a small
                                                                   ^^^^^
>group of dedicated users, but I can't persuade myself that that is
>"winning."
>
>	James Jones

  It won in the sense of selling over 10 million units. Niche item? Hardly.
It seems you don't know much about the C64 market. Major computer magazines
are not a gauge of success. They provide coverage based on their
advertisers. The C64 was never advertised very much, however, it sold
very well, and probably still sells well. I'm not saying it's a superior
computer. What I'm suggesting is that technical superiority doesn't 
determine whether a product is a success. IBM proved that. On the other
side of the spectrum, Beta video proved it also.

 Being good at graphics and games may be the catalyst that puts CDTV
in the lead. CD-I and CDTV may be priced the same, but CDTV will have
more software in the beginning, and since CD-I doesn't have
a blitter or sprites, it won't be able to move many objects around the
screen like the Amiga/CDTV can. (Also consider the extra computation it
takes to render into DYUV space rather than vanilla bitplanes.)

 And it worse comes to worse, you can always plug DCTV into CDTV.
DCTV provides DYUV color the same as CD-I.

--
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| rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu   |   //  The opinions expressed here do not in any way  |
| uunet!tnc!m0023      | \X/   reflect the views of my self.                  |
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