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From: lemke@radius.com (Steve Lemke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Video digitizing/video-in-a-window boards
Message-ID: <1449@radius.com>
Date: 1 May 91 16:41:53 GMT
References: <5768@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Lines: 53

mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) writes:

>  A friend of mine and I are both looking for video boards for our Mac
>II-series macines (my IIx, his IIci) which will allow us to put live video in
>a window on our color monitors, and digitize images to a graphic format,
>preferably in 24-bit.
>  Other nice features would be:  graphic overlay, NTSC scan-rate output, and
>combined frame-buffer/digitizing hardware, to eliminate shipping video over
>NuBus.

Sounds like you're after RadiusTV, winner of several awards, including Byte
magazine's Product of the Year for 1990.  (Disclaimer - please don't flame
this as an advertisement - he *did* ask, and so I shall answer... :-)

Anyway, the RadiusTV Video Capture System provides 8 or 16-bit full motion
video in a moveable, and FULLY resizeable window up to 640 x 480 pixels.  It
also digitizes audio for playback through the Mac speaker.  The built-in tuner
includes CATV tuning, and the software also provides closed-caption decoding
and transcription.  Switchable video inputs include 2 RF, 2 NTSC, and 1 RGB.
It works with the Radius DirectColor Series video interfaces (for color Two
Page Displays) as well as the Radius DirectColor/GX for the Apple 13".
The DirectColor/GX interface also provides NTSC (or PAL) scan-rate output.

RadiusTV does not include a frame buffer, but rather utilizes NuBus block
transfer to move video from the frame grabber board to the display board.

>  Obviously, price is a factor.  $6000 is out of the question.  We'd like to
>stay in the $1-2,000 range.

The retail price of the RadiusTV was just reduced from $2795 to $2195, and
street prices are often even less...  Of course, Radius also offers special
pricing for Apple Developers (to save me from getting swamped with email
on how to get developer pricing, I'll just post the phone number of the
Sales department:  (408) 434-1011).  In addition, Radius Developer Services
can provide developer documentation on the RadiusTV Developer Toolkit, which
allows you to write your own custom applications using the RadiusTV hardware.

>  Any input from folks as to which boards from which manufacturers are best
>would be much appreciated.  BTW, is there an Apple product which will do this
>kind of stuff?

Unfortunately, I didn't save all of the messages, but there was a rather
lengthy discussion of RadiusTV in this newsgroup about six months ago - the
only complaint I can recall was the high price, and that's been adjusted.

>Thanks!

No problem - you're welcome.

-- 
----- Steve Lemke, KC6QDT - Software Engineering, Radius Inc., San Jose -----
----- Reply to: lemke@radius.com -- U.C. Santa Barbara ECE Class of '89 -----
----- "I'm not a UNIX wizard, but I play the Postmaster at radius.com." -----