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From: mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: CDTV vs. CD-I again!: CES is here
Message-ID: <22155@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 4 Jun 91 12:14:40 GMT
References: <1991Jun2.180445.27763@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991Jun4.045255.16207@ncsu.edu>
Reply-To: mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 26

In article <1991Jun4.045255.16207@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>Also, the June 1991 VIDEO magazine ran a short review of CDTV, which
>at least did answer one large question I had asked about here before:
>
>Unlike CD-I, which can play interleaved sound off the disc _while_ also
>loading in new video/program/sound data, CDTV must first load in any
>prerecorded audio data and then play it back from memory thru its normal
>Amiga 8-bit D/A system.  I'm stunned.  Can this be totally correct?

Yes and no.  We can play direct CD audio.  We can also play Amiga style
audio.  The Amiga style audio takes less disk space and thus you can have
much more of it on the CD.  (24 hours or some such large numebr)  Since
the way the hardware works, you can play continuous sounds from the CD
in Amiga mode and still load data at the same time.  The data will load
slower since you also are using some of the data bandwidth to load more sound.
If you play a sound "Loop" then the data will load just as fast as with
no sound.  Remember, CDTV still has all of the benefits of the Amiga,
including the Paula chip, which has the DMA driven sound channels.

/----------------------------------------------------------------------\
|      /// Michael Sinz  -  Amiga Software Engineer                    |
|     ///                   Operating System Development Group         |
|    ///   BIX:  msinz      UUNET:  rutgers!cbmvax!mks                 |
|\\\///                     When people are free to do as they         |
| \XX/                      please, they usually imitate each other.   |
\----------------------------------------------------------------------/