Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:3863 comp.sys.amiga.multimedia:301 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!mips!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!news.iastate.edu!vaxf.iastate.edu!TAAB5 From: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.multimedia Subject: Re: CDTV News Message-ID: <1991Jun14.174930.28222@news.iastate.edu> Date: 14 Jun 91 17:49:30 GMT References: <1991Jun12.192948.20028@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun12.205030.4401@news.iastate.edu>,<1349@cbmger.UUCP> Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) Reply-To: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA. Lines: 82 In article <1349@cbmger.UUCP>, peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: >In article <1991Jun12.205030.4401@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes: >>In article <1991Jun12.192948.20028@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>> >>>One new feature, CDXL, will let developers display video images >>>from a CD-ROM disk on screen. Limited to images covering about one >>>third of the screen because of the amount of data that must be >>>transferred, CDXL is an interim solution until the Motion Picture >>>Expert Group (MPEG) standard is completed. >> >> Wasn't the MPEG standard completed last December? If so, I don't >>know what Commodore is waiting for. > >No, it's not yet completed. Perhaps you mix this up with JPEG, the >standard for still pictures. Give me a break! I know what JPEG is, and what the differences are between JPEG and MPEG. At least two who should know about such things have said themselves that there are conflicting reports about MPEG's completeness. > >>>Commodore announced plans to make CDTV compatible with Kodak's new >>>Photo CD system. >> >> This sounds nice, but the problem is that the CDTV's color >>capabilities are hardly photographic, especially compared to the CD-I >>systems. Unless the color capabilities of the CDTV are drastically >>improved, the limited color of the CDTV will not do justice to >>digitized true-color stills. > >Typically Marc. You *must* (you all, not only Marc!) look at those >pictures found in the World Vista Atlas CDTV title (others tell me >that also that CD with "New Weapon technology" or similar has >outstanding images, didn't see them myself until now)!!! Many of >these pictures are really photo quality. [stuff about Amiga pictures deleted] Give me a break, again! I have been using Amigas longer than many of the people at Commodore, so I am very well aquainted with what the Amiga's graphics are capable of. True, the Amiga can display up to 4096 colors at once. However, none of the Amigas graphics modes are capable of going beyond 12-bit color, in any resolution. When you are talking about photgraphs, the number of shades of each color that you have in the color palette is *FAR* more important than the number of total colors that you can display at once. For instance, on the Amiga you only have at most three dozen shades of skin tones. This compares to the CD-I, VGA, and MAC systems, where you have 3-4 HUNDRED shades of skin tones. This is the reason that 256-color GIFs of people look far better on a MAC or VGA system than on an Amiga, even though the Amiga can display more colors at once than the CD-I, VGA, and MAC systems. >I only saw comparable >quality in that one Fish disk (was it 196?) with racing cars, a >honda cycle and an airplane. - This boils down for me that the HAM >mode of the Amiga still can beat very 256 color VGA plain to the >ground, if, yes *IF*, you use a VERY GOOD algorithm to convert your >raw picture into HAM. See above. On the Amiga, the theoretical best that you could ever do is 12-bit color. This compares to the CD-I systems, which have 24-bit palettes and can display 15-bits of color at once (I think). If pictures of people look far better on systems with 8-bit color than on an Amiga,you can be pretty damn confident that the CD-I systems -- which will make even the systems with 8-bit color look pretty lame -- will make the Amiga look very silly. > >-- >Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... >Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk ------------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett -MB- | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ------------------------------------------------------------ \ The great thing about standards is that / \ there are so many of them to choose from. / -------------------------------------------------------