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From: ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: CDTV News
Message-ID: <30115@know.pws.bull.com>
Date: 17 Jun 91 13:54:59 GMT
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   On the subject of video ability, you know that the Amiga can do a 704x440
display in 4096 different colors using a little software trickery. No extra
hardware needed. Some of the newer graphic programs that are coming out support
this feature. Macro Pain being one of them. This is pretty close to what a lot
of 24bit boards for other machines are capable of. Add to this the shading you
can do in 704x440 resolution with those 4096 different colors and I think you
can produce pretty much any color your going to want to see, or can see. Does
anybody know if any of the programs out for CDTV are using this mode yet? I
saw some of the World Atlas pictures on CDTV and my eyes couldn't see any
better detail than that gave me. The pictures looked photo quality to me. Your
average Joe is not going to push his nose up to the screen and say "Look, they
used the wrong dithering here and I can see it!" How many consumers do you give
credit for being that aware of their environment?

 On a smaller note, does anyone know anything more about these rumors of DCTV
being used with CDTV? I'd like to hear more about CDTV's video port and how
well it can handle (how much room it has) DCTV being plugged into it. Will
this still provide a passthru where yet another card could be plugged into
the video port, and will it all fit in there or what?

 I still hear people quoting $900 price tags for CDTV. This is Commodore's list
price. The unit is selling for around $750 at North Coast Programming here in
Cleveland. Who knows how much the ed price takes off of that! My girlfriend
and me went up and checked the machine out not too long ago. She watched the
guy demo it for her and she instantly wanted one! She does use her brother's
Amiga 2000 to call Free-Net but that's about where her knowledge of computers
ends. Judging by her response to the machine I'd say that we have a winner on
our hands, *IF* the machine is demonstrated properly and *IF* Commodore does
the right kind of advertising. Note to Kevin: Your too close to the subject
and have lost your focus! I didn't see my girlfriend saying "Those pictures
are lacking in quality just a little bit." She was taken by those pictures,
the sound, and the ease of use of such a machine.

   Tom