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From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Why not streaming video recorders?
Message-ID: <17110@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Thu, 2-Jul-87 02:09:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: glacier.17110
Posted: Thu Jul  2 02:09:56 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jul-87 04:35:08 EDT
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 20


     This Sony 8-frame-at-a-time machine suggests some ideas.  True single
frame stop-start recording requires tight tolerances on the video deck.
Why not use streaming techniques?  Back up a few frames, get up to speed,
switch from play to record as the last frame goes by, cue the computer
to start sending frames, record as many frames as the computer can send
at full speed before it runs out of data, and then come to a normal stop,
waiting for the computer to generate some more frames.

     This isn't exactly your home workshop kind of project, but it's an
idea for people who build VCR add-on electronics boxes.  Lyon Lamb could
probably do it, but it would cost too much. 

     Sony also makes a machine for survellance applications which records 
at rates down to 1 frame/second.  This might be a useful output device for
an animation system, if one can build the frames and buffer them on disk,
then read them back at a rate fast enough to keep up with the slow video
recorder.

					John Nagle