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- Path: sparky!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!broue.rot.qc.ca!captain
- From: captain@broue.rot.qc.ca (Andrew Webster)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
- Subject: Re: Info wanted: Video Blaster
- Message-ID: <1hdxqy#8Wrnl0=captain@broue.rot.qc.ca>
- Date: 1 Sep 92 11:45:41 GMT
- References: <Bto29r.7sD@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
- Distribution: world
- Organization: Groupe de Recherche Operationnelle en Telecommunication (ROT)
- X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
- Lines: 68
-
- wai@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Benjamin Wai) writes:
- :
- : While travelling in Hong Kong this summer, I came
- : across the 'Video Blaster'. I strongly believed
- : that it was from Creative Lab (the company which
- : produces the Sound Blaster).
- : Upon my return to the States, no one, however, seems
- : to know anything about it - neither the computer
- : stores, or magazines, or any of my PC friends.
-
- This Video Blaster is indeed from Creative Labs, and I had a chance to play
- around with one for a while last weekend, and I was very impressed with what
- I saw.
-
- :
- : Is there anyone here has any more info on the
- : Video Blaster? Where might I find it, or when is it
- : due to release, etc.etc.
- : I would appreciate any info given.
-
- My friend works at a computer store here in Montreal, so I suspect that the
- card is readily available through the standard distributors in North
- America.
- I think the suggested list price is around $499, but will no doubt be
- less expensive when it hits the stores.
-
- :
- : From what I remembered, the Video Blaster has a
- : capability of placing TV images onto a PC monitor
- : (with approiate SVGA cards and screen, of course.)
- : using MS Windows, and it can play with images like
- : how the Sound Blaster plays with audio sounds.
- : In Hong Kong, it costed slightly more than $400US.
- : It was released in Hong Kong earlier this year, as
- : told by the salesman.
-
- The video blaster supports 3 video inputs, as well as stereo audio in/out.
- It will display any NTSC or PAL input on your computer monitor.
- It features luma/chroma keying for neat effects.
- The one thing that I noticed was a lack of an NTSC video OUT, therefore
- if you want to record the output to VCR, you are out of luck!
-
- The video quality is amazingly good when you are manipulating live video,
- however the video digitizer is a little on the flimzy side. It does not
- digitize a full frame, but rather just a single field, and then replicates
- every other line, producing jagged edges in the image.
- The software provides a "soften" algorithm to remove some of this, but it
- only helps a little.
-
- Ok, so I've been a bit spoiled, I worked on a 18bit full frame digitizer, and
- the results were a little more impressive.
-
- Overall, the product is nice, but could use a little polishing, the windows
- installation proceedure was nothing less than painful. Creating your own
- program groups / items by hand to set it up is a little tedious.
- One more note, if you have more than 15MB of RAM in your machine you are
-
- out of luck! It says this in the docs, because it needs to place the
- frame buffer somewhere within the first 16Meg of memory, as that is all that
- is addressable on a 16-bit slot.
- :
- : Many thanks.
- :
- :
- : - Benjamin Wai < wai@cn.ecn.purdue.edu > < wai@sage.cc.purdue.edu >
-
- Andrew Webster -- Captain@Broue.Rot.qc.ca
-
-