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- Xref: sparky comp.sys.amiga.graphics:5953 rec.video.production:1433 rec.music.synth:14763
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics,rec.video.production,rec.music.synth
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!lynx!hydra.unm.edu!kholland
- From: kholland@hydra.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland)
- Subject: Re: What config. for MIDI and Graphics
- Message-ID: <sawncl=@lynx.unm.edu>
- Date: Sat, 12 Sep 92 06:49:47 GMT
- Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
- References: <Btz1z0.Ev8.2@cs.cmu.edu>
- Lines: 60
-
- In article <Btz1z0.Ev8.2@cs.cmu.edu> cain@silverblue.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Sebastian Nightingale Cain) writes:
- >I've been puttering around with MIDI and been wanting to get
- >into computer graphics and video production for awhile, but
- >never had the funds. Now I'm quite a bit more serious, and have
- >been looking around Pittsburgh for a dealer, but there are only
- >2 that I have found - one is inconvienent for me to get to.
- >The other is much closer, but is just getting into the Video
- >Toaster and the Amiga (they are actually a small audio/video
- >store) and so are not ready to actually sell and support them
- >just yet.
- >
- >What I wanted to know was what I should be looking at inorder
- >to get into this stuff. I was recommended an A2000 with an
- >accelerator board to begin with. I would like to start out
- >with just the MIDI and then aquire the video after I
- >know a bit more about the subject. So what I'm asking, is what
- >should I look at for a starter system that is easily expandable
- >but not extremely expensive to start with?
- >
- >Thanks.
-
- Well, the Amiga 2000 is best for the Video Stuff. If you plan to
- get a Toaster that is the one to get. An accelerator board would
- help a lot, too. I recomend a 100-200 meg hard drive
- becuase if you are planning to stuff 24-bit images on your
- system you must have lots of space. In theory a typical
- NTSC resolution image takes about 600x500x3 Bytes per image.
- If you get a acellerator card, you can do things
- such as decompress and compress 24-bit images using
- lossy and lossless compressions like LHA and JPEG (respectively!)
- Note that both are FREE!!
-
- Using JPEG you can compress a 24-bit image down to about
- 1/10th its size or more, it terms of the data representation, not size.
- JPEG loses some information, but only what you eye cannot perceive.
- You'd have to get something like TAD-PRO (ASDG tm) and
- raise the gamma slider on the images before you could see what JPEG
- gets rid of (looks like a bunch of small boxes overlayed on top
- of the image, but you wouldn't see them if you had no
- image processing software).
-
- In video, it is not a matter of what is real but what you
- can fool the audience with. For instance, DCTV doesn't display
- its information in the typical way most 21/24 bit graphics cards
- do, it uses a form of digital NTSC encoding, magic cookie code
- and use of the amiga's 4-bit video output. Since DCTV
- uses only 4-bits, the video is bound to be 6 times faster
- than other forms, animation wise.
- And 6 times smaller (as they are).
-
- If you had 32 megs of ram, which would cost about 1000 dollars
- these days, you could display a 300 frame animation without
- accessing the hard drive. At 10 fps that means about 30 seconds
- on your TV set, enough for a short commercial.
-
- I'm interested in video myself, but I'm looking for a
- solution that makes use of cheap +2\-2 frame accurate
- VCRs or camcorders.
- Ones that I can render frames from my Amiga to.
-
-