CompuServe Messages

It seems that people are talking to you only about single frame animation, that is getting your animation out to video tape one frame at a time. This is by far the method that yields the best results, however it does require a sizable investment in equipment. At the minimum you will need: a frame buffer, a frame controller, and a video deck capable of recording one frame of video at a time. The decks that you mentioned are the low end of decks with that capability, and you can see that they start around 4 to 5 thousand. A lower end alternative to this method is using a VGA to NTSC converter. This is a board or box that attaches to your VGA card and anything that you play on your computers monitor can be recorded onto video. The up sides to this method are that it is much less expensive to set up, and relatively easy to do. Also, since you are playing the animation in "real time" off your hard disk, instaead of one frame a time, you can use any VCR that you want. The down side is that the quality suffers. First, you are playing off of your hard disk, so any time the computer pauses to read from the disk, your animation will show a pause on the video tape. Also the computer probably will be running at a frame rate of about 12 to 15 frames per second, so the animation wont be as smooth as the single frame recorded version. Second, you are limited to only 256 colors in the animations that you create. Don't be discouraged about these limitations though. Many people are very happy with the outpot of the VGA to NTSC converters. Be careful of cheap products though! The one that I have had nothing but success with is the VGA Producer Pro from Magni. Magni is a company that makes video test equipment so you know that their board is up to the standards needed. Write back if you want more information about transferring to video either straight from the computer or one frame at a time.