Heard about DUCK yet?
I read about a new video delevery system call "Duck" in TV Technology. Duck is
a software only comprender (compresser / renderer) that is bringing HDTV to the
PC (DOS, Windows), Sega, 3DO and Mac comming soon! They have been working on it
for the last 4 years and rolled it out last week. They claim that a current
high end PC (Pentium) can display real time video with sync sound at 30 fps @
320×240 and 20 fps @ 640×480 – without any hardware assist! The Duck system is
targeted at MPEG2 and differs in that it stores each frame, not the the
interframe changes. This allows for interavtivity where the images can run back
and forth, great for games and editing systems. The Duck people claim that
there's room for improving the speed of the software. They predict that with
the next generation of processors (P6) Duck will surpass the level of quality
that hte Grand Alliance is working on for HDTV broadcast. The short of it is
that HDTV will become available on PC years (decades?) ahead of the TV
equipment / Broadcast industry has it.
-Andy