CompuServe Messages

Hi Ed, >> I suppose if any of us had the answer to competing in this commodity >> market, we wouldn't have the time to be here to talk about it <grin>! Yep! >> The only thing really left is to decide what market you want to pursue >> and what you can offer that distinquishes your efforts from your >> competitors (while still maintaining a "competitive" price). Yes, specialization, added value and comprehensive services are the answer. Of course, at this point the market may still be too young and small to support specialization but for future growth and stability it is necessary to think about it know. >> It has apparently worked for them and that's without a freely >> distributable player/runtime module. I find that extremely interesting! Yes, they seem quite successful at it. Have you ever tried the Scala clone which is called MediaShow (or MediaView or Media-sum'thin' or other)? It offers a lower price and a freely distributable player. I haven't heard much about them since WOC from last year. I was surprised there was a market for it. And then of course there is the Oxxi product which has a similar name. >> I don't need a CDROM to do MM on an Amiga <ah, that felt real good>. When I bought my first Amiga in 1990 it was the first step in becoming a MM developer (as I saw it). I bought the Amiga to make MM, not use MM. I think that is where the difference is: MPC IBMs are mostly designed for people who want to be MM consumers, not producers. For them, the CD then becomes a requirement just as to become an Amiga MM consumer you need a CD32 or a CD drive. Luckily, most Amiga programs are small enough that they will fit on a few DD diskettes, unlike PC programs which often require 10 or so HD diskettes. >> darn, way too many ifs! Sad but true… >> On a more optimistic note for us Amiga connoisseurs that may >> also be courting this type of market… If Jerrell can come up with the windoze version of Helm that will be great although as far as I know it is overdue at this point. The Amiga can still be used for MM production: prototyping, resource development (graphics, audio etc) and presentations. On my CDROM project I developed most of the graphics, all of the audio and text on the Amiga. In some ways this took longer but that was as much because of the distance between the computers and the hassle of converting files. If I was an Amiga developer looking for one last product it would be a tool to facilitate the conversion and transfer of different filetypes to PCs and Macs. Actually, one of my biggest problems in developing on the Amiga was that the graphics do not have a 1:1 pixel ratio and the screen formats are different. >> I've heard and read so much hype about the PowerMAC's ability to >> handle digital video and audio that I figured animation would be >> a piece of cake. Well, the Quicktime video looks good and WAS very easy to develop and utilize. In fact, QT is pretty darn neat and the tools are very powerful (blows away ANYTHING on the Amiga). What I was refering to was the sprite animation in Director. Director animations work differently than Amiga in that they are object oriented. The anim is compiled in real time, running off the HDD if necessary and each sprite (basically a brush) is moved around on screen. This is handy to make changes and is easy if you have many different layers. Unfortunately, the animation flickers a lot because Director doesn't use double buffering like the Amiga (which I think is a HW thing). It is also a real nuissance if you have the equivalent of animbrushes because you have to deal with each frame individually (which slows down production and makes really big files). There is support for PICS animation files but I haven't come across any programs that create that file type so it isn't useful. The Mac could learn something from the Amiga. >> I didn't know the Director supported CDi and 3DO platforms. I think the CDi support is there but I don't know if 3DO is yet. I think to develop for CDi you have to do it on a Mac (although you could develop it on the PC, port it to the Mac and then port it to CDi). >> it's for the CLONEHEADs and they don't know much beyond MicroSoft Some do, others don't. For many MicroSloth is equivalent to God but there are some atheists as well. <G> There is actually some nice stuff available for Windoze. The Media Control Interface, although not easy, will allow different applications to use MM features of other current and future applications. It's sort of like ARexx but you don't always have to have the secondary application, only the libraries (DLL). >> X-Script ends up being expensive, it will lose a lot >> of ground to becoming a real standard I was speaking with someone yesterday and he said X-Script is about $1000. I had heard it was 10 times that but I don't know who to believe. If that is the case then it is competitive with other products. >> OK, I give — what's this `IICS "InforMedia" Newsletter' all about? I'm surprised you took so long to ask… IICS is the International Interactive Communication Society which is a volunteer, professional organization dedicated to MM and interactive technologies. We have meetings, networking and newsletters. It is a pretty good venue to get to know people and keep on top of what is happening in the industry. I edit the quarterly Toronto newsletter (on my Amiga <G>). BTW, there is a chapter in Cleveland.