CompuServe Messages

David , Thanks , but the doesn't the PAR require a dedicated HD ? I also think it's an IDE drive which is nuisance because Fast Wide SCSI-2 has a better transfer rate and higher capacity. There is also the compression problem – in terms of video quality it's not broadcast. For short animations wouldn't it be better to be able to get a few seconds of images to memory and then dump the whole thing into something like a Matrox Illuminator Pro ? One second of non compressed video would take aproximately 26 Mb so 64 Mb should handle more than 2 seconds. For large animations or feature films you do have to resort to some kind of compression. For that I would like non-lossy compression with the ability to edit the individual frames . With a program supporting layers and dynamic filters, special effects should be easy to do (non real-time). For almost real-time there is the promise of the Pinnacle Alladin machine. Both Matrox and TrueVision have announced support , but cost is on the 30K + league. I've read about D/Vision CineWorks which works basically like the PAR , but using Intel SuperRTV for compression instead of M-JPEG or JPEG. It is a non-liner editor and it's cost is about 2,300 USD. It also handles 4 audio channels which the PAR doesn't at present. It only lacks Betacam input and output . Quality is S-VHS from what I've read. Do you happen to know any board that features Betacam INPUT ? If you feed S-VHS or Hi-8 you are losing about 100 + lines of video resolution . Betacam input with quality framegrabbers/compressors should get the PAR/Matrox/Cineworks/T2000 closer to broadcast quality and ease their acceptance in the TV production world. TIA, Joao