CompuServe Messages

Harry, Nice to see a Mac user getting Amiga-educated, if nothing else. One more thing on 24-bit video (at least from this person, who happens to be involved in commercial videographics): Where video/animation is concerned, I don't see a very great need for 'integrated 24-bit graphics'… Still-frame work (for use as background etc.) can easily have Amiga Video (which may be animated) overlaid and since the computer isn't animating then sticking a 24-bit image on the screen with a 'special' software utility is no big deal, although it makes painting and such awkward, it doesn't necessarily stifle the process. Likewise with 24-bit animation.. It'll be a slow, time-intensive frame-by-frame recording process (on any micro) and that's about all you're gonna do, a function filled by the custom 24-bit software. The consolation, for now, is that the Amiga offers an extremely cost-effective 24-bit 'studio-engine' kind of package (the Toaster) with no real peers in the Mac or (gak) MS-DOS. Now DTP is another matter. Layout functions of color images within a DTP package is more demanding (although it is hard for most people to justify full-color in DTP even today). Again, 24-bit means for this process exist on the Amiga, but they are not (yet) as elagant as on the Mac. One last comment on 'frame-grabbing'… As cost goes, I really would like to know if the Mac has something similar to the Amiga's DigiView slow-scan 21-bit digitizer (saves in various Amiga modes as well as 'standard' IFF24 format). List is $199, average cost about $130. There is more probably something similar to the FrameGrabber realtime 24-bit at about $500.