CompuServe Messages

Hiya Don, How ya doin'? Yep, the old PAR certainly seems to be doing a nice job over here. Side-by-side A/B comparisons with various levels of frame-by-frame quality are gonna take me some time though. You'll probably be able to do some of these well before I do. I've got the MC 2205A here to start with. I've been using block limits of over 240 pretty regularly, and the quality sure looks good so far. Although the software won't tell you the average JPEG Q-factor you're getting per frame, I would venture to guess that at 240 block limit, you're probably up around the high teens somewhere, with 23 being the highest quality. For people who *really* know/see/need the difference, the PAR probably won't replace, say, Vista/LVR, Vista/Beta-SP or Abekas in it's present form, but considering it's cost/quality ratio, the PAR, I feel, will be *heavily* used in all kinds of animation work. And as the HD's get faster (and interleaved) the amount JPEG compression used will diminish. So render those frames!! I had about 700 waiting when the thing arrived, and had a *total blast* setting it up and running the TGAs to it (about 4.5 seconds apiece). Watching my first "made at home" high-quality animation was something I've waited for since 1986 and an experience I'll never forget. -Alan