CompuServe Messages

John, Your confusion on the Pluge is the root of my argument: Not all RGB programs have the same 'precision' and the mechanisms and algorithms of transfer from video to RGB encoding are largely manufacturer dependent. So if you REALLY wanted the correct comparison, run the Pinnacle into a Toaster, run another Toaster into a Toaster and capture both source's bars in TPaint then look at the RGB values. Or, if you prefer the more expensive route run one Toaster and one Pinnacle into another Pinnacle and capture the bars from both sources in the Switching pinnacle…. You could drive yourself nuts trying to justify the RGB's of two manufactures products compared in different paint programs. Especially in the case of ToasterPaint. (I forget which, but it is actually only 12 or 18 bits of color information which is why you probably didn't see the full Pluge). One problem with Toatster paint is in trying to do the RGB to NTSC two-step, they use a dithering pattern that, if sampled even two pixels appart often gives different color values eventhough it looks the same on the monitor. Anyway, early color TV engineers probaly went thru the same thing you did – when is red red enough and that is how the whole WavformVScope thing came about. They basically said, "to heck with what you feed it, or how you mix it up, just make it come out the program spigot at x IRE and y phase if its color a." Then they divised proc amps to "teach the test". wmc – via Autopilot!