RenderEngine TC/VTV-2000
4 messages in this thread
Don, at that point of the dream system, we would be better off getting AG-7750
with SFC. There is, however, a solution on the horizon for the Amiga users.
The same company that made the Personal TBC has developed a framestore/SCSI
contorller card that will sell for around $1800. You add the hard drive of
your choice (1 gig would be a good size). It has MPEG chips built into it and
it will do the work fast enough to feed the TBC. It was demoed at NAB and all
who saw it were excited. More and more, I am seeing that the ideal combination
if people can afford it is to use 3D Studio for rendering and then actually
moving the stuff to tape via the Amiga. The Amiga 3D programs are slow
compared to 3D Studio, but the video hardware and interface to the CPU make the
Amiga a good choice for output. Thanks for the clarification about the TBC
issue. I can see what you are saying. It would be doing so many intermittent
freeze frames that it would not be smooth. I think the new device for the
Amiga is the solution.
Thanks for the update on the Amiga. I've used the toaster once to engineer a
four camera live switch shoot of a rock concert and really liked its video
capabilities. Never used one for post or animation but my artist has both 3ds
and toaster Lightwave and chooses 3ds whenever he has a choice even though his
PC is not all that fast. I'm not sure I agree about using the toaster for
porting animation to NTSC since the PC has a very nice complement of hardware
for broadcast quality. If I were making the decision to purchase a Toaster/
Amiga now it would be for video switching only and I would gladly give up
Lightwave and their 2D paint to save bucks just to get the switcher end of the
software. If DPS is making the device for Amiga they will probably have it
shortly for the PC. I've spoken to their engineers in the past and they are
dedicated to the industry not to a platform, unlike the game brains from Newtek
(Amiga). Talk to me. Why is the Amiga better at porting to video vs. a targa+
system?
DL not sure DL I agree about using the toaster for porting animation to NTSC
since DL> the PC has a very nice complement of hardware for broadcast quality.
No, not the Toaster. It has nothing going for it in terms of real-time
playback of animation.
DL> Talk to me. Why is the Amiga better DL> at porting to video vs. a targa+
system?
Don, a Targa+ is very nice, but how can it help you get 24 bit graphics to
animate in real time? Once you drop below 24 bits, you have palette and dither
processes to contend with and these lead to problems with images tearing.
Right now I have a VLB 24 bit card in my 486-33. I checked out a program
called F16 by Rainbow Technologies that enables you to play back 16-bit anims
in real time. What did I see? As long as the delta values are low, all is
well, but when large areas of the frame change between frames, the images do
not flow smoothly. To get it right at this point, you need a single frame
capable VCR like the Panasonic AG7750. (cost $4800 plus you need the TAO
editizer or some similar device (add another $1500). Plus the Targa card
($1400).
On my Amiga 3000, I use a little 24-bit display device that sells for (get
this!) $299 called DCTV. It is a device that is totally unique to the Amiga
platform and it works without any JPEG or MPEG compression. It uses a special
4 bitplane dispaly technology that enables huge amounts of video data to be
coded into very small files. A DCTV full oversan animation file that lasts 120
frames with a moderate level of change between frames might be as small as 4
megs. The best part of it is that you can playback from RAM in real time and
get over 30 fpsin anim7 format. It is a wonderful device. So, I record
something that looks a helluva lot like 24-bit animation on my $970 AG1960.
And they are good enough for most local TV and industrials. Get some Amiga
buddy to show you the DCTV in action. I have been using strictly clones for
the last 7 years and I was on the
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verge of sinking all of my money into the Video Machine for my 486. But when I
saw what I could do with the Amiga, I changed my mind. Now, if you look at the
next level of development, non-linear editing, and you look at the proposed
prices of the Mac (Avid) PC (Bandit) and Amiga (Editmaster) devices for doing
this kind of work (editing video or real-time 24 bit playback of animation),
Amiga beats the competition by at least $3000. Truevision has led the life of
the lazy monopolist for a long time and we clone users have paid the price. A
Targa 16+ should sell for around $600. 3D Studio should sell for around $800.
The prohibitively high price of software and hardware on the Mac and PC
platforms has driven smaller video and animation producers to the Amiga. That
is why I am there now. Bang for $, you can't beat the Amiga, even ignoring the
Toaster.
I will say that having used the ray-tracing 3D animations packages for the
Amiga and the mapping based 3D Studio, that 3D Studio on a 486 is faster at
rendering animations to disk than Imagine and Aladdin on an Amiga 3000. But
that is rendering; when it comes to going to tape, I am sold on the Amiga/DCTV
combination. Add it up: Amiga 3000 with 16 megs of ram ($1500), DCTV with the
RBG conversion box ($500), G-lock genlock with S-Video output ($400), AG-1960
($950). Total: $3350. Clone 486-33 with 16 megs of ram ($1500), Targa 16+
($1300), Single frame controller ($1500), AG-7750 ($4800). Total: $9100. See
what I mean? Even if I am a bit off on some of these numbers, they are pretty
close. And this is ignoring the issue of software, because, after all, I admit
that a Impulse and Octree (Amiga 3D programmers) are porting their wares to the
PC now.
I think if I were managing TV station or a cable company, where $5000 was no
big deal, I might consider the PC. But when everything you buy comes out of
your own pocket, the issue is reduced to simple addition.