OpalVision
41 messages in this thread
Hi you all,
I am thinking about getting an OpalVision board for my A2000.
Is there anything that I should watch out for such as hardware that I need 030
with lots of ram ? What about the output ? I heard that it will work with a
Amiga Monitor. That means it will output to a 15.6 Khz monitor ?
What if I want to output the OpalVision image to my Video Tape Deck. do I ne
need a special cable to hook the RGB output to my Tape Deck ? Can a genlock
with with OpalVision ?
Is there any bug with Opal Paint or any included software ?
Info, warnings, curses and blessings are all welcome.
Best Regards,
Sze C
Sze,
The OpalVision Board does indeed work with the standard Amiga monitor. To
output to video, current genlocks/encoders work fine with the Opal card.
However, a simple mod (passing a 5v line to one of the pins) is required. This
can be done by you or by Opal Tech (free). BTW, the mod isn't required for all
genlocks.
In the very near future (I hope), Centaur will release the framegrabber
module and the video suite. These modules will make the Opal board a close
sister (and in some ways better) than the Toaster.
Opal Paint is by far, one of the best paint programs I have ever
encountered. The bugs that do exist are minor at best. It's features are many
and you would probably be better off reading reviews on it in the upcoming DTV
world.
If you buy now (before the modules are released) there is a substantial
savings on the modules when they are released.
Alan Henry
Thanks for the Info.
Opal seems to be the thing to go for. What about the actual Opal Vision people.
I mean Centaur Development. Are they active in CIS. What about software
upgrade ? Reasonablly Price ?
Best Regards,
Sze C
Sze,
OpalVision (Centaur) has a BBS tech support line. All upgrades can be
downloaded free of charge. If you desire new docs or can't afford the D/L time
for the upgrades, Centaur will send them for $10.00 each. The BBS is very
active and I find it to be a lot like the forums here on CI$. Generally, any
problems or questions are answered by the next day on the BBS.
Alan Henry
Hi James Green
Thanks for the info about OpalVision's BBS support. Will check it out when I
get a chance.
By the way what's the latest version of OpalPaint now ? There is a program
call Opal Animate right ? Is this the program that allows you to play 24bit
animation through Opal Vision board ?
Best Regards,
Sze C
Sze,
OpalPaint's current version is 2.1. The updates have slowed quite a bit
now that they are concentrating on the modules. Centaur squashed
pratically every bug when they released 2.0 and it seems now like the
updates are more based on requests to make various functions better.
Opal AnimMate is shipped with OpalVision and it consists of utilities to
make 8,12,15,18, and 24 bit animations (368×286). It obviously isn't the
end-all solution to realtime animation, but the results are pretty good.
I can't seem to get more than 20 FPS out of it, but even that looks good.
Alan Henry – F100-PW-200 Inside
Alright, they are up to 2.1 Opal Paint now. Let's see with a file conversion
program such as ImageMaster; I can get an Amiga to be a pretty good paint
system to support other Bigger System.
About OpalAnimate; is the 368 * 286 the best it can do ? Can it go Interlace ?
or OverScan ?
Best Regards,
Sze
Opal Paint will save images in IFF and JPEG formats and I believe
that after the modules release, we'll see more updates that'll
include new savers. BTW, some people have complained that Opal Paint
is slow, however, I've found that instead of using the Continuous
Freehand tool, the Sketch (Fast Freehand) tool allows painting as
fast as you need. The Airbrush mode is excellent.
As far as OpalAnimMate, I've just looked at my docs and it says
"features selectable screen sizes from 32×20 to 768×268 (Hires
non-interlaced overscan) pixels." I can't seem to get more than
368×286 and I'm certain it isn't a RAM problem. I'll have to give
them a call.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic, Inc.
F100-PW-200 Inside
New saver module that will be nice. Save alot of time too if they
implement a TARGA save option that can save to all TARGA format.
O.K. Opalanimate suppose to play back Hires animation. Thanks for
the info. Please leave a message when you find out why you can't
play animation in Hires using Opalanimate. Good luck and Best
Regards,
This might be of some help to you. It's taken from the OpalAnimate docs.
Six different color mode:
8 Bit LoRes 256 colors
8 Bit HiRes 256 colors
12 Bit LoRes 4096 colors
15 Bit LoRes 32768 colors
18 Bit LoRes 262144 colors
24 Bit LoRes 16777216 colors
Estimated Playback rates:
Screensize Mode Framerate Framerate max. Framerate
A2000/030 A3000/030
160*100 15 Bit 30 30 30
160*100 24 Bit 20 20 20
240*150 15 Bit 25 30 30
224*230 12 Bit 20 20 20
224*230 15 Bit 18 25 30
224*230 18 Bit 18 20 20
224*230 24 Bit 12 18 20
320*200 12 Bit 20 20 20
320*200 15 Bit 15 20 30
320*200 18 Bit 15 19 20
320*200 24 Bit 10 15 20
368*236 18 Bit 10 15 20
Memory Requirements:
Screensize Mode Frames FileSize (bytes)
160*100 8 Bit 50 852,800
160*100 12 Bit 50 1,200,000
160*100 15 Bit 50 1,600,000
160*100 18 Bit 50 1,800,000
160*100 24 Bit 50 2,400,000
320*200 8 Bit 50 3,411,200
320*200 12 Bit 50 4,800,000
320*200 15 Bit 50 6,400,000
320*200 18 Bit 50 7,200,000
320*200 24 Bit 50 9,600,000
On AUTOPILOT over Chicago Stadium, GO BULLS!
QUOTE MODE ON
On AUTOPILOT over Chicago Stadium, GO BULLS!
QUOTE MODE OFF
^^^^
OVER the stadium! You in the blimp?
Michael // AMIGA
Davis \X/ POWER
Thanks for the TABLE. You must have spend some time typing it up
I'll study it :). They did not list what an A4000 will do though. I
wonder if the stats will be the same as an A3000
Sze,
I've resolved the resolution problem (ie 768×268). The Hires
non-interlaced animations are 8-bit only and the images that are used most
be 8-bit also. From what I've seen, you can get anywhere from 20-30 FPS
in that mode. It's kinda' Psuedo AGA.
Hope it helps,
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic, Inc.
F100-PW-200 Inside
Glad to hear that you have found out that it is 8 bit. Hmm.. 8bit kinda like
AGA… agaaaaa 🙂
Looks like the best hope for full 24bit play back will be the DMI Edit
master. I wonder when is it coming out ?
James,
MakeAnim24 scales and converts a number of IFF files into the OpalVision
animation format. This format is not compressed, so it can be played back
to a high speed from memory as well as from hard drive.
A two pass spatial transform algorithm is used to achieve the best results
for scaling images.
All source frames have to be in IFF24 or JPEG format 24 Bit (allthough
IFF24 should be preferred to JPEG for speed reasons). The format should be
hires/interlaced (640*400) for best scaling results. In any case the
source screensize has to be the same or bigger than the size being scaled
to. Once again, it is recommended to start out with hires/interlaced
frames. The scaling algorithm produces best results out of big screen
sizes! The source screensize also should not exceed about 800*600 pixel.
Users with only two megabytes of memory will run into problems with larger
sizes.
Enlarging to a given size is not useful for this application and therefor
not included.
On AUTOPILOT over Chicago Stadium, GO BULLS!
James,
What minor bugs have you encountered?
-Louis
On AUTOPILOT over Chicago…
Louis,
Practically every bug reported to Centaur (via their Tech Support BBS) has
been squashed almost immediately. I've seen new versions appear several days
after the last. Since the new versions are free, no one has complained
The only current bug that I'm aware of in 2.1 is when an AREXX script is
executed, the output screen (workbench) pops to the front. Again, not a big
deal.
BTW, Centaur's Tech Support is one of the best!
Alan Henry
James,
"BTW, Centaur's Tech Support is one of the best!"
I must agree with you on this point. I have absolutely no complaint.
I can't help but to feel the best is yet to come. Have you seen how the
board is laid out? Seems like there's big plans…. Also, they have been
VERY receptive to suggestions. I like seeing a company that's concerned
with what the user wants. And then delivers. This company has great
potential and I see it taking us into the future…
-Louis
On AUTOPILOT over Chicago…
I agree 110%
Sze,
The *main* thing is you really do want 2 megs of chip ram. Less will limit
the display modes you can use. Accelleration is good, too.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Thanks for the 2 meg suggestion. Black Belt.
Hey, I have just send in my Imagemaster registration card. I heard that there
is going to be a version of Imagemaster that is going to support the opal
vision boards. Is that correct ? What version will it be. I still have my
upgrade cupon hot in my hand. 🙂
Best Regards,
Sze C
The very next release – "Imagemaster R/t" – will 100% retarget to the
OpalVision and give you total 24-bit use of the OV hardware in the work
areas, palette and so on. All WYSIWYG actions will operate on the OV
display very nicely. The R/t version can switch (at any time, even while
operating) between std Amiga ops, AGA ops, OpalVision, FC24, and HAM-E.
2-4 weeks; we're stalled a little bit right now because one of the
programmer's just had a baby. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
Will your new IM support the Retina board?
-Jonathan
Not in the retargetable sense. Retargeting is only possible within R/t if
the hardware allows Amiga screens to be "genlocked" (to misuse the term)
_over_ the 24-bit or otherwise enahnced display. We've supported all such
hardware that's out there that we are aware of:
OpalVision – excellent overlay support
FC24 (in one-monitor/locked mode exclusively)
HAM-E – excellent overlay support
AGA Amigas – excellent overlay support
Std Amigas – excellent overlay support
If you, or anyone, knows of another gfx design that allows overlays,
please let us know and we'll be happy to add it too. Designs that do NOT
allow overlays, such as the Retina, DCTV, DMI Resolver, can only be used
as high-color and/or high-resolution display devices – not as targets for
Imagemaster R/t, which uses overlaid AmigaDOS screens extensively.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben:
Was the IV24 left off your list intentionally, or did you just forget
about it? As far as I can tell it allows amigados screens to be overlayed over
the 24bit screen. When the Picasso card comes out it will allow a 24bit screen
to appear as if it was an Amiga screen as they privide a monitor program (to be
put in the devs:monitors that then allows you to select the picasso screen in
several resolutions so that the system uses the Picasso card as if it was a
monitor rather than emulating the WB like the Resolver, and others do.
-Mike Schiller
The IV24 was left off because as far as we can tell, it does not allow
mixing of Amiga screens over it's 24-bit display. I've seen the PIP stuff
and so on, but am not aware of a general Amiga screen frindly mode where
All Amiga displays just show up on top of the IV24. However, thinking
about it, it sure *looks* like the capability is there – Tell you what,
we'll call the GVP folk and see what they have to say about it. The IV24
is sort of a mystery because its driven from a library, not directly – so
I have little sense of what the hardware could do with different
programming. Thanks for poking me on this one, maybe we can add another
display card. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben –
One of the things the IV24 is supposed to offer is a flicker-eliminator
circuit, so I would assume that means one could run Workbench though it,
and I would think it would be the same channel as the 24-bit output so one
wouldn't have to have a cable-switcher or something … Granted, I've
never seen one and I'm software, not hardware (how many programmers to
change a lightbulb? none, it's a harware problem 8^) ) but I seem to
remember reading something along those lines in the various
articles/reviews. Anyway, I'm still trying to decide between IV24 and
OpalVision and have been leaning towards IVfor price/capability reasons,
so I'm very interested in what you find out.
Harry
Harry:
As I mentioned in my reply to Ben, I'm thinking of replacing my IV24 with
a Picasso card, so before you buy an IV24, (if you'd consider buying a
used one) let me know.
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
Ben:
No problem on the poking, that's what we're here for! 🙂 As it is, I'm
probably going to replace my IV24 with the Picasso card, and some other
digitiser when the Picasso card comes out.
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
Thanks for he Info about the ImageMaster upgrade. I'll wait for a
few weeks before I send in my upgrade card 🙂 Best Wishes for the
BABY 🙂 By the way Girl or Boy ? Best regards,
Girl. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Great ! It's a Girl ! So, is there going to be an online part soon
!? 🙂
Er…. "online part"?
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Well.. "Online" as in go to conference and talk have a chat. Don't
worry just a suggestion 🙂
ON rare occasion, Sundays evenings I can be found in chat. I do that much
less than I used to because of the demands on my personal time have grown
very heavy – AutoPilot allows me to answer when I get a few minutes; if it
weren't for AutoPilot, I'd have been off CIS probably some time last year
because I just don't have a couple of hours in a row anymore.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
O.K. Sunday. I gather that you will be in Amigauser Forum side. Maybe I catch
up with you one of these days.
Sounds to me you got a very busy schedule.
Best Regards,
Sze C
Sze,
One caveat is that although the board works well with one meg of chip ram,
it really could use two. Consider a Megachip 2000 as a suggested option.
It will work with an RGB (15.75 Khz) monitor. I am not aware of any
genlock capabilities at this time.
The OpalPaint software is rock solid, IMO. Wish it was a little faster,
tho.
//Jonathan,
\\//via AutoPilot
Hi Johnahan
Thanks for the info about OPAL Vision needing 2 meg Ram.
You mention that you wish it is faster. Is there certain operation with the
Opal Paint that is slow ?
Best Regards
Sze C
Sze,
Honestly, I have very little to compare it to…I have never really used a
24-bit display aside from OpalVision. Sooo…when I say its slow, I mean
in comparision to an 8-bit display on a PC, or native graphics on my
2000.
I have heard that the second meg of chip will speed things up.
Additionally, it runs quite nicely on my friend's A4000. Of course, most
everything would 🙂
//Jonathan,
\\//via AutoPilot
O.K. Yeah.. A4000 seem to be the machine that makes the difference. Going to
check Piggy Bank ……
Thanks for the INFO 🙂
Sze