#Plans,Mice,Men.
18 messages in this thread
Mark,
I read your (well done, methinks) suggestions for CBM in the new year with
great interest. Here are some comments for you.
In software, I'd like to see the following:
1 – RTG support – Absolutely the MOST important issue
2 – VM support — The NEXT most important issue
3 – Speech back – CBM's worst blunder of recent note was its removal
4 – 3.0 release – As you say; either everyone has it, or it's dead.
5 – Networking — It's there already, mostly, but CBM needs this too.
In hardware, I'd like to see:
1 – LAPTOP AGA — This is desire #1 for me, period, end of story.
2 – SCSI in 4000 – IDE was CBM's #2 big, bad booboo. As we all know.
3 – DSP+support — I want this so bad I'm unable to be fair about it.
4 – CDROM drives – no drives, no software. 3rd party won't do.
5 – Tower 4k —– slots! slots! slots! + DSP + CDROM + SCSI… :^)
6 – Cornerturning- ChunkyByte gfx memory. THEN you'll see speed!
——————————————-
The PhotoCD, well, I have mixed feelings about it. You can put good (not
great, and certainly not perfect) images on digital media. Ok. Now, look
at CDTV and CD-I. Duds – unqualified, dead in the water, duds. Anyone who
tells you differently is either wrong or has a unique marketing situation
on their hands. Selling PhotoCD to the consumers is going to be VERY hard,
you mark my words. If I were giving odds for its success right now, I'd
give 100:1 easily, against it becoming a widespread consumer standard.
Why? Same reasons as CDI/CDTV failed. Too techy, too expensive to get
into, recession, proprietary, limited.
XD0? Oy. We'll bite that bullet when it comes, if it comes, if anyone even
notices.
Bridgeboard for the PC? Uhhh… there's this little graphics problem,
Mark. :^) I'd lable it "not practical'.
I wish you lived in Montana – we could use someone with your insight and
thoughful approach here at Black Belt.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
If you can believe Kodak's figures…they can't make PhotoCD units
fast enough. The key being you put YOUR stuff on it, not what someone else
wants you to see. It's the slide projector of the 90's.
People are buying the PhotoCD machines for the same reason they're
buying home video tape cameras. They can put little Johnny on TV.
Don
Don,
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago which indicated
that the Kodak units weren't moving too fast even though they were practically
giving them away (i.e. slim margins). Apparently it costs about 20 bucks a
disk for about a 24 picture roll? (I could be off on this).
If you notice from the commercial, they don't show a complete shot of the
painting display… which reminds me of a Gif player or something… seems
a bit slow compared to flipping pages in a book or showing slides, albeit
less cumbersome than the latter.
Tim
Tim,
It takes a couple of seconds to draw a picture…no big deal, and
I'm not sure if it has to do that…it may be able to frame buffer and jump
from one to the next.
A local dealer here will take a negative and put it on the disk for
$1.25 each in lots of 1 to 10 negatives. If you go in with a full 100
negatives (or slides) it drops to about $0.85 a negative. The Disk itself
is free (from this dealer anyway) and it's only a few dollars to develop a
roll of film. The presumption is that you don't want every snapshot you
take put on the CD…just your better ones. And, of course, you don't need
a whole CD everytime you want to add a picture or two, they can be
"appended" to a current CD until it's full (100 pictures). So you could
have 1 a week added for two years before you'd need a new disk itself.
I strongly suspect those prices will come down as PhotoCD unit
sales volumn goes up. Just like everything else. And yes, I suspect
there's more than a bit of 'Gillette Shaver' philosophy involved. Sell the
player for minimal margin, make your profits on the dealer processors (that
add the pictures to the CD) and the process itself. Gillette did the same
thing years ago…almost gave the shavers away (and in many
cases…did)…but made tons of profit on the blades to go in the shavers.
Don
I'm glad to hear you can append to the disk…
Overall it sounds neat to me but I think it will take awhile for the mass
public to catch on like with camcorders. What's amazing to me is often
lost on those around me.
Have you ever noticed how when you get your Amiga to do something amazing,
like play music with an animation or something 3D or whatever, and you show
it to someone unfamiliar to computers, they look at it without amazement?
They see the same on tv all the time, so it's no big deal… I suppose that
is a compliment, sort of!
Tim
Oh, I beleive Kodaks statement, all right – but it's market-speak; it
means nothing.
For instance: CBM tells us they can't make 1200's fast enough. Same
*exact* line. Are we now to believe that 1200's are taking over the
universe? Hardly. What it means is that the production facilities
allocated and/or amounts initially forecast (conservatively, of course)
were… you guessed it: conservative.
Kodak's in the same barrel. Without actual numbers of units sold per
outlet, you can't even come close to taking that statement as meaning
anything you can take to the bank.
—————————–
Another thing – it's a darn sight cheaper, and more fun, to put Johnny on
video than it is on PhotoCD. Video is/has/offers…
(a) less expensive overall costs
(b) it moves and so has MUCH more eye appeal
(c) perfectly able to give you solid still (freeze) frames with any
good modern camcorder
(d) has inexpensive, readily available media
(e) already has access into computers via inexpensive digtizers
(f) it's pervasive – all over the map, the world in fact (PAL/NTSC).
I can't see Jane and Joe consumer buying it. I just can't. I realize the
resolution differences inherent in the media, and I also understand that
good prints can be had ffrom the new format, while video is pretty
terrible by comparison. But that's where this thing falls apart – it's
being advertised as a "look at your spousal unit/short person/genetic link
over the tube" – and that can already be done, better, cheaper, and more
fun.
I'll be pleased to be proven wrong – but I don't beleive it'll happen.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
Would you rather sit and watch upmteen feet of video footage of some
friend's kid on vacation until they 'find' that awfully cutesy frame of
johnny touching noseys with a dolphin to freeze on, or a quick scan
through a few selected pics put on a CD? Most people take bad photos, but
do get a couple right, while most video is simply awful, full of too fast
pans, zooms, camera shakes, and dizzying scenery changes. How about when
they put the camera on down while its still running, "everyone turn you
head sideways for a few minutes, it'll pass", Pulllease, I only wish the
PHOTO CD came before the video.
Chris
Chris, I have no argument with your points – I just don't think they'll
mean a thing to the consumer.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
I agree…salesspeak is salesspeak. But consider that's it's
better to be selling more than anticipated…thus running out of
production…than it is to have units on the shelf collecting dust.
As to utility…consider that without an expensive setup, you can't
edit video. You takes what you get when you press that button…good, bad
or indifferent. Little Johnny may be doing something really interesting, or
may be picking his nose and it's all there on the big screen. With a photo
CD, you can pick and choose from your shots which you wish put on the CD
and those you want to relegate to the laugh book.
A photo CD player is 1/2 the cost of a Video tape camera…and for
the cost difference, Joe and Jane Average will have enough money to pay for
putting pictures on a CD for several years. (the low end PhotoCD unit sells
for [279 or 379…I forget which] around here).
I personally don't own a video camera, nor would I buy one. I
would buy a PhotoCD unit (presuming I had that much disposable cash
around…which I don't…so it's a moot point for me anyway right now).
Oh yea…PhotoCD units also play audio CD's…so presuming one is
in the market for an audio unit…the cost of a PhotoCD unit is even less
considering the difference in cost between an audio player and an
audio/photo player…which is the true cost to the consumer of having
PhotoCD capabilities.
Don
Don, recent camcorders do have editing – some facilities are quite
surprising. Further, edit hardware for those that have a vcr as well as
the camcorder is often in the hundred dollar range, or, as in the case of
the consumer VCR I have, the JVC HR-D960u, built in – the editing has cue
and fade and etc – shuttle controls the whole bit. I paid $400 for the
deck, and it is *nice*. So I don't buy that you can't edit video. You can,
and it's easy. Also, buying a new camcorder or vcr is going to have a lot
more utility for the household. "Dear, I'm buying a new VCR, we'll put it
in the Den and the kids can watch their rock videos while we watch our
time-shifted CNN". Etc. I don't see the utility PhotoCD offers as
exceeding a camcorder, not by a long shot. And again, I don't see J&J
consumer seeing it that way, either.
The point about audio CD's is a good onbe – the same one they made for
CDTV. Didn't help a bit.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
I'm sure you're aware the average American can't program their
VCR's (thus things like VCRPlus are selling like hotcakes) thus asking them
to edit tapes is an even bigger leap of faith. But they can take film to
their neighborhood store and get it developed…and even get enlargements
of shots they like. Adding a photo to a photoCD is just as easy. You
bring the photo (with or without negative) to your dealers along with the
CD and come back in an hour (next day…whatever).
Yes, for the technically competent..there are easier, and perhaps
cheaper ways to create home "snapshots/video"…but for Joe and
Jane…PhotoCD is the easiest…and in the long run, cheapest.
If I were going to use video, among other things, I'd want 2 decks.
I'd want a fairly good camera, but then I'd want to use a high quality
editing deck to do the cuts..and dub them onto an equally good deck. If I
didn't do that, I'd be losing a significant amount of quality with each
edit (copy) and I'd have to use the camera as the playback deck…yet no
camera I've seen (although I'm sure they exist) is optimized for
playback…they're optimized for recording.
Don
Ben,
Whoops…forgot to add the last paragraph:
And that all costs big bucks. So for J&J Average….PhotoCD can be
a very big deal…and relatively inexpensive.
Don
Don,
OTOH most J&J Average have a J Average jr. that does know how to do
simple edits with a camcorder and VCR. I lived this for a while with my
parents. They needed something transferred, they asked me, they wanted a
new gizmo, they asked me. The jrs also needed to be sold on PhotoCD, I
know I wouldn't suggest to my parents to buy one even if they asked. But
then again, I love my Sony Beta VCR, so what do I know.:)
// .An Ameoba on AutoPilot 🙂
\X/
Why Ben–are you off your normal drugs or something? That was probably
one of the kindest messages you have left me in my three years here. 🙂
I want Speech back–but I want it back using the DSP. I think the Amiga
voice was cool back in 1985, but it ought to be considerably better
today–seven years later.
On networking, I am hoping that Commodore will add NSF server capability
to their TCP/IP package as well as consider bringing Pathworks to the
Amiga. Since we already have a good DECNet implementation it might not be
that difficult to bring Pathworks in on top of it, since it does rely on
DECnet.
On the laptop idea. Normally I don't agree with a single line of text the
"Bandito" writes. However this month's Amazing Computing had a statement
from him that made so much sense that I could not believe he wrote it. He
said that Commodore needs to produce an AGA laptop so that we can have
portable multimedia stations. That is exactly dead-on, especially if
these systems had the 'video' capability that all Amigas have had from day
one. Imagine this if you will. Go to a customer with a hot SCALA
presentation, plug into the company's television or multimedia conference
room with your AGA machine. Wow.. instant sale.
We use A600s for this purpose now, but a laptop unit would work much much
better and would sell very well.
CDROM–we agree completely. Commodore has to set the standard. Even if
they can't make a CDTV compatible unit (though I do not see why they
can't) they need to have CDROM, and they needed it yesterday. Commodore
has this ad that says "The Amiga 4000–The most Powerful Multimedia
Computer ever built by Commodore—or anyone else". A great ad,
unfortunately when I am asked the first quesiton about CDROM. I end up
talking about the nice 3rd party drives, and how you need to add a SCSI
card. You get the picture.
Cornerturning, is this simply a software issue?
PhotoCD, I generally grant that this is a 'gee whiz' technology. However
<continued>
I am also awaiting NFS server software…but not from C=. INET (AS225) was
written by another company for commodore and they have moved on to other
projects.
My friend in WA state, and programmer of my BBS software (4D-BBS), Has
annouced PLANS to start on a complete NFS client/server package that will
utillize ethernet and serial transfers.
With his current schedule I don't expect to see anything signifigant for
about a year.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Mark,
Not only does CBM have to set the standard for CDROM, but they should be
giving out the proper software so that the guys on the bleeding edge (like
me:) are able to tap into CDTV abilities. If they release their own
CD-ROM, with needed code in an on-board ROM chip, that will not make me too
happy.
Of course, they simply need to do something. They are starting to look
pretty silly, IMHO.
Jonathan
it will be a technology that is associated with multimedia. If MPC
machines can do it–the Amiga had better be able to do it and do it
better. Multimedia is the key to the Amiga's future.
Bridgeboard for the PC.. not practical? Maybe. My idea would basically
be to put an entire Amiga on a board (including seperate video) for the
PC.
-mark=
Cornerturning – it's completely a hardware issue. How would you like to
see gfx routines speeded up by, oh, say 20x? Put a corner turner in there
and you'll have it.
As for the rest, I don't do drugs. I do work instead. It leaves you just
as wrung out, burns out just as many brain cells, but society approves.
:^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot