CompuServe Thread

Gary, >> I wish Ron Scott would actually join our forum… << I think that would be a great also as he has a broad perspective on the industry from that side of things, and he's pretty much lived it since 16 bit CG came to the PC. On the other hand he's rather fiesty like me and not being a cyberspace navigator with a few thousand sessions under his belt he'd be likely to get into as much trouble as many have. <g> From the standpoint of offering advice on paint and related matters however, he would certainly be an awesome resource. >> I've decided to go ahead and upgrade from the DOS ver… << Well as I think I mentioned and as you commented yourself QFX 4 rules! And to that I would agree. The NT version is fantastic as it provides basically the same feature set, and considering this will be the OS of choice for professional graphics/video/audio/animation et al. its a good decision. My comments to John on the subject were probably rather misleading. I have spent quite a bit of time with the NT version but being proficient in the sense that I'd consider myself an "expert" is not something I'm ready to handle. Though I probably know quite a bit more than I realise, I err on the side of caution. Its hard to know sometimes what level people are at especially here as there's such a broad diversity of skills and talents. And when you claim "expertise" on a subject you're liable to find yourself being challenged. <g> So I avoid that if possible but would like to help out where I can. FWIW right now it looks like QFX is really the only serious paint package available on NT. PhotoShop may or may not be considered as its a Win 32s package and I don't believe is as fast as its Mac counterpart. I could be wrong but that's my understanding. Painter is a curious program as its kind of a hobbyist/professional program. I don't know that I would consider it professional in itself as its rather a luxury to spend time with from a production standpoint but its certainly got some professional features, even though alot of what it has to offer is more "arty" than commercial, at least in the sense I think of as commercial. Maybe there's more there in terms of the print world. I really don't know. Much of what it has to offer doesn't seem really applicable in terms of style to video. Things like the potential to moire because of patterns etc. make it frustrating in that regard. I'd be interested to know how many people are using it in video and how they're using it. The point remains however that QFX is the best suited all around package and is fast and not cumbersome, which I feel Photoshop is a bit, as its oriented towards more complex manipulation which is expected in the print world. The one real shortcoming of QFX for NT is lack of direct access to a framebuffer for titling and video overlays. This probably isn't a big deal for alot of people but for those of us doing that sort of thing, the DOS version does provide that utility. I was hoping that QFX NT would and maybe it will when more drivers are available or when there is more support for framebuffers. Matrox has made the commitment to support the Illuminator Pro and it sounds like the Vista and the Targa may get the same treatment but RasterOps seems to continue its primary focus on the Mac and is losing ground in the PC market. Not suprising. Typical American corporate mentality. Shut down the competition by buying them out and then destroying the market, rather than expanding from a broader base. And it has cost them dearly. In their infinite wisdom they've decided the thing to do was port the TK2000 to the Mac and let the PC market hang fire. I don't envy anyone at Truevision, its got to be terribly frustrating. They had a whole line of good products ready for development based on DVR and what do we get… I've got to get off this tangent. <G> I find it very odd that with all this Non Linear video talk going on that these people seem to forget that you have to output the stuff somehow, which brings us back to the Ill Pro and in the case of DPS the PVR. But the PVR has no direct accessability so you paint and then output, which is really not the best way to do it. Matrox is going along with writing drivers only because D/Vision has created a device independent software based NLE, but the interesting thing is, what output devices will be available? I hope you see where I'm going with this… I just wanted to point out that the output side of things in NT is somewhat in disarray… and this situation is not confined to NT per se. I'm seeing stronger and stronger support for the PowerMac in broadcast, and in particular I have to wonder what is going to keep the PC in the game. Certainly products like the PVR will keep it a player but without titling and overlay capability… I just don't understand what these developers are thinking??? My .02 cents worth for a Friday afternoon… Take care, John John <g>