PC video vs. Amiga video
21 messages in this thread
If anyone wants a good laugh, pick up the June issue of Camcorder magazine.
They have a article in it about the low cost of video with PC's as compared
with the Amiga.
What does it say? That PCs are cheap or cheaper than the Amiga?
It says the PC-AT are cheaper for video than the Amiga. Yet the video card
they used doesn't come anywhere close to the Amiga's 4096 colors. If you
used a Targa type card, that raises the cost well above a Amiga. The
article also claims the A500 & A1000 have no way to upgrade "video
adapters" like the A2000. The article was clearly written by sombody who is
uninformed on the Amiga.
I'd rather have more colors on-screen at once, without any trade-offs like
Amiga HAM; I'm sure that's why they thought 256 at once with VGa was
comparable to the Amiga's display. Of course, the PC marketplace hasn't yet
learned that 320 x 200 chunky graphics, regardless of the number of colors,
doesn't cut it. Text is really, really gross, on par with the Commodore 64
or worse.
So write a letter, and get your friends to write, too. Sounds like some PC
people / advertisers were tired of the Amiga coverage, and wanted to print
some propaganda. At least they could get the facts straight, aside from
subjective interpretation.
I would like more than the Amiga's 4096 colors, HAM is okay but I think
things can and will get better. If I could get a good picture out of my PC
without spending a arm and a leg I would go that route. But I can't so
right now I think the Amiga is the better bargin. I am mailing a letter out
to Miller magazines today.
Black Belt systems is relasing fthe HAM-E Board at this weekends AMI-EXPO
it will let you use 262,000+ colors, for about $300 and include 2 paint
programs, and a digiview driver. There should be a file about it around
here{. Ben
Will it work on an A1000? If so I might stop by their booth. My A1000
already has a Supra drive, a Spirit In1000, and shortly a Rejuvenator.
It will work fine on an a1000, in fact we'll have it running on one
(assuming United Expositions gets the stuff to us… my nerves are pretty
frazzled over letting ANYONE handle our gear, but…)
We'll be in booth 603
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
I've been wondering about this for some time, and it sounds like you may
be the one to ask… How do "new & advanced" displays fit into the picture?
Obviously (?) you aren't using Denise to generate the display…what about
Agnus: will Blitter work on these screens? Are the pixels mapped together
in memory, or do you have 18 separate bitplanes?
— John
John,
I suggest you go to AmigaVend, look in DL6 (Black Belt) for a file about
developing for HAM-E. That should answer your questions.
73, Kelly
Richard: I saw the HAM-E running on an A1000 at AmiExpo Chicago, as Black
Belt promised would happen. It looks good! They were showing conventional
images (digitized photos, mostly), then switching to HAM-E mode and goosing
up those images to the extended color modes. Nice. Most everything looked
better, unless you're intentionally interested in a grainy effect.
I'd like a little info in this area, myself — at the most recent CES, most
of the IBM game designs were using scrolling 256-color VGA, and people were
looking down their noses at the Amiga because it can only do 32 colors at a
time on an animated screen (well, 64 with Extra Half-Brite, but neither
number *sounds* as impressive as 256). Is it true that with the newer IBM
graphics standards the Amiga's limitations (like 6 bitplanes instead of 8
for VGA) are starting to show, or is this just a new layer of IBM-style
hype that finds a new "standard" which is still way behind what the Amiga's
been doing for the last five years? If the former is true, is anything
being done (quickly) at CBM or by outside developers about it, in a way
that's standardized and not particularly costly? "256-color VGA" seems to
be a new reason some US game designers (read Sierra On-Line, for instance)
are offering for not wanting to provide Amiga games support that's as solid
as IBM games support, in terms of new design.
— steve
As far as Sierra OnLine goes, I personally think they make up excuses to
cover having mostly take-over-the-PC programmers. For example, after doing
several ports to multitasking OS9, they griped then, too. It seems to be an
ongoing theme; I suspect they simply wish to only concentrate on the PCs.
Kevin,
Maybe true, but it didn't answer my main question. 🙂
–steve
Steve –
<grin> Okay, but you gotta give a hint as to what kind of answer you want
to hear ;-).
Want someone to say: "Yep, Amiga gfx needs to be updated" ?
I can give that answer without feeling too bad, sure. <smile> I'll leave
the PC vs Amiga comparison to others, tho. best -kev
At least with the IBM machines, one can choose to have higher resolution
with more than monochrome. You pay for it, but $199 for a graphics card
(Genoa for example) with 1024×768 is not much, considering.
Oh, you bet, it'd be nice to tap into the PClone gfx card bargains!
Richard,
Yeah – I didn't know how FOOLISH we all have been for so many years,
trying to do VIDEO with Amiga's instead of PC's, until I read that guy's
article.
Oh well, the THREE other articles in the magazine dealing with using
Amiga's for video work make a good contrast to his "opinion".
Lloyd
Lloyd(spreadsheets, accounting etc.). The Amiga's do their things well like
video, and they do video for less than what you would have to spend on
upgrading the PC to do the same thing. Did you notice one of those other
articles said the Amiga was 68020 based?
Don't just laugh; write 'em and tell 'em how wrong they are! Videomaker
magazine has been pushing Amigas, in a de facto way (e.g., they run generic
columns about Amiga-type features, but don't mention the machine by name;
but lots of Amiga retailers are advertising right alongside the column).
I have got my letter ready to go to Miller Magazines. There is just too
much wrong about the article not to write them.