#Video digitizers
10 messages in this thread
I'd like to know more about the digitizer you used to do the Roger Rabbit
things you just recenly uploaded. Can you point me to info?
Betty – Not too shabby huh? Actually I was getting a marginal cable feed
on Tuesday, hence the small heringbone interference in the pics. I think
I uploaded some info on it into DL2 some time back. Essentially it's a
standalone unit, which plugs into the parallel port of the Amiga. The VD1
(Name of the unit) will grab 1 or 2 fields (2 fields = 1 frame) in real
time at a 60th of a second. Viewing of the grabbed image is done on a
second monitor (or the composite input of an Amiga monitor). The image is
then transferrred into the amiga using software that comes with the unit.
It takes about 25 sec or so to bring in a full 400 line HAM overscan
image. As we use our own RGBN file format internally, we get perhaps the
best HAM cleanup (palette choice) available on any amiga software. As we
are using sophisticated hardware, the source can be ANY NTSC video input.
Live, Broadcast, Tape or LaserDisk. We have recently added frame buffer
capabilities to the unit. So now you can capture and output in 24bit mode,
or users wil be able to generate 24bit pictures in Turbo Silver ver 3.0,
and dump them our frame by frame thru the vd1 to tape in Higher resolution
(768X768) 24bit NTSC. Using the frame buffer pretty much eliminates the
jaggies. Retail price on the VD1 with frame buffer is $995. We will have
a limited amount of units at $600 with our the frame buffer capability. As
for availability, we are hoping for RAM to be delivered within 3-4 weeks.
We have one room at the shop stacked with units all without the ram.
Grrrrr…. We thought about offering the unit without RAM and letting the
users get their own, but we are using a VERY FAST 4 bit chip that's hard
for every one to get at a reasonalbe price. BTW I did get 18-20 pics from
the special if you would like them, leave me an address in E-Mail, and I'll
shoot ya out a disk full.
Do I correctly get the impression that this unit is effectively a hires 24
bit true-color graphics board with digitizer? Or at least can be used as
such??? Does it have an analog RGB output??? Boy I would love a board like
that… Might even be tempting enough for me to break my vow against using
plastic to buy computer stuff… (Only thing reining me in now, is that
once I start, then I'd need the hard disk, and the memory, and more
software, and so on… <sigh> ) –>Steve Bennett
Steve – Sorry no targa type emulation. Like several other developers, we
are messing around in that area, but nothing "solid" yet. doing the
hardware is a snap, but the software to support it – Yechh! <–Stan
BTW, that 25 seconds to bring into HAM format… Is that actual transfer
time? Or is it the time needed for the software to scale and convert to
HAM? Just curious. –>Steve Bennett
Steve – The 25 seconds is to bring the transfer the data from the VD1 thru
the parallel port and display it on the Amiga screen in HAM format.
<–Stan
You mentioned a 768×768 NTSC signal? (approx) Since NTSC uses 525
scan/raster lines per frame (2 fields interlaced) How can we have more
than the number of horizontal scan lines? (Not even all of the 525 lines
are visible due to blanking/timing and/or other signals present in the
NTSC signal.) Is this correct?
Fred – We internally keep that resolution for 2 reasons. First should we
eventually design a PAL unit for the european market we need the extra
lines. Second when the VD1 is modified with the Frame Buffer option, it
allows better dithering when in 24bit mode for de-pixelizing the image. We
are also hoping that someone will come out with a TARGA type video card for
the 2000 which will allow "real time" work in 24 bit mode.
Say Stan, can you outline what 24 bit mode on VD1 means? I've been meaning
to ask since I must have missed some information somewhere. We've got 24
bit color input coming from our full color scanner and do a very good job
of converting it to HAM. But, 24 bit display would be better still.
So…what have you got?
Perry – The 24bit mode in the VD1 and Turbo Silver 3.0 refers to the 16.
whatever colors displayable from a RAW RGB file. Using the VD1 you can
capture a RAW Image and send it back out the VD1 NTSC only. Our engineer
who designed it claims that NTSC however can only display reasonably about
2.5 million colors.
Using turbo Silver 3.0, we can generate a 24bit file, and then dump it out
to NTSC via the vd1 in frame buffer mode, and you get very clean
de-pixelized images dithering isn't a problems as the color palette is so
large that shading is beautiful. This is the optimum way to go if you want
to dump to tape or film on a frame by frame basis.
The only problem is that the 24 bit files can get very large. I have
generated some that are in excess of 1MB each. I would assume that the
output of your scanner could also be run through the VD1 for maximum
resolution and colors. We would be more than happy to provide you with any
file formats or information you might need. Just give us a call.