Welcome me, darn it.
3 messages in this thread
I am speaking of an interface which takes RGB output, either from the monitor
port or from a card slot, and encodes it as an NTSC compatible color-composite
waveform, which takes R,G,B, converts them to X,Y,Z, subtracts Y from each R
and B, encodes I and Q, and phase/amplitude modulates a 3.58 mhz color carrier
with them. In short, a device which enables you to record full color Amiga
video on your VCR or just display it on your TV (with a modulator) there are
currently such devices available, and the Amiga 1000 has one, which everyone
who wanted to use the Ami for pro video hated passionately( including the MAX
HEADROOM crew, according to a write-up in MCS magazine, the issue # of which I
can provide if anyone wants it.). The 500 and the 2000 have such a device
inside, it is true, but not one which produces color ouput. Only monochrome.
The device that I am considering making available to the home experimenter
looks like it would cost about $35.00 all told, and would produce acceptable,
although not super-duper quality color video. The question, I suppose is "Is
there already a set of easy plans for such a thing, such that I would by
wasting my effort and everybody's time, and such that I could skip the whole
mess and build it?" ???? I intend to get quite serious in video production,
and I am looking for a device to provide useable draft video (as in rough
draft) until I can get the quality setup put together on my meager budget.
For any other electrical engineering tyoes out there, I have been looking at th
LM1889 video modulator chip. It is designed to provide a comlete television
modulated signal at a low price, but I am not sure I care to get involved with
60 mhz designs when I am after simplicity after all. Has anyone had an
experience of this device? I will pose the same question in CHIPS on BIX.
Alan
While it's true that there is an outside world connector for
monochrome video, it's my understanding that pin #13 on the extended video
connector on the A2000 has color composite video on it. That may very well
be wrong, it may only be monochrome video. That aside…a 'quickie'
circuit might be interesting, albeit impractical since 99% of the TV's or
VCR's out there can't display (tape) the output with anything near the
sharpness of a monitor.
Don, I think you're missing the point of what I'm doing with the Amiga. I
don't give a gol darn about the clarity on an RGB monitor. The whole reason
I bought an Amiga in the first place is for video production, to be put on
television. While one can reach a reasonably large number of Amiga users
through CIS, or any of the other four services I visit from time to time,
the display option that counts is TV, pure and simple. 50 cents and a
beautiful picture on a converted ST monitor through a flicker fixer will
get you a (small) cup of coffee, as far as I'm concerned. I produce
television not fo my gratification, or to showmy girlfriend and the kids
and the cat, but for the city of Honolulu, Hawaii.
NTSC, although it isn't pretty compared to RGB or RGBI, or even PAL,for
that matter (I don't know about SECAM), is what counts. While I'm at it, I
want to reply to an undeercurrent of opinion that Amiga is a late joke,
because HDTV is coming. I have heard, here and on and on BIX, about the
obsolescence of regular 525 line NTSC video, presumeably because there's
going to be a massive shift to HDTV within the next decade. Make me laugh.
IF the manufacturers satisfy the FCC with an NTSC COMPATIBLE FORMAT, which
will be manditory, and has not been produced, then good old social inertia
will keep 525 line alive for 20 years or more, during the first ten of
which the older format will dominate. If the world is such that HDTV is
going to be in every home immediately, then why are good old vinyl records
and icky old cassette tapes still selling? CDs should have killed them by
now.
CDs are still in the "new and expensive" portion of their life. Why are
there so many 5.25 floppies around, and why are so many people buying 5.25
drives to interface to computers that have the NEW (and expensive)
admitedly better 3.5 microfloppy drives? Poo poo. TEchnology provides
increasingly more effective ways to interface with and improve WHAT'S
ALREADY OUT THERE. People can be so silly. I wonder which new CD I am going
to buy y tonight on my way home? Maybe an LP this week…..
Alan Whinery