#Laser Disk/AmigaVision
53 messages in this thread
One of our local school districts has many Pioneer 2000 Laser Disk players.
Rumor has it that there is an interface for the Apple II GS to 'control'
it. One of the teachers at one of the schools (which has _seven_ Amigas in
it) wants to know if anyone knows of an interface for this player which
will work with AmigaVision. A reply by Sunday AM would be appreciated, so
I can talk to him at the club meeting.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
Most laser players have a serial interface; which would mean the answer
is a yes to the hardware, altho a driver may need to be written. —Mike
Mike, except that most 'consumer' laser players DON'T have a serial
interface. The industrial and commercial ones do. I guess I just don't
understand why Pioneer can't put a serial interface into the 3070 or
something…. I'm certainly going to be picking up a laser player in the
next six months or so. Right now it appears the choice is to get a
commercial deck that has the serial interface, but no special effects [the
digital stuff for the extended play disks – I like to look at the Looney
Tunes frame by frame, and they are on extended play 🙂 ], or get a
consumer deck that does the effects but has no port.
Actually it is no contest. I'll end up with one with a serial port. I'll
just miss the other features. –jp–
You are right that most commerical laser disk players don't have a serial
port but you can interface the Pioneer consumer models that have a Control
input/output jack, the 3030 does and I am sure the 3070 does too.
You'll need an adapter such as SIA III from Visual Database Systems. I have
this unit and use it from my Amiga all the time. It does come with software
for the IBM or Mac, but of course not the Amiga. However you can easily
control it from any terminal program.
The only drawback to this method is that communications is one way only,
i.e. you can write to the laser disk player but not read. You can position
the disk at frame ??? but cannot find out what frame it is currently on.
A serial interface would be nice, but this is quite a good alternative.
-=Martin=-
Martin,
How much is the SIA III? What is Visual Database Systems' phone number?
If this device simply converts RS-232 to Control I/O, then it should work
with AmigaVision, with a suitable driver. It is unfortunate that comm is
one way, but for most applications that should not be too great of a
handicap. —Mike
I am still waiting for Commodore to ship me a copy of AmigaVision, but yes
it should work with the SIA-III as it uses the serial port just like a
Laser Disk player with a built in RS232 interface.
I brought mine a while ago and I cannot remember the exact price, it was
$200-$250. The company can be reached at
Visual Database Systems.
614 Bean creek Road,
Scotts Valley
CA 95066
(408) 438-8396
-=Martin=-
Thanx for the info! —Mike
Thanks for the info. I noted the address and such from your messages with
Mike Berro.
I gather that the SIA III is a Pioneer remote controller? Plugs into the
remote jack on the LD player? You say you are using it now…. I just want
to be sure it does what I think:
— individual frame search/play — individual frame forward/reverse —
chapter search/play — alternate channel selection (for the multiple
soundtraks, etc) — FF/Rewind/Slow, etc — basically all the stuff you can
do manually as well?
You say communication is one-way –> player. Is there any way to say "play
FROM frame# TO frame#" (or FROM frame# FOR #minutes/seconds)? Will the LD
player do this automatically, or would my application need to know how long
the sequence was, and then send a stop signal?
Thanks in adance! –jp–
John:
Yes, it is a Pioneer remote controller, you can actually use it to control
any Pioneer component that has a remote control jack. For example I also
have a Pioneer amplifier, I have the SIA-III connected to the control in
jack on my laser disk player and the Laser Disk control out jack connected
to my amplifier. You can address each unit and send any command that you
can send from the remote. You can access Pioneer VCR's CD players etc. If
you have a multiformat laser disk player you can access the CD functions as
well.
You can do all the functions you mention except that there is no play from
frame # to frame # function as such. The manual documents an autostop
function. It says that this function is not on the remote and has been
implemented differently on the various Pioneer models, it does work on my
3030, you should probably check with VDB regarding other models. Anyway the
command sequence is Search to starting frame, Set autostop on ending frame,
StepFwd, Search, Play. The above command sequence will start playing at the
start frame and freeze frame on the ending frame. The problem of course is
that because communication is one way, you don't know that the player has
stopped. Also this is for CAV disks only.
You can certainly time the sequence and send a stop signal at the
appropriate time too, although this will not be that accurate.
Hope the above helps,
-=Martin=-
Yea that is a great help. Like I said, I'm in the market for a LD, and had
wanted to consider the Pioneer 3030/70 etc series because of the great
other features they offer, but didn't want to give up the serial control.
It looks like I don't have to (pretty much, anyway)….
thanks for the info…. –jp–
John,
Yeah, I'm in precisely the same position! I'm nearly ready for a 3030 or
3070 and had assumed that I wouldn't be able to use it with AVision! Things
just get better and better!
Karl
Martin,
Thanks very much for that info! I had no idea that my possible 3030
purchase might also be able to be used on the Amiga with AV. All I need to
do now is get an idea of how much of a loss it is not to be able to do
reads from the player. How about you? Has this really caused you grief, or
have your work-arounds been good enough?
Karl
Karl:
I haven't found the lack of reads a big handicap, but it is going to depend
on exactly what you want to do.
Most of the time I find that you are interacting with the user, via the
normal mouse or keyboard. If you wanted to display a series of frames based
on a time delay it could get messy as someone suggested because different
laser disk players may take longer to seek out the frame. But if you are
working on a time delay system I don't see it makes that much difference.
For example if you had read capability your sequence of LD commands might
be: Search for frame, wait until LD positions, delay five seconds etc.
Without read capability it might be: Search for frame, wait 6 seconds,
(assuming a 1 second search time). If the search is quicker, the frame
stays up longer than 5 seconds, if it takes longer it stays up less than 5
seconds.
I don't make much use of timing though, I tend to wait for a user response.
For example I might seach for a frame and then wait for the user to hit a
key before searching for the next.
As far as reliability is concerned, once you have established a connection
with the controller, I have never lost a command, it has always got through
to the LD player. You can check for a connection because the unit sends a
message to the serial port when it starts up, so that way your program can
at least be sure that the LD controller is there. You have no way of
knowing that a LD player is on the other end though.
The user can certainly mess with the LD player controls and you have no way
of knowing, but you can normally get around this. For example if you wanted
to display a series of 5 consecutive frames you might search for the first
frame and then single step to the others. But what if the user changes the
frame manually? then you are single stepping thru the wrong frames. The
solution is to always search for the frame and not to rely on the current
position. Unless the industrial players come withont controls on the LD
front panel, I think this would be a problem period. Yes if you
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[ continuation ]
had read capability you could find out something has gone wrong but your
programs error recovery logic would be real tough, i.e. to pick up where
you left off after the user has messed with the LD controls would not be
easy.
Personally I find this unit meets my needs but I am really playing around
at this point. The one big thing is will this work with AmigaVision? I am
still waiting for Commodore to ship me a copy of AV. I can't wait to find
out either, I'll post as soon as I know.
-=Martin=-
P.S. Somebody was asking whether or not the 3030 has digitial sound, Yes it
does.
Martin,
Sounds great, Martin. As you say, the only snag now is whether it works
with AmigaVision. I guess I could bring mine up and see what "nearby"
players it supports. CBM told me at SIGGRAPH that an upcoming upgrade to AV
should include more LD support, and possibly a runtime module.
How come you're having such a time getting a copy of AV? Were you one of
the coupon-holders? Or can't stores keep it in stock?
Karl
Mike,
I'm informed that the connector is 'round with 8 pins'. It apparently
doesn't have a normal DB25 connector
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
Vic, I thought that Lou Wallace was using one of those with AmigaVision,
and that it worked with it directly. Was I mistaken?
Betty
Betty,
I am using a Laserdisk player with AmigaVision. The model I bought was the
Sony 1200 industrial player. It has the serial port needed to interface to
the Amiga and works quite well with AmigaVision. It doesn't have the fast
access of some of the players out there, but can find any frame in less
than 3 seconds… Another nice feature of teh Sony 1200 is the cost..I
bought mine used for $300…they retail for around $1000 new. The newer
models from Sony are the 1450 and 1550…they are a bit more expensive than
the 1200. -Lou
Thanks, Lou. My husband is the electronics expert in our house, and I do
tend to confuse terms from time to time if I am not VERY careful. Your
Laserdisk sounds just great, and I wish I had one!
How does one go about shopping for such things (used)? Dallas is full of
outlets for all kinds of things, but I'm not sure how to go about finding
such a thing. Guess I should ask some of my friends who keep up with that
sort of thing locally, though – shouldn't I?
Thanks for the detailed information. It will help. Also – where do you
get disks of useful things for working with AmigaVision? This is a whole
new field to me.
Betty
Well, I contacted a number of sales reps from companies that sell
industrial (rs232 equipped) laser disk players. I left my name and number,
telling them I wanted a good working used or other bargain priced LPD…and
after a couple of months I got a call… DIsks suitable for AV? Hmmm..
Since you want controllable disks, you need the standard, or CAV format.
These are ramdom access laser disks. They are available in a wide range of
formats, especially educational material, which is great for AV courses.
There are others too, such as the Voyager Spacecraft disks I got detailing
the NASA Voyager missions… Other more popular titles often come in CAV
format, such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I have some old monster movies
(Dracula and The Phantom) that have at least one side in CAV format, along
with extra info like theatrical trailers and hundreds of still photos.
-Lou
Thanks, Lou,
With that much information, I think I might be able to locate one in this
area. I do appreciate your help.
Betty
I though all LV players read both CAV and CLV disks. Not so? — Art
Quite right Art, they do all read/play CAV and CLV. BUT, playing a CLV disk
is a long way from controling a CLV disk. In other words unless you have a
very high end Laser Disk Player you wont be able to seek individual frames
of video or pause on a give frame. In general, that functionality is the
domain of the CAV format disk. Both industrial and home laser disk players,
when a CAV disk is present offer a full range of features, like freeze
frame, variable speed play and bidirectional playing (not all players have
all features however).
The CAV supports these features because a significant amount of the disk
space is devoted to information that allows random access of all frames. I
don't know if that information is in the form of time code, SMPTE or some
other digital information.
This is why a movie that is in CLV format might be distributed on one
disk, while the same movie in CAV format might take 2 disks (using 3-4
sides). A CLV disk holds about 50 minutes of film (with audio), while a CLV
disk only about 30 minutes.
-Lou
I BELIEVE that the reason the CAV disk does the individual frame search,etc
(and that it will hold only @ 60 minutes) is that each video frame takes up
one full cylinder (circumference) of the disk.
On a CLV disk there are several frames in the outer cylinders, gradually
stepping down to only one frame for the innermost cylinders.
Since a frame is always an entire cylinder on CAV, it is a simple matter to
search individual frames, hold them, etc…. but the price is less room for
data (since functunally there is room wasted on the outer cylinders).
(an analogy would be Amiga floppy disks (which have the same number of
sectors/data in each cylinder) vs. the Mac's variable speed floppy
drives, which hold different numbers of sectors/data on the inside and
outside cylinders)
I know that the CAV also allow things like the seperate audio track (video
too, right?). I think above is correct. Time to head over to the Consumer
Electronics forum and verify…. ttfn –jp–
Interesting. Thats the first time I have heard it explained that way, but
it certainly would explain the CAV features. And yes, you have two audio
tracks that can ve accessed, along with the video track. -Lou
Actually, the reason CAV (which stands for Constant Angular Velocity, or in
layman's terms the disk rotates at a constant speed…) can do the special
effects is that each frame is exactly one rotation of the disk. So
positioning to a different frame is just a seek. CLV (Constant Linear
Velocity) ranges from one to several frames on a rotation, each frame
taking up the same space on the disc if you straightened it out. (The
rotation speed changes according to where on the disc you are playing.) So
doing a freeze frame is not possible normally, since you may have to play
through several frames in one rotation. Likewise, exact positioning isn't
possible for a similar reason.
–>Steve Bennett
(Now isn't everyone happy to have learned such interesting and generally
useful details? <grin>)
Indeed, I AM glad to have learned those details!! Makes the whole thing
make sense. Thanks.
Betty
Exactly! Well put! For technoheads:
CAV rotates at a constant 1800rpm, which with up to 52,000 tracks gives you
30 minutes playing per side (52,000/30-frames/sec).
CLV changes speed from 1800rpm on the innermost track (1 frame), down to
600rpm on the larger outermost track (3 frames)… for a total of 60
minutes of playing time per side. However, for it to do special effects,
the player needs digital frame buffers (actually, I think they are only
field buffers? That is, one 1/60th second field is simply repeated twice to
get a frame, which means you still want CAV for grabbing the best animation
videos?).
One thing I'm not sure about: the early Laservision discs used a spiral
track (like a phonograph). Do the CLV discs also? Seems like they might.
Lou,
Betty tells me that you _may_ be using a Pioneer 2000 Laser Disk player
with AmigaVision. If you are, do where do you get the cable? One of our
school districts has many Pioneer 2000s and now has 7 Amigas (our club
donated the first one). They would like to do some AmigaVision stuff, but
need to be able to connect to the 2000. Any help would be appreciated.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
No, I use a Sony LDP 1200 with AmigaVision. Sorry. However, if the Pioneer
2000 has a RS232 port, get a null modem cable (or serial cable with a null
modem adapter from Radio Shack). Then try the various Pioneer drivers
supplied with AmigaVision. -Lou
Lou,
Have you been following Martin's thread about the controller for the
Pioneer 3030 consumer LD player? He says it won't read from the LD player,
only send commands to it. I'm wondering how much of a handicap this is. Are
most of the things you would do with AV such that you normally output
commands or do you read also? What kinds of reads?
Thanks,
Karl
hmmm… You would never be sure that you had reached the position you
requested on the disk. For example, suppose you issued a LD command to
display frame 12301. If the PAUSE button on the AV LAser requestor was
enabled, normally the progra would wait until the laser command finished.
It sounds as if you would not be sure the correct frame was displaying and
would have to build in a small wait (a second or two), or just hope for the
best… I don't think it would be too much of an inconvience..but it
wouldn't be as nice as direct support.
One other thing. Before you run out and buy that LDP for use with
AmigaVision, make damn sure there is a supplied driver that will work with
the player you are getting. I suspect it would be a very bad feeling to buy
a LDP, only to find it doesn't work with AV.
-Lou
Hi Lou!
Just read your Toaster article in the October Amiga World. I can hardly
wait to get my mits on one. Good job!
**** Vance ****
Thanks Vance. The toaster is one of the neatest Amiga items I've gotten to
use! Glad you liked the article. -Lou
Uh Lou, do you figure the toaster is any closer to reality/solidifcation
then say, several months ago? Or still vapor?
Ron
Ron, when I talked to Newtek last week, they told me the first 50 or so
Toasters were due to ship Friday or Monday, with more later next week.
After that they should begin their major production of boards. We'll
see…but never have they been so specific as to say it will ship 'day
after tomorrow', so I think it really will be very very soon. -Lou
Lou, given your knowledge of the Toaster, a question (or comparison) if you
like:
Have you seen the Firecracker 24? (from IMPULSE) They are listing it at
$1200 (for 1meg version) and $1600 (for 2meg version). Any critical
analysis for those of us looking at purchasing a puppy like one of these in
the next months/year or so? (maybe you could do a followup comparison
review of Toaster/FR24/Framegrabber/Mimetice Buffer/etc/etc??) –jp–
John, I agree that a coparison of 24 bit boards will soon be due. Besides
FC24 and Toaster, PP&S plan on announcing their own 24 bit board, which
may be shown at Ami Expo.
As for Fc24, AmigaWorld has yet to see one, although we (especially me)
are quite anxious to…When I have had a chance to look at all of them I
will be writing something discussing their differences…
Keep in mind for now, that the Toaster is primarialy a video device with a
24 bit display that includes a 3D package and FC24 is a display card.
Toaster is NTSC, FC24 is supposedly RGB. They seem to be quite different
animals. -Lou
I guess I am confused…. don't both the Toaster and the FireCracker24
display 24bit IFF images? I realize that the Toaster does a bunch more,
but does that entail lower quality?
In other words, are the Toasters 24bit images lower quality since they are
out to NTSC? The RBG of the FR24 gives clearer, etc images? Would the
FR24 be (probably) a better bet for taking stuff to film recorder, etc?
I'm not out to rag any product… but boy is this confusing <smile> Well,
I'll be at the AmiExpo in Anaheim in a couple weeks, and hopefully can see
both for myself…. ttfn –jp–
Since I haven't seen the Firecracker I can't say which looks better but, as
I said, they are different. The Fc24 is a RGB display card. That means it
displays on your RGB monitor, i.e, the Amiga monitor. The Toaster is NTSC,
so it outputs to a composite display, which could also be the Amiga monitor
if you output it to the composite video input of the monitor. The FC24, if
you are planning on making a video recording of he output will require a
genlock…while the Toaster has it's own genlock. If you are planning on
single frame recording of animations, both devices will require a transport
controller and a frame accurate recording deck. And, yes, both are 24 bit
display devices. -Lou
Lou, I had a chance to view a pretty durn good AmigaVision product today.
(two, actually) They were produced for the Alaska/Anchorage visitor
inforamation; one is on general touristy things to do in Alaska and (I
hear) runs in a kiosk at the Anchorage airport, and the other is
specifically on Denali National Park (Mt. Denali).
The Anchorage one used a Pioneer 2200 video disk player, and let user (via
touch screen) choose restaurants, leisure, cultural, etc events in
Anchorage and state. The Denali one used almost exclusively Amiga
graphics, and focused on a 'facts' tour of the Denali park, what to do/see,
history, etc.
Aside from interface complaints (and they were minor) I thought them very
well done. Not trivial projects to say the least. Wondered if you had
heard/seen them?
(now, if I could only lay my hands on a copy of that program somewhere….)
–jp–
Nope, haven't sen or heard about them, but from your desription I wish I
could…
-Lou
It was certainly the most enjoyable Amiga World issue I've read in a long
time (no offence to earlier efforts)!
Since I am awaiting my copy of IMPULSE's Imagine, I hope IMPULSE will make
a file format option to make Imagine creations Toaster compatible, as I
plan to buy a Toaster as soon as I can (for a sideline business to my
on-line store). It would also be good for sales demoing! heheh *8>
Reading that article on the Toaster lifted away all of the depression over
the Toaster delays. I'll bet just about anything that Disney will be adding
the Toaster to their Amigas as soon as they can!
**** Vance ****
Lou,
Yes, I see that without feedback from the player that it had indeed
arrived at the proper frame, things could get "iffy", but is there reason
to doubt its arrival? Would it really be that chancy to just execute the
command to go to a frame and wait a second or two (this could be tweaked)
and just let her rip? I guess what I'm asking is, is the lack of feedback
making targeting specific frames chancy, or is it just that when it does
arrive there, it's going to "hang" for a short period before a specified
AV-delay releases the player to show successive frames?
Yes, I agree that more research needs to occur before expecting AV to
work smoothly with the 3030 (i.e., verifying that there's a driver, etc.).
But to me, this is all "bonus". I had expected to buy a LD this fall for
audio and video use, and digitizing frames into the Amiga using the color
splitter. I had no hope of using an LD that I could afford ("consumer")
with AV at all, until I saw Martin's message. Agreed, it's one big hack,
but it might be fun as long as the limitations are kept in mind.
Thanks,
Karl
I can imagine that with different players there could be slightly different
timings? And if you were trying to coordinate sound with it it could get
very iffy?? Frankly, it sounds pretty good to me. I've been thinking of
the CLD 3030 or 3070 for a while, so I might just spring for one given this
(at least possible) level of control.
I've been hearing that the fully controllable units (used) run under $500,
so maybe eventually do that one too. (I want the 3070 for the digital
effects on the long play disks)
If you, Karl, go ahead with yours, let us know how you get along….
–jp—
John,
Yeah, if the only difference between the 3030 and the 3070 is the 3070
being able to play both sides and the S-VHS output, I'll almost certainly
opt for the 3030. Now if I find out the 3030 doesn't have digital sound, I
might not. (I'll be using the thing as a CD player as well.)
All in all, I need to do more research (and have started picking brains
in CE Forum). May be a month or so, before I'm ready to shuck out the
bucks.
Karl
I agree Karl. The lack of feedback will, in most cases, be a non issue.
It's only when things are not working right that a problem wil surface…
-Lou
Gee Betty, I dunno. I haven't talked to Lou Wallace about this at all.
Maybe he will step in here and comment
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.
Well, there is a company which makes a generic Infrared controller which
can control just about any device with an Infrared remote, so it should be
definately possible to control it. As for a specific interface, I'm not
quite certain what is needed for the Pioneer 2000. AmigaVision lists a
Pioneer 2200 in it's support list, but doesn't mention what cable is needed
to interface with it. But one way or the other, it should be possible to
control it with the Amiga.
Now even given the hardware, you might need to write some software
support routines…
–>Steve Bennett
Steve, (and Vic)… see messages 370, 372, and 381. Martin Warnett
mentioned that the Pioneer 2000 should be able to be controlled directly
with a converter from another company, incl individual frame access. It
might be just what you are looking for. –jp–
I've got a Pioneer PR-6210 laser disk player. It's not RS-232 capable, but
I think it normally has a remote control device that implements a number of
functions not accessible from the front panel. I was able to get it to do
things using my cable TV remote, by pressing random buttons and jamming two
buttons at the same time… How much are these generic remotes? Ever
heard of the PR-6210 before?
I haven't heard of that model, myself (me, I have a CLD-909), but this
generic controller consists of a sensor and an infrared LED which connect
to the Amiga via the serial port and the joystick port, I believe. You use
the remote from the device to send out various commmands which are read by
the sensor and saved on disk in the Amiga. Then when the Amiga wants to do
something, it plays back the command using the LED.
I'm not sure what the cost is, I saw this device controlling a Sony LD
player at a con about a year and a half back. I might still have some
literature on it, I'd have to go dig it out though, and *that* is the
difficult part… <grin>
–>Steve Bennett
Steve,
Thanks for the info on the 2000. We haven't gotten our copies of
AmigaVision out here on the West Coast yet, so I'm working sorta blind at
the moment.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr.