Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
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From: rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re: What the heck IS "Interactive TV"? (long)
Message-ID: <1991Apr12.131236.5282@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
References: <1991Apr11.090415.5276@ncsu.edu> <1991Apr11.143222.13728@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Apr12.022130.3180@ncsu.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 13:12:36 GMT
Lines: 34

In article <1991Apr12.022130.3180@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>In <1991Apr11.143222.13728@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
> rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
>I can accept most other arguments to back any system, but to actually
>promote less capable hardware for the masses because of lame brandname
>loyalty, is not what I expected, especially _here_ of all places.
>
>It's a little disappointing. And scary. sadly - kev <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>

  The problem is, I don't think CD-I's hardware is all that great. What
happens when the market gets littered with this CD-I "standard"? It
will be hard for any other machine to get on the market. 
  What about when CD drives improve in a few years and get better
transfer rates? HDTV? What about cheap MPEG chips and 24bit color vs 
RLE compression? What about having a 68040 as the standard processor
onboard? You see, CD-I doesn't make any significant improvements
in graphics rendering, or CD-ROM technology. Instead, it's been kludged
on top of the old hardware except for a few VLSI chips. It doesn't
even have a blitter as standard. I bet CD-I games will fall very short of
Amiga games.  All the faults CD-I has, CDTV also has. The reason
I'd rather have a less capable machine promoted ahead of a mediocre
machine because what's good for Commodore (profit) is good for the Amiga.

  If those big Japanese companies would have developed a better CD-ROM
drive perhaps transfer rates would have been fast enough for HDTV when it
arrives.



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