Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cunixb.cc.columbia.edu!es1
From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Subject: Re: CDTV & CD-I The Whole Picture
Message-ID: <1991Apr20.195605.23496@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Sender: usenet@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Network News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Reply-To: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Organization: Columbia University
References: <1991Apr18.161346.3409@ncsu.edu> <1991Apr18.174928.21079@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991Apr20.130639.27962@ncsu.edu>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1991 19:56:05 GMT

In article <1991Apr20.130639.27962@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>>  Kevin, the World Atlas, for example, wasn't "disappointing". It wasn't
>> miraculous, but it was quite nice.
>
>Perhaps people should post more reviews and comments, then?  The _only_ two
>I'd seen so far on the Atlas from Amigans were these, and I quote:
>
>  "I question the quality of some of the software. (Let me preface this by
>  saying I saw limited examples of the CD ROM software.) Some of the graphics
>  have a severe case of the "jaggies" which I assume should look somewhat
>  better on a television.  The software which featured a little bear had very
>  limited animation for a program that can access 550K of storage. The map
>  software looked good at first but during scrolling we could see the legend
>  of the origional map and it seemed that we were just looking at a digitized
>  blowup of an atlas you might already have at home. I hope the rest of the
>  software is better than the limited amount of stuff I saw because there is
>  so much potential (I didn't see any of the reference material except for the
>  atlas.)"    .... and ...
> 
>  "I watched only for a few minutes as what was available on it looked pretty
>  lame.  The Atlas program seemed _very_ limited."
>
	As to the bear CD, in its defense there was probably over
20 minutes worth of sound that it played back while the 16 color
anims were playing. That would take up somewhere less than 1/2 of
the CD right there. As to the second review, the person only
spend a few minutes looking at the program and spent even less
time telling us what he didn't like. 8-)

>>   I don't believe that photorealistic graphics are necessary for CDTV to
>> succeed. I think that HAM digitized images are close enough that most people
>> will consider them satisfactory, although certainly CD-I will be better.
>
>In most cases, I agree.  BTW, astute readers have noticed that I never directly
>compare the systems (I only told what CD-I has) until others do so first.
>
>Still, we should note that HAM only has 16 grey levels, which can be a factor.
>And once again, if HAM is "satisfactory", then I guess all those video authors
>buying DCTV and other boards must be wasting their money?
>
	Oh, come on Kevin, don't use arguments which you yourself
know are dumb. Many people are buying DCTV for video work. It
also costs $400 street price. Until there is more support for
DCTV from 3rd party people, DCTV is a video addon.

>> BTW, don't forget that one of the tools for CDTV development is AmigaVision.
>> That is certainly helpful for development, especially in terms of
>> time savings.
> 
>There are comparable, but more professional oriented, tools in CD-I studios.
>Time savings in the AV learning curve perhaps, but that's mostly a factor for
>the relatively newer market of CDTV authors.  And AV is certainly not the tool
>people would use for CD-audio capturing and editing, video digitizing, etc.
>As an ARexx frontend, yes.  But directly, no way.
>
>In many ways, both systems will end up having similar studios.  Envision
>a place where everyone has a workstation, all linked through networking.
>One person is mousing up an audio/video time script;  another is sampling
>and editing new audio; another is touching up digitized video data; another
>is playing back 24-bit color animations as a testbed.   All these A/V files
>are converted to IFF for interchange, and the group's editor is in another room
>testing out how the title plays back by using one of several 1-gigabyte hard
>disks (for CDROM emulation).  Sounds like an Amigan's dream place to work.
>
>Yet I've just described a typical large CD-I studio. Surprised?   - kevin

	You know, that sounds like a studio filled with Amigas.
8-) I don't see WHAT you just mentioned that can't be done using
an Amiga studio. Your point is moot. There has been that kind of
software developing for the Amiga from many companies for years.
The only reason that you keep pointing out that all these
programming tools have been created for CD-I is because CD-I had
no outside support as it wasn't selling.
	-- Ethan

Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb
A: None. It's a hardware problem.
