From: ricardo@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Ricardo Hernandez Muchado)
Subject: Re: Rumours about 3DO ???
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
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In article <1993Apr15.164940.11632@mercury.unt.edu>, Sean McMains <mcmains@unt.edu> writes:
|> In article <1993Apr15.144843.19549@rchland.ibm.com> Ricardo Hernandez
|> Muchado, ricardo@rchland.vnet.ibm.com writes:
|> >   And CD-I's CPU doesn't help much either.  I understand it is
|> >a 68070 (supposedly a variation of a 68000/68010) running at something
|> >like 7Mhz.  With this speed, you *truly* need sprites.
|> 
|> Wow! A 68070! I'd be very interested to get my hands on one of these,
|> especially considering the fact that Motorola has not yet released the
|> 68060, which is supposedly the next in the 680x0 lineup. 8-D

   Sean, the 68070 exists! :-)

|> 
|> Ricardo, the animation playback to which Lawrence was referring in an
|> earlier post is plain old Quicktime 1.5 with the Compact Video codec.
|> I've seen digitized video (some of Apple's early commercials, to be
|> precise) running on a Centris 650 at about 30fps very nicely (16-bit
|> color depth). I would expect that using the same algorithm, a RISC
|> processor should be able to approach full-screen full-motion animation,
|> though as you've implied, the processor will be taxed more with highly
|> dynamic material.
|> ========================================================================
|> Sean McMains              | Check out the Gopher    | Phone:817.565.2039
|> University of North Texas | New Bands Info server   | Fax  :817.565.4060
|> P.O. Box 13495            | at seanmac.acs.unt.edu  | E-Mail:
|> Denton TX 76203           |                         |  McMains@unt.edu


   Sean, I don't want to get into a 'mini-war' by what I am going to say,
but I have to be a little bit skeptic about the performance you are
claiming on the Centris, you'll see why (please, no-flames, I reserve
those for c.s.m.a :-) )

   I was in Chicago in the last consumer electronics show, and Apple had a
booth there.  I walked by, and they were showing real-time video capture
using a (Radious or SuperMac?) card to digitize and make right on the spot
quicktime movies.  I think the quicktime they were using was the old one
(1.5).

   They digitized a guy talking there in 160x2xx something.  It played back quite
nicely and in real time.  The guy then expanded the window (resized) to 25x by
3xx (320 in y I think) and the frame rate decreased enough to notice that it
wasn't 30fps (or about 30fps) anymore.  It dropped to like 15 fps.  Then he
increased it just a bit more, and it dropped to 10<->12 fps. 

   Then I asked him what Mac he was using... He was using a Quadra (don't know
what model, 900?) to do it, and he was telling the guys there that the Quicktime
could play back at the same speed even on an LCII.

   Well, I spoiled his claim so to say, since a 68040 Quadra Mac was having
a little bit of trouble.  And this wasn't even from the hardisk!  This was
from memory!

   Could it be that you saw either a newer version of quicktime, or some
hardware assisted Centris, or another software product running the 
animation (like supposedly MacroMind's Accelerator?)?

   Don't misunderstand me, I just want to clarify this.

   But for the sake of the posting about a computer doing it or not, I can
claim 320x200 (a tad more with overscan) being done in 256,000+ colors in 
my computer (not from the hardisk) at 30fps with Scala MM210.

   But I agree, if we consider MPEG stuff, I think a multimedia consumer
low-priced box has a lot of market... I just think 3DO would make it, 
no longer CD-I.

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