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> The resolution doesn't really compare, but the Amiga was targetted at
> normal TVs. The Amiga's 640x480 is quite near to modern DVD's 720x564.
The video chip on the Acorn was actually pretty cool, it was completely
programmable so you could pretty much drive anything you wanted from a TV to
a high resolution monitor. Even when I got my first LCD monitor I plugged
it in and it worked! If you found some weird monitor that didn't quite
work, chances were that someone could help you out and write the config file
for you.
> Thing is, up until this point, computer graphics had always been blocky
> things made out of a dozen flat colours. Computer graphics *looked* like
> computer graphics. Computer sound *sounded* like computer sound.
Well, to be honest, I don't see the *huge* leap between my BBC B from 10
years earlier that could do 640x256 and 16 colours to 640x480 and 32
colours. I would have expected a lot more.
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>> The resolution doesn't really compare, but the Amiga was targetted at
>> normal TVs. The Amiga's 640x480 is quite near to modern DVD's 720x564.
>
> The video chip on the Acorn was actually pretty cool, it was completely
> programmable so you could pretty much drive anything you wanted from a
> TV to a high resolution monitor.
Yeah. The Amiga defaults to TV scanrates, but you can program it to run
at whatever you want. (Within reason.) The tricky part is figuring out
what you need to program it to do. (And getting it to do it when you
can't see a display!)
The *other* tricky part is that ALL games will run at TV scanrates, and
there's nothing you can do about it...
> Well, to be honest, I don't see the *huge* leap between my BBC B from 10
> years earlier that could do 640x256 and 16 colours to 640x480 and 32
> colours. I would have expected a lot more.
16 colours out of 16, verses 32 out of 4,096? Seems like a fairly big
difference to me. ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> 16 colours out of 16, verses 32 out of 4,096? Seems like a fairly big
> difference to me. ;-)
Yeh saying that, we've been stuck at 2^24 out of 2^24 for a while now... ;-)
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scott wrote:
> Yeh saying that, we've been stuck at 2^24 out of 2^24 for a while now...
> ;-)
Yep. There's only so much that human senses can perceive. ;-)
(Similarly, "CD-quality audio" was invented, what, 20 years ago? And it
still hasn't changed to this day...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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4885e130$1@news.povray.org...
> On the other hand, Virtual Dub has no manual yet I find it quite easy to
> work, and yet I couldn't get WMM to do anything except glue video clips
> together. (Maybe that's all it does? Oh, and the transitions that you
> can't control or adjust in any way.) Maybe I'm just trying to make WMM do
> things it's not designed for?
On the version I got with Vista controlling the transitions is just done by
pulling them with the mouse and zooming in the timeline for more precise
control. I'll grant that it's never very precise, but then it's a
no-brainer, made for people who don't read manuals and don't like to type
numbers in little boxes with funny names.
Perhaps you just don't get purely visual interfaces? GUIs tend to have their
own paradigms and figuring them out can take time. Sometimes we put the
blame on the interface (and rightly so, but I won't tell names...) but it
may be that people differ in the way they can grasp certain visual paradigms
and not others (no excuse for Word styles though).
G.
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>> On the other hand, Virtual Dub has no manual yet I find it quite easy to
>> work, and yet I couldn't get WMM to do anything except glue video clips
>> together. (Maybe that's all it does? Oh, and the transitions that you
>> can't control or adjust in any way.) Maybe I'm just trying to make WMM do
>> things it's not designed for?
>
> On the version I got with Vista controlling the transitions is just done by
> pulling them with the mouse and zooming in the timeline for more precise
> control. I'll grant that it's never very precise, but then it's a
> no-brainer, made for people who don't read manuals and don't like to type
> numbers in little boxes with funny names.
>
> Perhaps you just don't get purely visual interfaces? GUIs tend to have their
> own paradigms and figuring them out can take time. Sometimes we put the
> blame on the interface (and rightly so, but I won't tell names...) but it
> may be that people differ in the way they can grasp certain visual paradigms
> and not others (no excuse for Word styles though).
IIRC I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to make the
sequence fade to black. I got it to fade, but it was a 2 second fade and
I wanted 10 seconds. I couldn't find any way of altering this.
I also utterly failed to figure out how to insert a pause.
In the end I just got so thoroughly frustrated with the thing that I
gave up. To my horror, next time I opened it, it had somehow magically
"remembered" where all my video files are, and nothing I could do to it
would make it "forget" that information. At that point I decided to give
up for good.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> Yep. There's only so much that human senses can perceive. ;-)
True, and it's a shed load more than 256 levels. The attached photo
demonstrates nicely, see how with only 8bits/channel there is almost no
detail in the clouds at the top, nor in the dark wall and radiator at the
bottom? I can assure you in real life I can see a lot more detail. Once we
get display devices with higher contrast then higher bpp will surely follow
to better replicate what we see with our eyes. IIRC cinema projectors use
16 bit/channel already.
> (Similarly, "CD-quality audio" was invented, what, 20 years ago? And it
> still hasn't changed to this day...)
That's because not many people can hear higher than 20 kHz. Add in 10%
margin for the anti aliasing filters, and with a 22 kHz nyquist frequency
you get to 44 kHz sample rate. There isn't much incentive to go higher,
although DVD uses 48 kHz. 16-bit per sample is also probably ok, because
that correpsonds (IIRC) to a roughly 100 dB range of sounds, which is about
what the ear is sensitive to while listening to music. (OK if you wanted to
reproduce a pin dropping and then a jet engine in your living room, you
might need more than 16 bits to get it sounding good...)
Post a reply to this message
Attachments:
Download 'img_0298.jpg' (101 KB)
Preview of image 'img_0298.jpg'
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>> Yep. There's only so much that human senses can perceive. ;-)
>
> True, and it's a shed load more than 256 levels. The attached photo
> demonstrates nicely, see how with only 8bits/channel there is almost no
> detail in the clouds at the top, nor in the dark wall and radiator at
> the bottom? I can assure you in real life I can see a lot more detail.
There's a good reason for that: every time you point your eyes somewhere
else, all the exposure settings automatically change! ;-)
That's why it's so damned hard to find a good exposure setting on a
camera - one that reveals as much detail as the human eye. The human eye
doesn't use just *one* exposure setting, but a constantly changing level.
> Once we get display devices with higher contrast then higher bpp will
> surely follow to better replicate what we see with our eyes. IIRC
> cinema projectors use 16 bit/channel already.
Well, we'll see.
>> (Similarly, "CD-quality audio" was invented, what, 20 years ago? And
>> it still hasn't changed to this day...)
>
> That's because not many people can hear higher than 20 kHz.
Indeed. No real point going higher.
> There isn't much incentive to go higher, although DVD uses 48 kHz.
Now there's interesting. Do you have a reference for that? Last I heard,
DVD audio typically has lossy compression applied to it...
> 16-bit per sample is also probably
> ok, because that correpsonds (IIRC) to a roughly 100 dB range of sounds,
> which is about what the ear is sensitive to while listening to music.
Heh. It sounds OK to me! ;-)
[I gather there is a thing called "Super Audio CD", but it hasn't really
taken off because nobody can hear the difference.]
> (OK if you wanted to reproduce a pin dropping and then a jet engine in
> your living room, you might need more than 16 bits to get it sounding
> good...)
Hope - because you'll be *deaf* after the jet! :-D
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> There's a good reason for that: every time you point your eyes somewhere
> else, all the exposure settings automatically change! ;-)
Of course, but it doesn't affect the fact that 8bit/channel is nowhere near
enough to give a realistic looking image.
> That's why it's so damned hard to find a good exposure setting on a
> camera - one that reveals as much detail as the human eye. The human eye
> doesn't use just *one* exposure setting, but a constantly changing level.
That's why people take HDR images (by quickly taking several images in
sucession with different exposures) and then combining them into one HDR
image. On your computer you can then vary the exposure and reveal all the
detail that would have been impossible to capture in a single 8bit image.
> Now there's interesting. Do you have a reference for that? Last I heard,
> DVD audio typically has lossy compression applied to it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video#Audio_data
> [I gather there is a thing called "Super Audio CD", but it hasn't really
> taken off because nobody can hear the difference.]
Or rather, in the majority of hi-fi systems it is not the 16bit/44kHz source
data that is the limiting factor on the quality.
> Hope - because you'll be *deaf* after the jet! :-D
Yup - but you wanted an accurate reproduction in your living room of that
scene where someone is run over by a jet taking off ;-)
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
> > I'll agree, Windows 3.x sucked. :)
> I was always astounded that "66 MHz" PCs would crawl along unbearably
> slowly
False memories. Windows 3 was already used in 6 MHz 286 computers.
If Windows 3 was "unbearably slow" in a 66 MHz 486, I can only imagine
how slow it must have been in a 286.
Obviously given that it was used in practice, it was not that slow.
> (On the other hand... You know how Linux is supposed to be "fast"? I
> tried running Debian on my Amiga 1200. Waiting for Gnome to start up
Gnome is not linux.
Try porting gnome to your beloved AmigaOS and let's see how fast it is
there.
> is... well let me put it this way. It makes a 486 SX look like greased
> lightning. From typing "startx" to having a usable desktop takes about
> 20 *minutes*!! Not kidding!!)
Why would you even want to use gnome in a slow computer? Use a lighter
window manager.
--
- Warp
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