🚀 go-pugleaf

Jay Steele writes
> As I was leafing through the May issue of Byte magazine  
recently,
> I saw an add for a board which allowed television signals to  
be
> displayed on a window. I mentioned to a nearby friend that I 
> thought it was pretty interesting, and he abruptly responded
> "Why... I serves no practical purpose."
> 
> Well, my [limited] knowledge of multimedia tells me otherwise. 
> What are some of these apparantly non-existant "practical  
purposes?"

Well, I can think of two just off the top of my head.

1. Using serial control of a laserdisk, you can have a  
customized, interactive educational game similar to the arcade  
ones.

2. With enough processing power (and a 486 has it) you could  
inspect and capture significant news stories from CNN.  The  
military would have loved that capability to help generate  
briefings during the Gulf War.

In article <1992Jul26.153332.8827@bcrka451.bnr.ca> custeng1@bcrka333.bnr.ca (Wayne McFall) writes:
>As I was leafing through the May issue of Byte magazine recently,
>I saw an add for a board which allowed television signals to be
>displayed on a window. I mentioned to a nearby friend that I 
>thought it was pretty interesting, and he abruptly responded
>"Why... I serves no practical purpose."

>Well, my [limited] knowledge of multimedia tells me otherwise. 
>What are some of these apparantly non-existant "practical purposes?"

Some advantages to video in a window:
1. You don't have to spend money or deskspace for a second monitor.
2. The information on the screen seems visually more integrated, which
   is important for many hypermedia applications.
3. Relationships between the video and other information the computer is
   displaying are easier to draw. (Arrows, descriptive text, I've even
   seen a person talking and pointing to things on the computer screen
   from within the video window).

Some disadvantages:
1. You have to spend money for a special video card (may still be less
   than a second monitor).
2. You don't have the spatial resolution of full-screen video. While many
   video cards have a full-screen option, you would then of course hide
   everything else on the screen. Some applications I've seen allow you
   to click on the picture to toggle between full-screen and window only.

Bill Alves

In article <1992Jul26.153332.8827@bcrka451.bnr.ca>, custeng1@bcrka333.bnr.ca (Wayne McFall) writes:

> I saw an add for a board which allowed television signals to be
> displayed on a window. I mentioned to a nearby friend that I 


Macintosh's been able to do this for at least two years, this
tee-vee on a computer monitor.


Douglas                       Reply to:  gdls!parker@ilium.troy.msen.com
DoD #1961                     BMW #55821                  Renting N56136

In article <2A7377EE.708F@deneva.sdd.trw.com>, blanford@spf.trw.com (Ronald P. Blanford) writes:
|> Jay Steele writes
|> > As I was leafing through the May issue of Byte magazine  
|> recently,
|> > I saw an add for a board which allowed television signals to  
|> be
|> > displayed on a window. I mentioned to a nearby friend that I 
|> > thought it was pretty interesting, and he abruptly responded
|> > "Why... It serves no practical purpose."
|> > 
|> > Well, my [limited] knowledge of multimedia tells me otherwise. 
|> > What are some of these apparantly non-existant "practical  
|> purposes?"
|> 
|> Well, I can think of two just off the top of my head.
|> 
|> 1. Using serial control of a laserdisk, you can have a  
|> customized, interactive educational game similar to the arcade  
|> ones.
|> 

	Or better yet you can found a company and sell multi-media
	training to large companies for large bucks. (Re: Allen
	Communications).  Video in a window is the keystone, PC
	based training is peanuts without it.  Your friend probably
	thinks babies are of "no practical purpose".

|> 2. With enough processing power (and a 486 has it) you could  
|> inspect and capture significant news stories from CNN.  The  
|> military would have loved that capability to help generate  
|> briefings during the Gulf War.
|> 

-- 
======================================================================
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 Salt Lake City, Utah              |  #include <standard_disclaimer>

In article <1992Jul26.153332.8827@bcrka451.bnr.ca>, custeng1@bcrka333.bnr.ca (Wayne McFall) writes:
> As I was leafing through the May issue of Byte magazine recently,
> I saw an add for a board which allowed television signals to be
> displayed on a window. I mentioned to a nearby friend that I 
> thought it was pretty interesting, and he abruptly responded
> "Why... I serves no practical purpose."
> 
> Well, my [limited] knowledge of multimedia tells me otherwise. 
> What are some of these apparantly non-existant "practical purposes?"
> 

We have a problem in that people keep swapping the paper tray that is loaded 
into one of our printers (it takes A3 and A4) the only way currently to
check which tray is loaded is to go into the printer room.  One person, as a
joke, suggested that we should get one of those cards and put a video 
camera in the printer room that way they can check the tray from their desks.
This may be a bit of over kill for our problem but I would imagine that
there are situation that you might want to monitor real world events while
at your desk (especially in the areas of computer controlled systems).  This
setup might be used to avoid the sort of problems a friend told me of once;
He was working on a computer controlled light rail system, he was on the train
at the time talking by walkie talker to the computer operator (who was in a 
room with no windows so he couldn't see the train track).  The operator told 
my friend that he had entered the command to stop the train and the computer 
system had reported that the train had in fact stopped, my friend informed the
operator that the train was still moving at a fair clip.  The operator
refused to believe him (thought he was just joking), so my friend had
to pull the emergency brake.  A video monitor might have helped.

> +--                                                         --+
>    Jay Steele, 5E54                  (613) 763-7204
>    CAD Operation Tools Development   e-mail: custeng1@bnr.ca
>    Bell-Northern Research
> +--                                                         --+

Cheers,
Paul Gittings
Telectronics Pacing Systems- 7 Sirius Rd, Lane Cove, NSW 2066, Australia
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