🚀 go-pugleaf

roland.bengtsson@mbox3.swipnet.se (Roland Bengtsson) wrote:
>
> >:Somebody had mentioned to me that the Amiga (the 3000 to be specific) had 
> >:the capabilites to do NTSC and PAL line doubling.
>
> >:As a none Amiga user, I'm curious if this is true, and if so has anybody 
> >:applied this to a home-theater setup?  It seems like this would be a 
> >:terrific alternative to the Faroudja Line-Doubler which can cost well over 
> >:$10K.
>
>I don't know what this "Faroudja" is, but I have a A3000 and it simply double the PAL
>signal 15 KHZ to VGA 30 KHZ so I can use a standard VGA-monitor for PC to watch PAL & NTSC
>screens. It's a great trick indeed, and it's the only Amiga that handle this by default.
>

Actually, this mode promotion comes with AGA machines.

Anyway, I don't think the Amiga, or a high-power Pentium PC, for that matter could 
match the performance of a Faroudja Line-Doubler.  First of all, you have to have the 
ability to input the video stream in real-time and the ability to redisplay it in 
real-time.  There are plenty of PC options, but very, very few options for the Amiga.

On top of this, the would-be Line-Doubler would have to be able to intercept both the 
even and odd scan lines, by predicting the change between frames for each field for 
every frame, convert it to 30kHz, and redisplay both even and odd field scan lines as 
a composite image.  The prediction part is what separates the Faroudja between lesser 
line-doublers.

This is a very tall order for any machine.  Think of the bandwidth and processing 
power needed.  It would be quite a lucrative market if this were possible, since many 
line-doublers are >$5000 easily and when you have a 8 foot screen in a home theater 
that shows those glaring scan lines.  But I believe Faroudja line-quadrupler was just 
released...

D. G.