🚀 go-pugleaf

David Gentry (dgentry@vlsi4.racal.com) wrote:
: 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.

The scan-doubler in the A3000 is quite different from mode-promotion.  I can't be
too detailed on this because I don't know the details, but the scan-doubler is a
passive device (hardware) versus a true 640x400 display (DblNTSC - which, incidentally,
is not an AGA specific screen mode).

: 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...

Since the scan doubler in the A3000 (as well as the Flicker Fixer, FFV, ec) are purely
hardware solutions, it seems that they would be more than up to the task.  They 
wouldn't know the difference between a video signal from a VCR or an Amiga.


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+-------------------------------------------///-------------------------+
+                                   |      /// Mike Hartigan            |
+ Was I late, or was the bus early? |\\\  ///  hartigan@interaccess.com |
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