🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug5.142902.1737@arrocha.charlotte.nc.us> roberto@arrocha.charlotte.nc.us writes:
>>Has anybody succesfully attempted to read Mode-2 (Multi-Session) Photo-CDs  
>>with the NeXT CD-ROM drive?
>>
>>I understand that many photo labs are currently offering the service of  
>>putting 35mm film onto CD-ROM disks. The trick is reading these files off  
>>of the CD-ROM and then converting them to usable formats (TIFF or EPS).
>>
>>Anybody tried this yet?
>>-- 
>>Roberto
>>NeXTmail: roberto@arrocha.charlotte.nc.us

There are two problems with doing this.  One, the hardware doesn't support
reading of sessions past the first one.  I don't know of any shipping drives
that *do* read past the first session.  If anyone knows of such a drive,
please let me know.

Second problem - software.  Kodak, in their infinite wisdom came up with
their own file format.  Not some variant of TIFF with their own flags,
but their own file format.  Apple has licensed this as part of QuickTime,
so (since SGI has licensed QuickTime from Apple) I would expect that
this will soon be plug and play on the SGIs as well.  Kodak offers a 
developer's toolkit, but last time I checked, they were only shipping the
Mac and Windows ones, and not the UNIX one.  They might be now - it's been
a few months since I checked.  As a as-soon-as-they-ship-it-I'll-buy-it
future owner of commerical image processing software, I would hope that
any commercial package on the NeXT could import Photo-CDs, and since that
would be on an application basis, I would think that would be mainly a matter
of that developer getting the developer's kit, and not a large company 
licensing lots of Kodak stuff.  The difference is analagous to Pantone on
the Mac vs. Pantone on the NeXT: Pantone colors exist on an application by
application basis on the Mac, while NeXT licensed it directly, so it is
available to all applications for free on the NeXT.  Unfortunately, the
inverse will be true on the NeXT: reading Photo CD images will be on an
application basis (current count: zero), while on the Mac and the SGI,
any application will be able to read Photo CD images.  

In NeXT's defense, I understand that Kodak is charging computer vendors
a very large chunk of change for this technology, and NeXT is a small
company.  Unfortunately, I think Photo CD is going to be HUGE, and if
NeXT wants to be a serious DTP platform, they should bite the bullet
and license it.

If someone was industrious, and could figure out Kodak's file format, it
would be straightforward to write a filter service to import at least
the first session of images of your PhotoCD.  As for dealing with multi-session,
you can just wait until you have 100 images to put on your PhotoCD, and
then instruct your photofinisher to make all the images one session (i.e
they are all in the first table of contents on the disc).  This will work
fine, and will then allow the disc (and all of its images) to be read
by appropriate software on any (NeXT's, Apple's, SUN, SGI, etc.) of the
currently shipping CD ROM drive.

If people have corrections to the above, please let me know.  This info
has been assembled over the last year, with input from people from both
NeXT and Kodak, and if it's wrong, I'd love to correct it.

Thanks.


-- 

-->  Michael B. Johnson
-->  MIT Media Lab      --  Computer Graphics & Animation Group
-->  (617) 253-0663     --  wave@media-lab.media.mit.edu