🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr11.170249.9411@cs.mcgill.ca> samurai@uriel.cs.mcgill.ca (Darcy Brockbank) writes:
>
>NeXT picked up my postings about the first ND survey (re: do you 
>need compression?) and asked for the letters you all sent me.
>AS well, it was remarked that it would be very useful to them if
>developers could state why compression is needed... I quote:
>
>"It would be very useful to know why people need compression in terms of
>application. It would also be useful to know what kind of resolutions and what 
>kind of compression ratios are desired again related to the application."
>

Our group is interested in putting scientific visualizations directly 
onto videotape using the Dimension card.  For our needs, compression doesn't
have to happen in real time.  Uncompression does have to happen in
real time.

Here are the numbers as far as I can see.  512x650x24x30 bits per second
need to be sent to the video.  Thats just under 30Mbytes/second.  I would
hate to have to rely on more than .25Mbytes/second sustained transfer
from my hard disk, although twice that is possible under ideal conditions.
Thus 120/1 compression ratio would be good and 60/1 compression might
just barely work under ideal conditions.

People have worked these numbers out many times before.  In fact I've
heard them from NeXT people when the dimension was first announced.
I thought that this was what we were promised when we placed our order
for the Dimension card in the first place.  Is there some sort of
collective amnesia happening here?

Steve

-- 
 #====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#
 #  Steve Boker           #             "Two's bifurcation                  #
 #  smb3u@virginia.edu    #             but three's chaotic"                #
 #====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#====#

In article <1992Apr11.170249.9411@cs.mcgill.ca> samurai@uriel.cs.mcgill.ca
(Darcy Brockbank) writes:
>
>Hi all.
>
>NeXT picked up my postings about the first ND survey (re: do you 
>need compression?) and asked for the letters you all sent me.
>
>AS well, it was remarked that it would be very useful to them if
>developers could state why compression is needed... I quote:
>
>"It would be very useful to know why people need compression in terms of
>application. It would also be useful to know what kind of resolutions and what

>kind of compression ratios are desired again related to the application."
>
>NeXT is being receptive on this issue, and if you would like to send me
>your responses to this, then I will gather them together and bulk mail
>them to NeXT again.
>
>Thanks for all those that sent me mail in the first place, and please do
>so again!
>
>- darcy
>
>--
>---- my opinions are my own, not my employer's ---
>"You fill in the mortar, I build the wall." "...a secret stigma, 
>weeping willow, a diminished carnival of sorts." "Who might leave you
>where I left off? A perfect circle of acquaintances and friends."
>"I can't see myself at thirty I don't buy a lack of thirty
>Caught like flies wishing for tomorrow's jewlery" - M. Stipe
>

Well, I would like to see as close as possible to realtime record from video
in, and as close as possible to realtime playback to the NeXTdimension screen.
Perhaps every other frame, at 15 fps.  Perhaps the odd frame from the first
frame, then the even frame from the next one, etc.  This would tend to blur
movement a bit, but reduce the jerkiness from a reduced frame rate.  The
abiility to superimpose over the 'live' video output should be there, too.

I would also like to see the Teletext/closed caption broken promise addressed.
That was part of the reason I bought it.
  
Perhaps 'donate' the whole ND hardware/software to the public domain, if, as
the rumors have it, they are abandoning the ND.  Perhaps Spherical Solutions
would be willing to be the focus point for the group ND efforts, and produce
the piggy-back board, especially if NeXT has it 'on the shelf'.

I'm glad to see NeXT is looking into this issue.  A peaceful settlement would
be best.  I understand under Virginia law, I could probably make bait and
swiitch stick.  I think enough other states are able to do so, also, so that a
class action suit for fraud could be possible.

Jim De Arras

In article <1992Apr12.150556.10435@cube.handheld.com> jmd@banana.handheld.com (Jim De Arras) writes:
   I'm glad to see NeXT is looking into this issue.
   A peaceful settlement would
   be best.  I understand under Virginia law, I could probably make bait and
   swiitch stick.  I think enough other states are able to do so, 
   also, so that a class action suit for fraud could be possible.

Hope this won't come to pass. All of us would be badly-served by this.

	chuck <cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu>
--
 <->   My personal opinion, speaking only as myself, an individual :-)   <->
	<->	Not an official document of anyone	<->
	     <-> from: a SUN SPARC1+ w/ SUNos 4.1 <->
 	    Charles N. Herrick <cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu>

In article <CNH5730.92Apr12170251@calvin.tamu.edu> cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu
(Charles N. Herrick) writes:
>In article <1992Apr12.150556.10435@cube.handheld.com> jmd@banana.handheld.com
(Jim De Arras) writes:
>   I'm glad to see NeXT is looking into this issue.
>   A peaceful settlement would
>   be best.  I understand under Virginia law, I could probably make bait and
>   swiitch stick.  I think enough other states are able to do so, 
>   also, so that a class action suit for fraud could be possible.
>
>Hope this won't come to pass. All of us would be badly-served by this.
>
>	chuck <cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu>
>--
> <->   My personal opinion, speaking only as myself, an individual :-)   <->
>	<->	Not an official document of anyone	<->
>	     <-> from: a SUN SPARC1+ w/ SUNos 4.1 <->
> 	    Charles N. Herrick <cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu>
>
>
I agree, but I must explore all my alternatives.   NeXT has mis-led (read LIED
to) me (and others, I believe) about the ND board.  They did NOT deliver what
they sold.  For a while, it looked like they were still behind the product, and
would fix the lack of compression, swapfile leak, etc., but now it has become
obvious to this thick-headed person that NeXT has pretty much told me where I
can stick it.  A multi-media project my company had has been canceled due to my
decision to buy a NeXTdimension system, rather than add Raduis-TV and a bunch
of other boards to a Mac FX, which would have produced a much more capable
multi-media system than the NeXTdimension has turned out to be, though far less
than was it was promised to be.  I'm smarting from my failure to deliver, based
on NeXT's published specs.  The ND is not 'color done right'.  It makes a
pretty picture, but that's about it.

I am by no means threatening legal action at this time.

Jim De Arras

In article <1992Apr11.220231.10261@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> smb3u@kiptron.psyc.virginia.edu (Steven M. Boker) writes:
> [deleted]
>Here are the numbers as far as I can see.  512x650x24x30 bits per second
>need to be sent to the video.  Thats just under 30Mbytes/second.  I would
>hate to have to rely on more than .25Mbytes/second sustained transfer
>from my hard disk, although twice that is possible under ideal conditions.
>Thus 120/1 compression ratio would be good and 60/1 compression might
>just barely work under ideal conditions.
>
>People have worked these numbers out many times before.  In fact I've
>heard them from NeXT people when the dimension was first announced.
>I thought that this was what we were promised when we placed our order
>for the Dimension card in the first place.  Is there some sort of
>collective amnesia happening here?
>

Unfortunately yes. I don't know why people are going down on their knees and begging
NeXT to finish the ND board - they PROMISED us real time compression and they should
deliver on that promise. Especially now that the hardware problems have been fixed.

Remember when NeXT announced the ND board? That was when I decided to buy a cube. 
As soon as the ND board came out I was going to upgrade and write an app to do video 
editing. It never happened.

Anyway, just to refresh our memories, here is a report that Charles Perkins posted here
back in the heady days of Sept 90:


>   For me, the day begin at 5:15am setting up a breakfast we were hosting to
>"watch the dawn on a new era in computing."  From about 6 to 8am, about 50 NeXT
>employees and enthusiasts came to watch the sun rise from the roof garden, and
>then I was off to Davies Symphony Hall for the Event.

> [deleted]

>   Then came the section that brought the house down...Steve was looking at
>a door in B&W in the bitmap editor, and he pressed what looked like a large
>CD play button...the door was a frame from the Wizard of Oz just as Dorothy is
>about to enter Oz, and as we watched, it came to life and played full-motion
>color video in full-CD sound in real-time in the window.  The Wizard of Oz ran
>and ran as people clapped and clapped.  The damn NeXTdimension has real-time
>display of video on the screen, built-in JPEG compression in a VLSI chip that
>performs up to 100-to-1 reduction on the fly for I and O, it has two RCA video
>inputs (with an S-video slaved to one of them), and an RCA video output with
>S-video as well.  Also RGB output.  Also any color monitor can be used for
>output.  Also, here's the price:
>
>		===>   $ 3995    <===
>
>When Steve announced that and then took a live video feed of himself, showed us
>it updating in real-time, captured a frame into the editor, and then composited
>in Donald Duck sitting on his hand, all in a few seconds, the crowd went wild.
>This was a moment of Myth.  All of the hardware and software ideas of that
>momentous 1968 demo by Doug Engelbart were finally becoming available on an
>afforable platform, and we could feel the world changing around us.  It was
>a feeling I won't soon forget.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>   Well, as you can tell from my reaction above, I am buying a NeXTdimension
>board and color monitor as soon as my budget allows.  [rest deleted].

Phew! Those were the days...

Dave Griffiths