DCTV vs OPALVISION - ROUND II  Beauty IS In The Eye Of The Beholder Randall King VisionSell MultiMedia Ed: Keith Antoine wrote a comparison of these two packages last issue, and Randall has risen in indignation at some of his claims - also there are lots of good desktop video hints in the report below.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Multi-media's like a swiss knife - there are so many ways of using it. Keith Antoine's (MD31) review kickstarted me into cobbling a few thoughts together on colour graphics. Here's a second opinion before you folks all bypass DCTV. I'll follow on the previous review, by bracketing Keith's quotes with "<<< >>>". I use DCTV (Digital Creations, USA) in professional multi-media retail displays. I've been hands-on with the OpalVision display card, although the Opal genlock unit is only just coming out, so I haven't seen it run up yet (although it's supposed to be out by the time MD32 comes out). Unlike Keith, I'll not be selling my DCTV when I get an OpalVision, because it has its own unique purpose in life. Note that DCTV is a little black box, not Commodore's big black CDTV box! To make things more confusing Commodore US is now in the process of putting a DCTV add-on card into CDTV (called IVM I think). Summary If you just want to get into the glorious world of full colour - outputting to video or TV from an unaccelerated A500, A2000 or A600 - then in my humble opinion DCTV stacks up as the realistic way to go without spending your inheritance. By my calcs, for around $3000 less system costs than your typical 24bit colour-board like OpalVision really needs. Any real 24-bit like Opal really does need a 68030 (like a A3000 or accelerator card) to avoid gross frustration, along with ancillary software (like ADPro) for format conversions, a separate digitiser to grab your pictures off a video source, a multiscan monitor etc.etc. Prosumer territory really. Now don't take this the wrong way. Opal's a most fantastic Oz creation of very high quality at a competitive price if you're in this league. The moral of the story is: mere mortals shouldn't be put off getting into real multi-media if the full 24-bit hardware/software base platform pre-requisite required is beyond your means. At around $900 and with a half-decent VCR, DCTV will get you most of the way there. This is meant to be the greatest recession since the 1930's, so don't feel too bad about that.  The A1200 A new important consideration just coming into the picture is the new A1200 wth the new HAM8 mode that will no doubt produce some pretty neato piccies too, without an add-on colour board. But you'd still need a digitiser to grab images. You might want to have a look at that option too before you spend your bucks on colour systems. How come DCTV works on low end systems, whilst 24 bit cards cough and splutter?? DCTV uses a unique and entirely different analogue display format from standard 24 bit digital graphics cards. These DCTV display files are small (about 60k for standard overscan) and work extremely efficiently. They DON'T need digital compression/decompression either, which really chews up the CPU cycles. What this means is that DCTV works just fine on ye olde 68000 systems. And just dandy with a low end 14Mhz accelerator like a Blizzard Board ($399). Consequently, DCTV remains the ONLY system in the world that will provide full colour, full screen animation out of these micro powered/priced low end CPU chips. - o - Video Digitising Sources <<< I sold DCTV as no matter what I did, it came down to the fact that to get the best images a TBC (time base corrector) was called for and those cost $1500 upwards. You cannot framegrab in real time for it takes up to 10 secs to render to the buffer. This is a problem if you do not have an expensive VCR which will give you perfect still frame as most videocams do not have a still frame. This requires the purchase of a TBC with a stillframe buffer, and they run into a couple of thousand dollars. >>> Yep, DCTV's a slow scan digitiser, not a 1/25 sec moving video framegrabber. Yep, you're dead if you try digitising direct from your paused videocam or 3 head VCR, notorious for noise and shake. However, most people doing any sort of Desk Top Video work should normally have at least a consumer 4 head VHS VCR as an essential accessory anyway. You know the old saying - four heads are better than one! (well, close enough). At least four heads are basic to clean edit cuts, and a stable, low noise still frame. These VHS 4 head VCR's are typically in the $500-$1000 bracket. From what I've seen, the highly regarded Akai Intelligent HQ system VCRs are one of the best at noise reduction, and their prices have come down over recent months. Brash's have one for $490 at the moment. If you have a VHS or VHS-C videocam, you should just be able to whack the master in the VCR player and digitise happily from there. (If you're using the smaller 8mm camcorder without an 8mm player, you'll have to transcribe to a VHS tape first). No (N O) Time Based Corrector or professional still-frame VCR is required for from this type of source for most home consumer purposes!!!! (Some of us get away with it professionally too). By the way, DCTV has a software enabled noise filter that can be invoked to help clean any images during the digitise. However, I found it degraded a good source image somewhat so I don't use it. DCTV also automatically slows the scan down and attempts image enhancement when it detects a shaky source. I will confess though that I use a Canon Still Video camera (use 50 picture video floppies) as the normal source myself. My needs are pure graphics, slides and absolute simplicity of camera use for which this is ideal. It's also optimal for digitising, slow or fast scan. However, most domestic enthusiasts would probably go for a full video camera at an equivalent price ($1500 with a wide angle and telephoto lens, batteries, floppies etc). In overscan, a stable takes about 5 secs to scan (double for shakier sources), and about 45 secs to complete digitising in full overscan mode. Documentation <<>> Absolutely true. Not previously having been a computer artist, the DCTV manual might as well have been in Swahili except for the very basic functions. Fortunately these basics (like how to digitise and convert pictures) were OK, so there wasn't a real problem getting started. But it took a lot of trial and error to really get to the bottom of DCTV and become proficient with its features. Having overcome that obstacle, it's actually quite intuitive now, so don't suicide yet. I'm sure those with prior experience on things like Imagine and high-end Dpaint usage would not have too much difficulty with DCTV Paint. The DCTV manual actually does cover most things as it turns out. It's problem is that it is too abbreviated, lacks in concept explanations, and its tutorials (including VHS video) are cursory. However, bear in mind that a learning curve is going to be inevitable whenever you first get into serious, creative image manipulation, no matter what the package (including high-end DPaint and Opalvision). No manual will ever get you all the smarts without you doing some desperate finger-nail clawing at the keyboard. Cost/Configuration Comparison <<>> DCTV (including digitiser) retails for about $950 (vs only $400 US$ street price, so the true blue Aussie distributor must be onto a good thing). Again, NO TBC IS NEEDED if you digitise from a half-decent paused VCR and a VHS master, and not directly from the camera itself. The Opalvision card ($1200) plus Genlock/Framegrabber ($1000) is about $2200; ie.. $1250 more than DCTV. You'd be hard pressed to do very much serious with Opalvision (or any true 24bit RGB environment for that matter) without a 68030 accelerator (eg.. $800 Derringer), 2mb chip RAM ($400), 10 meg of Fast, and a multiscan monitor ($770). There goes another $2000. Whereas, because of the special DCTV display format ("composite" analog waveforms, not RGB pixels) DCTV stores, modifies and displays its images very, very efficiently. More about that later. Mere mortals with a venerable standard 68000 CPU A500 or A2000, 1MB chip and 2-3MB fast RAM, and a 1084 or ordinary VCR/TV with a "video-in" socket can rest easy. Repeat; you absolutely DO NOT need a high end system to use DCTV in most of its glory.... That's why Commodore in the UK and Canada are now putting DCTV cards into their ordinary old CDTV's! (What about Australia too please, are you listening C=?). However, a 14Mhz accelerator (eg.. $400 Blizzard Board from Phoenix MicroTechnologies), or the new A1200 due out in 1993 will certainly not do you any harm either!!! So, if you're following the sums, we're now spending around $3000 more to be happy with Opalvision than you will with DCTV - unless you're upgrading to an A3000 equivalent anyway. Coming down to earthly reality, that's likely to be a price barrier to many folks in a recession. Don't despair, there's definitely a place for DCTV! DCTV - Composite Only Output (not RGB pixels) <<>> Full-colour DCTV is designed exclusively and deliberately for display only on videos and televisions. Just plug the DCTV output into any old VCR's video-in socket and show it on your tele. Many newer TVs have a direct Video-In capability these days too. Look for the labelled socket around the back if you're buying. But what most Amigans do is just use their cheap Commodore 108x (eg. 1084) or Philips monitors during digitising, and use the buttons on either the front or back (depending upon the model) to switch from RGB to Composite mode at will. So you can get away without a special monitor being needed. The special composite DCTV display format is the secret to the SUPERFAST full-colour DCTV display magic - including on 68000 machines. Because of this approach, DCTV images display as fast as a PAL TV broadcast frame if it's got the image in memory - less than 1/25 second. Hence this is why DCTV is still unique in animating a full screen, full colour image sequence - for example, fast moving rock video type clips. On the other hand, the OpalVision display card takes a couple of secs to decompress and display the RGB image into ye olde ponderous Amiga chip ram, even on an A3000. OpalPresents and other multi-media authoring programs (like AmigaVisions and Scala) try and make this as transparent as possible by double buffering - loading the next image whilst another is displaying. But you're basically stuck with this restriction in 24 bit RGB mode if you want to move fast. In my case, my professional presentations, the primary need is to display on large screen consumer televisions between 60 and 100cm. RGB monitors just aren't available at anything near this display size, so added RGB capability is of little value to me anyway. Television (at 520 or thereabouts scan lines for PAL) is of course intended to be viewed from a greater distance than that at which people are accustomed to working on computer monitors. A common mistake for first time DCTV users is to be too critical about composite quality vs RGB at close range. Go and take a squiz at your own television at 30cm! Image Format Conversions <<>> That really was a lousy DCTV manual for you Keith. One of the untrumpeted glories of DCTV is the comprehensive "CONVERT" facility. DCTV is a sophisticated IFF Image Converter AND reasonable Digitiser AND fully featured artist's package, all rolled into one. The Convert facility is one of the things that I use the most. I happily convert between Lo Res, Hi Res, HAM, IFF 24bit and the special DCTV display format at the drop of a hat. So, DCTV still adds value even if you never digitise. You could just import 24bit images from many of the art collections around at a pinch, or use it to combine images in more that 16 colours (eg.. overlaying colourfonts onto a full colour picture). Opalvision aint got nuttin in this department; You have to stick with the external ADPro package or similar for conversions. Note that you can quite happily work with your monitor in RGB mode for all these standard Amiga display modes in DCTV. You only need to switch over to composite when displaying the full colour images. And DCTV CONVERT does a pretty good job too of palette conversions when going from 24bit down to the standard 16 or 32 picture format palettes too (you control the number of colors you what to convert to, from 2 to 32). Who needs ADPRo software at yet another $400?!! In fact, I regularly make use of DCTV to combine two IFF overlays (each 16 colour hi-res) without any colour restrictions. DCTV's convert function is then used to pick anther 16 col hi-res/HAM or 32 col lo-res palette and save the end-result. For example, this is the way to combine colour-fonts with their own palettes for titling over an existing full colour hi-res or HAM. Image Quality <<>> Well, if you have a shaky, noisy image direct from a paused camera to start with, instead of a decent VCR or other still source, the garbage-in, garbage-out principle definitely applies. Also, nothing's going to resurrect poor photography to start with. DCTV laps up nice, bright pictures with lots of light, not 1 candle- power do-it-in-the-dark videocam shots. For a large number of practical purposes though, people find DCTV quality quite adequate for television or video purposes. As the subtitle of this article suggests - beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. I manage to get away with it professionally by watching the quality of the original photos. Again, bear in mind normal TV viewing distances. We square-heads get conditioned to pixel quality images. Most Norms seem to get by with the tele. But let's not beat about the bush. You definitely **DO NOT** get broadcast or even prosumer quality out of the DCTV encoder chip at its price. Even with the best source, IT IS indeed inherently fuzzy. Digital Creations did not help fuzzy matters much with its default DCTV digitising setting either. The best advice I had when starting out was to keep the sharpness control at +11, which sorts a lot of this out. Digital Creation's idea seems to have been to produce softer, more artistic picture effects, which indeed it does. Very conveniently, this also helps to disguise the poor hardware encoder quality. Gives a whole new meaning to the video term "fuzzy logic"! Quality output is where Opalvision - with a properly configured platform - should excel. Certainly, the card and paint package is absolutely state of the art. We should back this Aussie venture all the way! Note that the Opal framegrabber/encoder/genlock isn't available until sometime in the new year, so we'll have to wait and see. I haven't seen the new encoded Opal Genlock add-on output (and neither did the Round I author of this article). Experience tells me a box-on-the-market is worth a lot more than a box-on-the-drawing-board. But if it lives up to the specs which include a SONY broadcast quality encoder chip, it should do the trick very nicely. SONY is ubiquitous in professional studios. Using their chip for this is a smart move to gain instant credibility. Big edge to Opalvision on the quality side. You'se get what you'se pays for. More On Hardware Pre-requisites <<>> Mostly true, EXCEPT the accelerator AND hard drive are ABSOLUTELY OPTIONAL for DCTV. Go for the memory mentioned above instead. DCTV will also usefully gobble any extra memory you give it. Various parts of DCTV functionality are optional depending upon memory availability. The two predominant memory-sensitive features are the spare page and the undo buffers, both of which can be very handy, each taking about 1 MB. The accelerator, as already discussed, is a nice-to-have only for DCTV. One reason why the hard drive is optional for DCTV is the small size of the DCTV display images. I do all my DCTV work, assuming a reasonable source picture, in 3 bitplane, non-interlaced video overscan, which when saved in DCTV display format is only about 60K bytes! That's a long way from 1MB+ IFF 24 bit images, or even hi-res and HAM equivalents. To be fair though, JPEG IFF24 bit compression (eg.. ADPro or ImageMaster) brings equivalent quality images down to about 120K. Although I have plenty of hard disk, I don't have any problem saving or displaying straight from floppy because of the small sizes involved when using double-buffered display programs like SCALA or AmigaVision. The DCTV program itself can be run straight out of RAM once loaded, so that shouldn't matter too much. By the way, if it takes your fancy you CAN painlessly save your pictures in full IFF24 format in DCTV. You could then even display them in Opalvision if that's what really turns you on! Going from IFF to DCTV is easy too. DCTV provides a bulk conversion utility program in it's kit. <<>> OPal Dpaint compatibilty is a beauty !!!  Elle McPherson (now we have your attention again...) <<>> It may be a little ambiguous in the above, but providing you can get Elle's body from somewhere as a 24 bit source image somehow, you can do this RIGHT NOW with just the Opal display card. Opal display comes with a utility that allows 24bit to be used as a backdrop on any public screen. What's more, you can also stencil part of the 24 bit picture as foreground too. Jeroen at Solutions Rendered at Hornsby (Opal and C= VAR dealers, 02-477-5353, they deserve a plug) did a nice little demo Dpaint animation of a kangaroo doing an obstacle course around real Outback road signs in this way for local user groups. Who needs the Opal genlock module!!! Alas, DCTV dips out severely with no IFF overlaying possible on the fly. Because of its special format you must title and add all your IFF brushes from within DCTV paint onto the original image. DCTV display format tricks standard Amiga software into displaying it just as it would a normal IFF image, you cannot overlay anything else on top at display time. A big minus in displaying from authoring programs. So this is one of the reasons I'll be using Opal apart from its great special effects; which far surpass DCTV though I don't have the space to delve into all that here. <<>> Yep, serious money. Note the DCTV misconceptions discussed previously. - o - That wraps it up. DCTV is still a great entry point into the rainbow world of your fantasia dreams. Don't be put off getting into it. Opalvision, straight from the best minds of Castle Hill, Sydney is a fantastic Australian contribution that leads the way into the 21st century in the straight digital 24bit market. Both are beauties at what they do. Randall King VisionSell MultiMedia 16 Northview Place, Mount Colah NSW 2079 (02) 476-5438 (ah) (02) 561-5850 (FAX) Internet king@snoc02.enet.dec.com  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[