FAQ -- December The Amiga and Video -- a perfect combination Q. Why is the Amiga so good for video work? A. The Amiga was always designed to work with a television set as it's primary display. Remember that back in the 1980's the Amiga was designed to be a games console and home computer, and few people had the money to buy a dedicated VDU or monitor. As a result, the Amiga has a video friendly output which can be used in RGB or Composite video modes. It can display lots of colours on screen at once, and provide smooth scrolling. It's still a great favourite amongst Desktop Video fans, and still can upset terribly expensive PC systems. Q. How can I connect my Amiga to my video recorder in order to record Amiga graphics? A. It depends on your model of Amiga, but A1200s have a phono-style socket at the rear which provides Composite video. Some video recorders have a suitable input socket (often designed for use with Camcorders) called "CV" or "Composite in". Others have SCART sockets, in which case you will need a suitable SCART adaptor lead. A500s and A2000s have RGB outputs, but you will need hardware such as either a modulator or a genlock in order to record the output onto video tape. Q. What's the difference between RGB and Composite? What's RF? And what's SVHS then? A. RF is the "Radio Frequency" signal. This is the simplest way for the video recorder to display a picture on a TV as it is actually a low-power television signal transmitter. All the signals -- sound, colour, luminance -- are combined into one. An Amiga fitted with a modulator (like the one shipped and used with most A500's) does the same thing. RF is the worst quality video signal. Composite video contains all the video information in one cable, whereas RGB keeps the colours separate (Red, Green, Blue). It gives a better picture than composite, and is used mainly with monitors and good televisions where the three colour signals are feed directly to the three video guns which make up the display. A composite signal must be first split into the three colours again, which affects quality. SVHS is important when recording. A SVHS signal divides the video information into colour and brightness (chrominance and luminance). The CD32 is the only Amiga with an SVHS output, although some Genlocks provide an SVHS output. SVHS is the best quality video signal available for home use. Video recorders which support SVHS recording provide images which are much clearly than standard VHS. Q. Can't I make use of the better RGB signals with by video? It's fitted with an SCART socket round the back. A. Although the pins are present in the schematic of the SCART socket, few video recorders implement RGB input. Yes, they will send out RGB for display on televisions (which is why a SCART lead connection gives a better picture than a RF or composite connection) but don't accept incoming RGB signals. Q. What will the Amiga let me do with my video? A. You can record anything the Amiga can display, which means you can create title pages, scrolling credits, sub-titles, animations, your own cartoons... Q. Which screen mode should I use? A. Always use a PAL screen mode, such as HIRES PAL. It's sometimes OK to use Interlaced mode -- although it flickers on a monitor it can look good when recorded on video tape. Q. How can I create sub-titles? A. You need a Genlock for that. It's a piece of hardware connected to the Amiga's video output. It allows the Amiga graphics to "overlay" the live video: for example, you can overlay a black rectangle containing white text and create subtitles. Q. How can I display computer graphics "behind" the live video? A. For that sort of effect you need an extra box of tricks called a "Chromakey" which can electronically remove certain colours from video and replace it with a computer generated backdrop: such as a weathermap for example. Q. How can I create animated subtitles and scrolling end credits? A. Use an Amiga art program such as Deluxe Paint or Personal Paint. An authoring system such as CanDo is excellent for linking together multiple animations. Alternatively use a dedicated video titling program such as SCALA which will provide excellent text and scrolling features. Dedicated video titles often come with their own speical fonts which look very smart indeed on video. If you want to record very long animations, use a program such as Viewtek which can spool animations directly from disk. So for example, you could create a huge animation with Imagine and then use Viewtek to play it back whilst you are recording it all on your video recorder. Happy day! Q. How do I get rid of the ugly borders around the screen? A. Use OVERSCAN. Paint programs will allow you to open a screen in Overscan mode and this will stretch the screen out on all directions so there is no border. It's therefore possible to create animations and display pictures which fill the entire video screen. Q. Can I use the Amiga to control editing video between two video recorders / a VCR and a camcorder? A. Yes, there are various hardware/software packs around which can achieve this. For more details see some of the specific video based magaines available. Q. Can I digitise live video, edit it and play it back? A. Yes, but not easily. This is "non-linear video editing". For best results you'll need a very fast Amiga fitted with a huge SCSI hard drive and a hardware MJPEG capture and replay board. VLAB Motion is one such card. You can get a buget version called VideoMaster from Eyetech which will record quarter-sized screens in 16 colours. Not quick broadcast quality, but excellent fun nevertheless.