DCTV Question for Amiga 2000

[amigadave]

beller wrote:

amigadave wrote:

...I don't understand why it did not succeed more, but I guess that the people that developed it got distracted with bigger and better things (I believe if my memory serves me correctly the developers of DCTV joined with ex-NewTek employees and formed Play Inc.)

IMHO DCTV was a revolutionary device that could have done so much more and could have helped Commodore and Amiga greatly if further development had been done and,or more game programmers had written a version of their games in DCTV format.  Can you imagine all of our favorite Amiga games running at 24bit color depth and full speed on any Amiga model.

Amiga Dave wins the prize for hitting this one right on the head!

As I've said before, I wrote the digitize and process setions, as well as a bunch of the front end, of the DCTV manual. As a result, I was lucky and got to see DCTV before anyone else...I still have the video around here that shows Randy Jongens demoing a very beta version of the software so we could write the manual.

At one point I know that Digital Creations, and their partners from Progressive Image, had talks with Commodore about selling CBM the DCTV technology for installation into upcoming Amiga products (this would have been about the time the A4000/1200 was in development).  I think CBM compared DCTV to the AGA concept, which they owned, and decided not to pay Digital for the rights to use DCTV technology.

Not sure if this story every made it beyond the backroom at Digital but, since it's so long and all the companies are gone, what the heck.  I feel like Cheney, lets declassify it!

Bob

You mean I haven't lost all my marbles yet? :lol:  

Very interesting to have some of my guesses and memories from the distant past confirmed.  I did not know the part about DCTV being considered by Commodore as a native display option for the A4000/A1200. Too bad Commodore/Amiga did not decide to go with both display technologies in the last Amigas and support the DCTV format earlier.  With most Amigas connected to 1080 and 1084 monitors in the early days, it would have been a "no brainer" to use the DCTV format for programs that did not need the sharpness of the RGB output, like games and perhaps image manipulation software.  I don't know how the DCTV RGB converter works, but it does not seem to be an expensive, or power hungry device (compared to today's graphic display devices and cards).  Now I am going to have to spend some time on my A500 w/A530 & 8mb RAM that has one of my DCTV's installed to refresh my memory of all the features and the display quality of the DCTV.

For those unfamiliar with what DCTV is, or does, a short explanation in layman's terms is offered.  DCTV displays a composite signal using 3 or 4 bit planes that appears to have a 24bit color range.  The Amiga thinks it is just manipulating the 3, or 4 bit planes, so it can easily run animations at a high frame rate using such a low bit plane format.  If memory serves me, I think the DCTV display quality is close to standard TV display or VHS composite display quality.

[amigadave]

To answer the original poster's question:

No, you can't use the DCTV for displaying Workbench and instead of all the other recommendation's on how to get s-video out of your Amiga, just go to eBay and buy a monitor that WILL display the native Amiga display format.  You will be much happier looking at the RGB display instead of any composite display.

[KThunder]

for games and light video work having the possibility of using a (large) composite tv or such is good.

[leirbag28]

 I have a DCTV with RGB adaptor. In my opinion, absoultely necessary!  It act as one display with the Amigas original display...........ontop of that I have a SupergenSX genlock wich gives me S-Video OUT for the DCTV and allows me to genlock DCTV images and also mix them with Amigas output. Now kke in mind that the DCTV's output is Composite.............so even with the S-Video OUT it still looks like TV resolution composite. Just minus the interference or whatever. I am experimenting to getting it to work in combo with the ChromaKEY Plus! it seems to be sucking too much power, so I need a bigger PSU. If this works I will be happy as can be.

[AmigaPixel]

Very Good thread, here...

OK, @AmigaPixel: Well, If you try to get a 500 for your DCTV, at least try to get some mem. expansion beyond 1MB, and if possible, an accelerator...will make using dctv much nicer... I used my DCTV originally with an A500 030/50MHz, 32 MB RAM, worked quite nicely...

@AmigaDave: I think the game you recall was actually for the OpalVision card, never saw a game for DCTV, though theoretically there should be no reason it wouldn't be possible, IMHO.

Oh, and to whoever mentioned about why the DCTV was not more sucessful....original price was $495.00 at indroduction, just checked an old issue of .INFO... Wasn't the A500 about $500 retail itself?

Ridiculous, I just got a DCTV unit, software, and a non-working sound sampler for $4.99 on EBay....

 :roll: [/quote]
 :-o $4.99 for a DCTV! WOW! I paid about $300, and that was a price drop. Of course that was in 1993.

Yes indeed I agree as far as the upgrades you mentioned. The Amiga and DCTV are efficient, however 512K isn't much to work with. Although if I remember correctly, there is a second icon to launch a version for low ram Amigas. Now that I think about it, I would probably shoot for a stock A1200 with a little extra ram.  :-D

[AmigaPixel]

.....At one point I know that Digital Creations, and their partners from Progressive Image, had talks with Commodore about selling CBM the DCTV technology for installation into upcoming Amiga products (this would have been about the time the A4000/1200 was in development).  I think CBM compared DCTV to the AGA concept, which they owned, and decided not to pay Digital for the rights to use DCTV technology.

Not sure if this story every made it beyond the backroom at Digital but, since it's so long and all the companies are gone, what the heck.  I feel like Cheney, lets declassify it!

Bob[/quote]
 ;-) Now that is the background history I love to find out about. :-D

[AmigaPixel]

.....I thought there was one game that came out in DCTV format, but can't think of the name. Maybe I am confusing it with the 24bit game that came with the OpalVision card?

Yes it was called something like King Karate. It was 24bit game too if I recall. I played only a few times when I had an Opalvision in my A2000. :-)

[Ami_GFX]

A few more words about the DCTV:

An RGB adaptor is nice, but not absolutely neccessary. The quality of the composite output is amazing--much better than the normal mono composite out of an A2000 and much much better than the color composite out of the A2300 genlock. The DCTV has a really saturated color output which is really apealing for graphics, animation and games. It is more intensely colored than real life for sure. I love DCTV paint. I personally find it's compsite out on a modern LCD monitor much better than the RGB out of an Amiga on a 1084 monitor.

And of the 3 DCTVs I own, the most expensive one was $24--package deal with a DigiView gold digitizer as well. The cheapest was around $5 or $6. This is one of the real bargains in Amiga hardware.

[AmigaPixel]

 

Ami_GFX wrote:
A few more words about the DCTV:

......."The DCTV has a really saturated color output which is really apealing for graphics, animation and games. It is more intensely colored than real life for sure. I love DCTV paint. I personally find it's compsite out on a modern LCD monitor much better than the RGB out of an Amiga on a 1084 monitor."

I agree, I always liked the saturated look of DCTV too. I never found a paint program on the PC that has the nice mixing palate like DCTV paint except for Mirage, which I was told was developed by former Amiga developers. :-D I have to ask, are you also known as DavidDB on the Newtek Amiga Toaster forum. :-)

[Ami_GFX]

Yes I am. Not much action on that forum these days.

[AmigaPixel]

Ami_GFX wrote:
Yes I am. Not much action on that forum these days.

I suspected when I saw your hardware listing the Merlin RTG Card and the SouthWest location. Cool! :-D I am mysticpixels on that forum. Yes it seemed to die down after I joined it. That figures.

[vic20owner]

Someone should look inside and see if they can pull the s-video from the board before it is combined into composite.

I have one on the way and will do that when it arrives

[Tigger]

.....At one point I know that Digital Creations, and their partners from Progressive Image, had talks with Commodore about selling CBM the DCTV technology for installation into upcoming Amiga products (this would have been about the time the A4000/1200 was in development).  I think CBM compared DCTV to the AGA concept, which they owned, and decided not to pay Digital for the rights to use DCTV technology.

Actually the tech was to go into CDTV, in fact they demoed it as a addon card at Devcon 91, full NTSC color animation off of the CDTV with the card.   I'm not sure why it fell through, though it may have been that they thought the 3000+ would make it obsolete, and they may have it we had actually gotten A3000+, instead of the hacked up A4000s at a much more expensive price.
     -Tig

[hardlink]

marcfrick2112 wrote:
  I own 5 DCTV units, one for each Amiga

Ah, but do you have one for your CDTV? I'm still looking for that one, although I've met one person who has one (or "it"?)

[hardlink]

Tigger wrote:

Actually the tech was to go into CDTV, in fact they demoed it as a addon card at Devcon 91, full NTSC color animation off of the CDTV with the card.
     -Tig

Tigger, any idea how many of those cards (a NTSC CDTV DCTV, wow)were made? I've only ever met one person who had one, and he was not inclined to part with it.

[desiv]

Someone should look inside and see if they can pull the s-video from the board before it is combined into composite.

Necro bump...  ;-)

Just a heads up, if you have a DCTV-RGB converter, you can basically do that.
I had my DCTV hooked up to my Amiga 500.
Into the DCTV, I had the DCTV RGB converter.
In the DCTV RGB converter, I had an Amigamaniac svideo adapter.

Was stacked pretty far out of the back of the Amiga, but it worked and looked great.

I have a 1084s monitor on there now, but it worked great when I tested it.

Big problem with the DCTV was (IMHO) it didn't output to the monitor (they did eventually release the RGB Adapter) and cost $500 on release.
You're not going to sell too many to the majority of Amiga owners that way.

Although the price did drop to a more reasonable $300 ish after not too long, but you still had to pay for the RGB-Adapter if you didn't want to have 2 monitors.

It is a great piece of hardware tho, just wish they could have released it with RGB and a more reasonable price.  I think they would have moved a LOT more units that way..

I didn't have a DCTV back in the day, but I do now and it's really nice.

I did have a HAM-E back in the day.  Similar, but only RGB (no composite, which I think is a better choice).  That was great fun, but it was a monster and I remember it got pretty warm...
But looking at JPGs (The HAM-E software was supposedly the first commercial software to support JPG, or so they said when they uploaded the JPG module) back in the day on my Amiga in 24-bit color was awesome.. ;-)

desiv