DCTV Question for Amiga 2000

[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

[Sean Cunningham]

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

S-Video isn't necessarily better than standard Composite video when connecting two devices.  It depends on which device has the better comb filter.  The signal is exactly the same before chroma and luma are split.

So, for instance, if you had a Pioneer Elite dvd player and fishbowl Magnavox television that just happened to have an S-Video input, you would connect S-Video, because for sure the high end Pioneer player will have better comb filters.  If you have a no-name $20 DVD player from China and a Sony XBR^2 TV, you would connect composite because the set will have better comb filters.  And if you have the Elite player and the XBR, it's likely a wash.

I remember taking the DCTV to a local TV station to lay off some work for them and, hooked up to the scopes, it was pretty clean.  At the very least it was as good as the Truevision VID I/O Box I'd previously been using for RGB->Composite.

[Sean Cunningham]

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.

The DCTV was simply amazing.  It was like having a TARGA board, only you could do things with the DCTV that you couldn't do with the TARGA or any other truecolor boards for PCs or Macs at the time.  Or the VideoToaster.  

In 1990/1991 and for many years after truecolor framebuffers required single frame recording to very expensive video decks in order to achieve motion.  This was typically done with composite video to analog recording devices.  3/4" U-Matic was about the least expensive, industrial quality used at the time and it's a composite recording medium.  Betacam would be the next step up in quality at a major increase in price while still only offering 300 lines of resolution though it recorded a crude form of component video.  

It wouldn't be until a few years later with the introduction of the DPS-Personal Animation Recorder that you could get realtime playback of imagery with this sort of color and quality, though the PAR was only playback and didn't have any video paint support since it didn't allow that sort of access to its framebuffer.  DCTV Paint was head and shoulders better than the kludgy way Newtek implemented paint on the VideoToaster.

I had an Amiga3000 when DCTV came out and my buddy and I were running a little graphics and Amiga training outfit in Corpus Christi, TX and though I don't recall the job that paid for my DCTV it was likely the best $200 I ever spent on the Amiga (I could be wrong on price, I was still getting my old employee discount from when I worked at the local Amiga dealer in high school).  Combined with Pageflipper + Effects I could do 640x400 ANIM playback that didn't bog, recording to 8mm video at U-Matic quality and no need for single frame controllers.

Animations that I did in Hash's Animation:Apprentice and Imagine output full-color through the DCTV got me accepted into CalArts, which got me a job at an Oscar winning effects facility shortly thereafter and a pretty amazing career, and I credit a lot of that snowball to the DCTV (and the Amiga, of course).  I wasn't showing them HAM playback or single frames.  They were seeing images that looked as   good as what their MFA students were doing with Wavefront TAV and their TARGA recording setup.

[psxphill]

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.

I would guess this was a backup plan. AGA development was internally controversial.

[Sean Cunningham]

If I recall, there were similar rumors about Black Belt Systems that may or may not have been helped along by them.  I remember not being impressed with their box due to lower resolution.

[AmigaPixel]

Reading this old thread come back to life makes wish I had working Amiga for my DCTV! Actually the DCTV is in storage at a location I unable to get to for the time being. So I need to get the A2000 fixed up and buy another DCTV. Speaking of the PAR card I had one installed in my A2000 for a few years and I often had wished I could use it with the DCTV.
 
The patents should have have expired, I wonder if anyone would be interested in reverse engineering a DCTV unit and seeing what expansion or upgrading could be done with it? I am not sure a company even like Individual Computers would want to spend the resources on such a project.  However maybe some one here with the technical knowledge and skill not to mention the time and inclination, might be interested in such a project

[Sean Cunningham]

What for though?  For folks still using classic hardware?  Composite video has kinda had its day.  It's pretty horrible looking on flat panels.  Even VGA signals look bad on them now.

I wonder if we'll ever see some hipster start-up creating new CRTs.  I've still got my first 1080-HD CRT I ever bought, all 200lbs of it, and I'm not giving it up until it simply doesn't work anymore.

[AmigaPixel]

What for though?  For folks still using classic hardware?  Composite video has kinda had its day.  It's pretty horrible looking on flat panels.  Even VGA signals look bad on them now.

I wonder if we'll ever see some hipster start-up creating new CRTs.  I've still got my first 1080-HD CRT I ever bought, all 200lbs of it, and I'm not giving it up until it simply doesn't work anymore.

Good point! Composite video is history. I just like the idea of taking a DCTV and seeing what could be done with it further. Even though there would be no point anymore. It was/is really a fun add on to the Amiga.

[Sean Cunningham]

Yes, it was uniquely Amiga.  Very clever.  I seem to remember the slow-scan digitizer functionality to work better than any other parallel port digitizer I'd tried.  Somehow the others all ended up with weird jaggies, even using a camera to digitize flat artwork there would often be errors with the others.

[smerf]

WOW!!!

AmigaDave as a moderator, just goes to show they will let anyone moderate now.

smerf

[Sean Cunningham]

Anyway...

[desiv]

Good point! Composite video is history.

That's why no consoles being produced and sold currently are just composite..  er..  um...
(Yes, I'm looking at you Nintendo...)

Heck, when they put together the Raspberry Pi, they went with HDMI and composite.  No s-video, no RGB/VGA, no component.

Composite is still the low end standard.  It ain't history yet..  ;-)

As for DCTV, it's great.  I have one and love it..
I would STRONGLY recommend getting the DCTV RGB adapter too..  That way you can see DCTV images on your monitor, not just composite.  I think not including that was what kept the DCTV from being THE standard Amiga video enhancement (that and price. ;-).  (Although, it basically is the standard Amiga video enhancement based on sales I'd guess)

I also had a HAM-E back in the day, and loved that..  I remember downloading the JPG (viewer, plugin, converter software???  It's vague) software just when it was available right around the same time JPG was standardized.  (I think I remember the Black Belt guys saying their software was the first commercial software to release JPG support (just by a few days or hours ;-) on a compuserve chat thing.)

That was incredible.  JPG images on the HAM-E..  WOW..
I never noticed a problem with resolution.  I did have the PLUS model, which had the higher res mode, but that was a bit of a trick.  That mode created a higher res image that used more colors and looked great, but as I recall, you couldn't do anything with those extra pixels directly. The hardware used them for improved resolution and shading, but i don't think I could render an image TO that mode.  I think there were just 24-bit images that displayed better with that mode.  I think in todays world, that mode would be like an upscaler.  Your DVD isn't producing more pixels, but the upscaler is to give you a better (supposedly) picture.

To be honest, I remember being incredibly impressed by HAM-E, but the plus didn't seem much different to me.

Also, HAM-E was RGB only (not sure if you could use a genlock or something to convert it to composite if needed???).
So, where DCTV was basically only composite for consumers, HAM-E was basically only RGB.

Also, DCTV came with the digitizer, which is nice..

Does anyone who is technical know if it would have been possible to have a DCTV mode game?  (Other than like Dragons Lair, which would probably have been doable without too much problem)

desiv

[Sean Cunningham]

Yeah, the "Plus" sounds like an interpolation trick.  Definitely not something I'd have been interested in.  The basic 320x400 screen was good enough for most folks but it was too low rez for what I was working on.  Oversampling was either non-existent or really crudely implemented in all the rendering software back then.  Working in highres was a must and being able to playback animation in highres.

Composite is still the low end standard.  It ain't history yet..  ;-)

It just looks worse than it ever has, especially on flat panels, possibly due to A-to-D.  Composite video needs a CRT to look decent.  They keep it there because it basically costs nothing to add and there's likely a lot of kids out there with hand-me-down TVs that aren't digital.  Old people too.

[desiv]

Composite video needs a CRT to look decent.

i mostly agree there.  I'm a big fan or CRTs for systems...

That being said tho, the Wii composite output looks decent on composite (I've moved to component, but the composite isn't hideous...)
So, I'm thinking that an LCD TV could have good composite quality, even with older systems.
I've read on the forums where some people say composite looks good on their model of LCD TV.  (Or I should say panel, be it LCD, LED or Plasma).

But the old systems look terrible on my LCDs.
In fact, the Atari Flashbacks I have (a 3 and a 4) also look pretty bad.

Back to DCTV, I currently have it on my A1000, which gets most of my "retro" use.  Unfortunately he only has 512k chip.
I should use him on my A500, which has 2m chip, but I don't have him set up.  i usually use the 1000 or the 1200.  
And no need for the DCTV on the 1200 (and he has a Grafitti board on him anyway).
512K is plenty for viewing images, but not much beyond that..

desiv

[AmigaPixel]

@desiv

I forgot about HAM-E until you mentioned it. My DCTV is in storage and I can't get to it for now, so I think I will pick one up on Ebay along with the RGB converter. I  use to play Caligari 24, Scenery Animator and later LightWave animations through the DCTV, first on my 030 A2000 and later my 060 A1200. They played really well on the latter.

I need to get my A2000 (my only remaining Amiga) up an running first.

[Fingers]

I once saw at an Amiga Show an stock 030 A3000 w/DCTV running the complete Back to the Future movie in DCTV format from the hard drive, smoothly and at full speed with no skipped frames.

I have a DCTV & had absolutely NO IDEA it could do such things! :O

Here I was thinking it just captures images...please more info on this...please?

PZ.