Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: stlombo@eos.acm.rpi.edu (Steve J. Lombardi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: MINI-REVIEW: AsimVTR animation playback software Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 16 Aug 1993 15:55:05 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 85 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <24oakp$7rv@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: stlombo@eos.acm.rpi.edu (Steve J. Lombardi) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: animation, commercial OVERVIEW AsimVTR is a software program to play back a sequence of images directly from a custom partition on your hard drive. Since the images are stored on the partition uncompressed, playback speed is constant. The current version does not support AGA nor interlaced images. An update due out in 4 weeks will support AGA, interlaced images and add sound support. The lack of support for interlaced screens really needs to be addressed. DCTV is well supported, right down to the VCR style control panel in DCTV format that can co-exist on the same screen as your animation without the need to keep hitting the Composite switch! PRICE This program sells for about 55$ mailorder. A true bargain for the non-professional user (i.e., home use, non broadcast stuff). Don't expect a DPS PAR for 50 bucks. With that out of the way... USE Tell AsimVTR what drive or partition you want to use, and it will format it. Tell it where your source frames are, and it will copy them to the custom partition. Select PLAY from the menu, and watch. There's a bunch of other features for sequencing frames, setting rates etc.... But I'm trying to be brief. Installation is easy, and the manual is good. SPEED OF PLAYBACK My system is an A3000 with a Quantum 240MB SCSI drive. The animation I needed to get to tape was 1500 frames long in 736x482x3 DCTV format. The system informed me that I would get a maximum speed of 33 frames per second (fps) with this configuration. If you choose to play at the maximum speed, you may see an occasional hiccup in your animation. I only needed 20fps for this animation, and that ran quite smoothly. The Asim folks claim to be able to get 60fps with 3-bitplane DCTV images on an A3000 with the superfast Maxtor drives that are out now. I'd be happy to get 30 fps with INTERLACED 3-bit DCTV. This will be God head! I look forward to the upgrade. GLITCHES Here is an annoying glitch. Are you sitting at your computer? Sit back and don't touch it for a moment. Watch your hard drive LED (if you have a SCSI drive). In a few moments you'll see it flash on, even if you have no programs running in the background. This is normal for SCSI. The name for this fails me right now. This will cause a noticeable glitch in your animation. Solution: wait for this activity before starting your playback. The expensive hardware cards that are out now get around this by taking over the drive and performing this function before starting the animation. SUMMARY Again, AsimVTR is not for the professional who wants to lay out hi-res 24-bit pictures at 30fps. Stick with your single frame recorder. If you have a reasonably fast drive and controller and want to play back animations larger than your RAM permits, AsimVTR provides a really low-cost solution, even if it's not perfect. And if you've got a DCTV you should really take a look, as even at non-interlaced 3-bit my 1500 frame animation looked pretty amazing. I've spoken with the Asim folks on the phone and they seem very dedicated to supporting this package. After my update arrives with AGA and interlaced support, I'll follow up. CONTACT INFORMATION AsimWare Innovations 101 Country Club Dr. Hamilton, Ontario CANADA L8K 5W4 (416)578-4916 (voice) steve lombardi stlombo@acm.rpi.edu --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews