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High-color video playback on STE


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I made couple short videos with audio : http://atari.8bitchip.info/HCPL.ZIP

Used Photochrome 4096 color mode, fullscreen, 12.5 fps, audio is 25033 Hz, mono.

It is very demanding considering CPU time, disk space, loading speed. Max some 6 sec. playback at once is possible.

Requirements: STE or MSTE with 4MB RAM , 3.5 MB free RAM. Hard disk. TV/Monitor capable to work at 50Hz (PAL). May try with some emul. Steem, Hatari. On ST will be no sound, and less colors. Too much ? Well, it is still not enough for some contigous playback :-)

This could be base for enhanced Space Ace.

 

Contigous playback with 4096 colors ? Extremely demanding, especially at 25 fps and fullscreen. I have some ideas how to achieve it on STE. But it will not work with UltraSatan, to say ahead. Only with Cartridge or IDE IF + little mod. + raw hard disk access and special SW. If it will work some day, expect aprox. VHS quality - there will be noise too, audio quality similar to mono, analog VHS. Sharpness may be better than average VHS. About 45 min on 4GB.

Edited by ParanoidLittleMan
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Well, it needs diverse SW: you need to convert your video (A/V) source into picture sequence + extract sound too. Of course, with some conversions.

In this case we need resize to 320x200, with some cropping before it, by need. And only every second frame. Not hard with Virtual Dub + AviSynth :)

Later is not necessary for AVI, MPG src. But certainly, there are other programs capable too. You need to convert audio to mono, 8bit, 25033 sample rate.

Before it may be necessary to do time stretch by factor 0.95904 if video is 23.976 fps - because we play back at 25 fps.

Then comes Photochrome on its - converting pictures (png or tga format) to PCS.

After all it need my special, simple SW to compose file good for STE playback.

Since you need only 2 secs, we can go even on 25 fps - then picturise every frame.

Not so hard after you did it already :-D

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Ok :)

 

I do not need the sound ! :-D (Having the "Croooooow Crooow Crooooow" looping sound would surely make me go mad)

 

Hmm.. maybe the whole Robot Roll Call sequence could fit ?

 

I'll see too to try to create a video to use with Didier Mequignon's Mplayer for STE/TT.

Edited by OBO
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Avatar flight scene was easy case. But not all material is good for PCS - even in slow, m3 mode quality is not so good. Scene at fire and large skull looks very bad after conversion. As I see, dark scenes never will look good.

 

Btw. some accelerators. PAK boards would be good for depacking compressed video, but real brake is slow RAM and video in Atari STE.

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Don't know how much of a difference it makes, but in getting my STacy ready for the PAK board, I replaced the RAM board that came with it. All

4 megs of RAM are at 80ns now.

 

Hmm, as we've discussed, even with a good accelerator, there will probably never be audio with anything but the STe, Mega STe, TT, Falcon, correct?

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Downloaded the LAV2 app and played the SpaceAce clip with it on my PAK equipped STacy.

 

No audio of course, but the video played well. Very nice screen size and good speed.

 

I would imagine that any movie could be converted that has sub-text and you could still

watch them then! :)

 

(Pan's Labyrinth for example).

 

BTW, is that one clip on your site from Firefly - Serenity the movie? It looks like Wash. :D

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Don't know how much of a difference it makes, but in getting my STacy ready for the PAK board, I replaced the RAM board that came with it. All4 megs of RAM are at 80ns now.

Hmm, as we've discussed, even with a good accelerator, there will probably never be audio with anything but the STe, Mega STe, TT, Falcon, correct?

 

To make everything faster, faster RAM chips are not enough. You need faster MMU, Glue, etc.

DMA audio of STE is really useful - it is simple to programm, and slowdowns not at all. In theory, you can do some sound on ST during playback, and some players solved it. But quality is pretty low. Additionally, it slowdowns pretty much, and we are already on limit. I have some ideas about sound on ST, but it would take to much time to code, test, while qulity never will be good. So, better focus on other things - and there is a lot.

 

Subtitles: it is easy to add with Virtual Dub. But because low output res, it will take more % of screen than it is usual with modern players. Anyway, I will do something for test.

Yeah, from Serenity. Wash or Walsh ? :grin:

Edited by ParanoidLittleMan
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better screen modes on TT (with more colors)

 

Well, not that much. By default the most colored one is the 320x480/256c mode, but the pixels are not squared, and by default the GEM display is "streched".

 

FYI, 320x480 is the original iPhone's screen resolution...

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