Amiga 1000 Genlock fun!
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2023
- Here is a little video done right on my #Amiga 1000 - My camera video and audio is routed thru my A1300 Genlock, I have a bit of DJ H0ffman playing on the Amiga being mixed with my audio. I then am recording it right on my PC and an MPG file. Can your 1985 PC do this?
#shorts - Наука та технологія
I have a Genlock too! But I don't remember them as being Amiga products. It was a separate device with a slider. When I was an engineer for General Motors I set them up with an Amiga video studio using an A3000, genlock, Scala, etc. They used it for years covering six GM manufacturing facilities! Once I set it up everyone wanted input as to what was broadcast 24/7/365 over our in-house broadband system. Then corporate found out and went to a PC using Scala. I was way ahead of the times!
Amiga had a plethora of Genlocks available since their standard signal was so darn close to NTSC standards. PC's eventually got them, too, but they were more expensive as lots of hoops had to be jumped thru to convert the signal to standard definition.
Scala is awesome! I need to learn it!
@@10MARC I didn't know there were a lot of genlocks. I only know of the one fancy one. I bought two of them, one for me, and one for GM. Well, GM paid for that one. Anyway, Scala is very easy to use! But it came out for the Amiga first! Eventually corporate found out what I was doing and copied it. I never got credit for the video system GM uses, yet I designed it! As I remember, the original Scala for the Amiga cost $200, but when they ported it to the PC they raised the price to $400. They got it because it was worth it. We're talking early 1990's. Nowadays M$ Powerpoint can mimic a lot of Scala's old functionality. It only took them 30 years and a large team of Microsoft's best and brightest. I don't know what ScalaMM is like these days. I'm sure it's a lot more powerful if it's even still around.
This reminded me of a dream I had a couple years back. In it some company had planned on using two genlocked A500s for a custom arcade cabinet game. One A500 ran the game "front" graphics and sound effects while the other did the "background parallax" and music and they were synced over serial and some kind of bus link on the expansion header. Woke up thinking what a cool idea and surprised a company never really did something like that when A500s became cheap.
It seems plausible for sure. You could even have prerecorded background images from a laserdisc and then live Amiga graphics in the foreground. That would be kind of neat!
Doug.... you are the hero we all need, but do not deserve... very cool.
Thanks, buddy!
Nice setup. Back in the mid 1990's, i sold my A1000 to my old hometown of Madison Maine for their cable TV public access channel. The slideshow program was a very basic program which required a script to function. Even though i wrote very detailed instructions on its use, the local guy who ran the bookstore was pretty old and barely computer literate which required me to drive an hour in order to update it.
That's an awesome story!
I had a SuperGen SX paired with my A2000 back in the day. Under workbench 1.3, I remember having to run an extra little program from Deluxe Paint to allow the use of multicolor fonts (meaning a black outline around the letters for subtitling).
The Supergen is a nice piece of hardware. I own one, but my Video Toaster takes up my video slot so I never use it. The A3000 and A4000 are way to small to fit that card!
PPaint genlocked over Video...So useless, but so fascinating! I wish I had a genlock back in the early nineties, when I was doing hobby video projects on S-VHS. A simple 1MB A500 had to suffice for Scala...oh well... I now have a Hama genlock in the attic, but no space to setup a whole Amiga video dream studio
A computer/video studio doesn't have to take up that much space. I say that as someone looking to find space for my keyboards and guitars. I'm trying to talk my wife into getting rid of a spare bedroom.
The PPaint screen being there was just a proof of concept thing. I wanted people to recognize what was creating the silly title overlays. I am working with Zuma TV-Text for actual title creations. It does a really cool job with drop shadows and effects, but it crashes all my Amiga's when I exit the program! It is an incompatibility with Amjga OS 3.2 I suspect.
Impressive!!
Thanks! More to come!
1985? Heck, IBMers were still arguing which was better, green screen or amber screen monitors years later! I lived it, I repaired them, I know. IBM disc drive controller chips/circuitry were sh*t.
Even 15 year old me in 1985 could not imagine why people were buying those IBM computers with no color and no sound. They were just...boring. I had a VIC-20 and then a C64 and the only thing I saw the PC's doing that my C64 could not was 80 columns of text. When I first read about the AMIGA I could not imagine getting anything besides that.
@@10MARC I do have a clear answer, it was same reason why Atari ST outsold Amiga 1000, office work. You cant watch all day long into a crap blurry 50Hz RGB monitor, your head would explode (been there, done that in 8bit times). No one really needed colours for word processing, spreadsheets, database or mainframe access, all was mostly done in text mode for many many reasons. And in fact Amiga was probably the only 16bit computer failing big time in this sector.
Did you ever create a full video?
1st - AmigA!!
Amiga is always first...
haha, the only useful application for A1000 that prevented its total death in 1985-86, meanwhile Atari ruled all the audio aspect of the broadcast and film production, vast numbers when compared to Amiga. But how could Amiga fanboy know...
And to answer you question in description if "Your 1985 PC could do this?" In fact it could, and that was in 1984 already, the name of the computer was Mindset, so what now? And BTW Atari ST could do it in 1986 already, so what was the point again?
Sorry for this small rant, but I could not help myself. Im just jealous that I cant get the cable for my *G2 Systems VideoCenter Plus* so I can hook it up to my Amigas to play around...
Sure. I know the Atari ST had integrated MIDI and lots of studios used it with the excellent music software. It sure how many movie studios used it. MIDI on the AMIGA was about a $50 add on and out music software was really quite good
I am sure the 25 people that owned the Mindset computer were quite happy
@@10MARC no no, you absolutely do not know the topic. It is not the integration of MIDI on ST and 50USD RS232 adapter for Amiga.
First of all, ST was not used just in the known part of audio production, it was largely used as a audio (non MIDI) controller via SMPTE protocol, and Im not talking about budget productions like small studios Amiga was used back then for Genlocking, im talking big Hollywood productions and televisions. Of course things like this are not known to Amiga fanboys, this was way out of "gamers" world.
Second, it is a popular myth that Amiga equipped with 50 dollar MIDI adapter makes it equal to Atari ST, the problem is that Amigas own architecture is standing in the way. Atari ST was not just a computer that had MIDI ports out of the box, it was how the MIDI was implemented to architecture of ST. The port was connected via opto- coupler (well here its same as Amiga adapter 😉) to ACIA controller that had DMA line to RAM. Nothing, and I repeat nothing can get in between this read/write process. And as you might know, TOS BIOS/XBIOS is low level single tasking so even that is not in the way, and the software can take control of the timing without any hiccups.
Meanwhile on Amiga you have the adapter MIDI to RS232 (with opto-couplers inside), the serial port is controlled by CIA that is fed by Paula, which technically has DMA lane,... but.
The issues start now, Paula has to ask for permission of Agnus and it will not get it all the time, that is the first issue, If the CPU is r/w to ChipRAM, Paula has to wait again. Or if Agnus is r ChipRam for beam control...
This conflict could be somehow avoided by careful assembler code and rigorous timing. And here comes the boogieman, no matter what you try Amiga will loose data on MIDI protocol. Why? Amiga is based around 4 timing chips which are interrupt driven same as the RS232 port CIA, the problem is that the timer chips do have higher priority over serial port forcing it to wait some times. Frankly the CIA has only 1bit buffer, so in case of waiting on timer chips there is no buffer that could bridge the waiting time and the data gets lost. While losing data on "amateur" MIDI use is kinda OK-isch (not really), it is perfect for MIDI music in games, but it is absolutely a NO GO on any semi or professional level.
And the third issue is, that the MIDI program on Amiga has to be "banging" the hardware directly, bypassing the AmigaOS, so there cant be ANY multitasking, preemptive multitasking is a big NO GO for MIDI, unless you have really a brute power like todays PCs (even there sometimes some timing issues may arise), In fact Atari ST is considered THE most accurate MIDI general computer (out of the box) till today, period.
With Mindset, actually many times more studios worked on Mindset computer then on Amiga 1000 in 1985/86, in fact late production of Mindset was almost (if not) exclusively aimed at video production.
And actually A1000 was pretty much a flop very comparable to Mindset, it almost brought Commodore to bankruptcy (in fact it did, C= was saved by investment of Irving Gould and C64 sales), but I still love mine. I have a soft spot for pizza box computers
Cant wait the followup video.
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 well you know your MIDI stuff, that's for sure. I disagree about the Mindset machines. Nobody even knew what they were until that UA-cam video came out about them a few years back.
I will wait here to see a genlocked Atari 520 ST do this. While multitasking music playing in the background. ;)
@@10MARC *I disagree about the Mindset machines. Nobody even knew what they were until that UA-cam video came out about them a few years back.*
you didnt know Atari ST got uses in large numbers in Hollywood and TV studios for SMPTE time code controlling other devices, you for sure dont know about massive Atari ST/MegaST/MSTe/TT use in labs in Europe as a scientific machine, you surely dont know about large ST implementation in automation (CNC control), but that doesnt mean it didnt happen. And all of it was much much larger then Amiga in 1985. Also you would know about Amiga just as a new gaming computer in 1985 since you were kid, the Mindset was a professional PC in that time and Amiga was a newcomer with no backing. In fact the 1985 was what we call a "paper launch", only few A1000 got really sold in 1985. The production ramped up in December 85 just to be stopped in Q2 1986. Not much better then the Mindset. Yes after A500/A2000 situation changed and Amiga produced a lot of fans later, that are loyal till today. If the A500/A2000 would never come, do you think we would know much about Amiga? I dont think it would be more known then Mindset. And in fact if you read comments in Mindset videos you refer to, you will find out that many commenter in fact did have them home or at work.
*I will wait here to see a genlocked Atari 520 ST do this. While multitasking music playing in the background.*
you see, you again prove how you dont know other system besides your beloved Amiga, ST is well capable of doing this, and STE even with higher sample rate then A500, Im not youtuber but maybe if I find the Genlock cartridge for the ST I will make a video. Dont remember where I stored it and if it was STE version or all versions. STE and Falcon, maybe you dont know, has Genlock support out of the box. On OG ST Genlocking was done via Cartridge port (maybe with some small wire tweak, dont remember). And while the ST was not the pick No.1 for video overlays in Europe (yes even here it was the Amiga), it was much cheaper solution so it was used in large numbers. Amiga was better choice due to fact that it could do more colours and that it could do overscan (which you dont need much when titling) and had better tailored applications, but it was also twice as expensive solution.
And dont take me wrong, I do not downplay or hate Amiga, I love Amiga I do own couple of them. It just was not that master race computer presented by Amiga fanboys, it was just another computer of its time trading blows and whistles with other solutions, in some areas Amiga was better, in others it was topped by other systems.