From: mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas)
Subject: Re: Comdex/Quicktime released for the PC
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 03:38:34 GMT
Organization: StarNine Technologies, Inc.

In article <1992Dec14.140513.662@pcnntp.apple.com> Dale_Adams@gateway.qm.apple.com (Dale Adams) writes:
>In article <92347.032705MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> Mark 'Mark' Sachs 
><MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>> Yes, I've seen it. It scales the moving images to the size of the window,
>> and dithers it if there aren't enough bitplanes for all the colors. This
>> might be impressive if not for the fact that it ends up running so slow 
>> (on a Mac Quadra!!) as to be essentially useless. The Amiga 500 I used to
>> own animated full-screen up to sixty times faster than QuickTime on a 
>> Quadra.
>> I reiterate, sophisticated bells and whistles mean little when the 
>> program does not accomplish its main function!
>
>No, no, no.  QuickTime does much more than what you describe.  Please 
>re-read Evan Torrie's remarks:

Oh, no.  Another Amiga wanna-be pumping up his mac!

>
>"  Oh no, not again.  Please, please, please, read some QuickTime 
>developer's documentation.  QuickTime does far more than just bitblt
>moving images to the screen."  
>
>To which I'd add: Or resize them.  Or dither to a different pixel depth.
>
>If you really want a reasonable technical description of everything 
>QuickTime entails, please follow his advice and reference the developers' 
>docs.

Again, what is the point?  Your own posting indicates that QT only BEGINS
to provide entry-level animation (30 fps 320x240 ... w-o-w) on the top
of the line macintoshes?  It is quite pitiful, actually.

In other words, whatever it does, it needs to do less of it, because
the underlying graphics a5rchitecture is antiquated and slow.  The
QT facility fails to provide adequate animation on even the average mac
and it is a statement about how little the Mac can accomplish in real-time
work.

>
>Also, I believe your numbers are a bit off.  Using QT 1.5 I run 320 x 240 
>animations at 30 fps on my Quadra 950 on a 16 bit/pixel screen.

That may be something to be proud of on a mac using QT, but it
is so far behind Amiga animation capabilities it is laughable.

>I doubt 
>your A500 runs 60 times faster than that.

Just the fact that an 8 MHz 68000-based machine can do better
at all that your $10,000 Quadra says it all.  And they call the
Mac a GRAPHICALLY-ORIENTED MACHINE?

>Running anims on your A500 
>isn't doing what QT is doing.

Very true.  The Amiga 600 isn't skipping frames, providing pitiful
jerky animation.

>If I just want a simple animation player, 
>I'll use something like MacroMind Director/Accelerator.  Using this 
>off-the-shelf software with no special tricks, my Q950 will animate at 
>over 90 fps on a 640 x 480 8 bit/pixel display.

But it won't load up the next animation frames while SMOOTHLY displaying
the next.  It won't run OTHER GENERIC MAC SOFTWARE in the background
while animating.

And why don't we stop talking about Quadras?  It's always
mind-boggling the number of times PC & MAC fanatics want to compare
the animation capabilies of their QUADRAS and 486's to an Amiga 600!
Notice they NEVER allow a 4000 (the flagship amiga) to enter the fray!

Hey one of you 4000 owners... how fast can you animate 640x480x8?

>I do believe that you've seen QT running dog-slow on a Quadra.

That's big of you.  Anyone out there who HASN'T?

>Heck, I 
>can make any machine run slow if is set things up right (wrong?).

I can make a mac run slow even easier than that... just turn it on!

>I've 
>seen many Mac dealers demoing Quadras with the 040 cache off and running 
>all software from a CD-ROM.  Talk about crippling the machine!

That brings up the fact how computer-ignorant the average mac owner is.
Did you know that for the system 7 tune-up, apple changed their plan
and provided a full installer program for it, even though it just needs
to be dragged into the system folder.  Seems that they discovered that
60% of mac owners DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT!  (reported in MacWeek)


>It's easy 
>to make things run slow.

Only on a Mac.  Some games on my Amiga 3000, I can't get to slow down enough!
RUn tons of processes, disable caches, run in chip mem, some of 'em are
STILL too fast!

>The trick is to do things right.

Like recognizing Macs for the bloated, slow, antiquated toys they are.
Then spend your money on a real engine, an Amiga.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy