From: wave@waits.media.mit.edu (Michael B. Johnson)
Subject: Re: Kodak Photo CD
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 17:32:20 GMT

Sean Lamont writes
> In article <1992Nov5.074234.6889@ulrik.uio.no> Stein_Onsrud@siodata.uio.no  
writes:
> >Are there anyone out there on the network, that knows anything about  
> >support for the Kodak PhotoCD system on the NeXT Platform. I understand  
> >that Sony will very soon ship a CD player that supports the multisession  
> >format from Kodak/Phillips, will this player ship as a NeXT Player ?
> >On the PC and mac platforms there is allready a number of Software vendors  
> >that either already supports the format or say they will. What about  
> >software on the NeXT ?
> 
> There is a MAJOR thread going on about this in alt.cd-rom (being
> erroniously crossposted to alt.sources as well)
> 

Barring the flame war that is going on there, as well as rec.photo and other  
places, as to the question of Photo-CD support on the NeXT...

I think the answer is no.  Let me explain that.  The current consumer Photo-CD,  
which is what most people talk about when they mention Photo-CD, holds five  
copies of a given image on the disc, of varying resolutions.  The first three  
(I believe) are pretty much straight pixel dumps that are straightforward to  
get at.  With a little effort, it's not too hard to grab the data.  The top  
two, which are the most interesting ones, are encoded in such a way that you  
(for the most part) need software from Kodak to read the images.  I say for the  
most part, because this also is not terribly difficult to write software to get  
at, but (and this is where the flame war erupted elsewhere) people on the net  
have written software to do this, and Kodak has warned them that selling this  
software will probably violate patents they have.  Kodak's software is  
available in object code for the Mac and PC platform, for a nominal (or not so  
nominal, depending on your wallet) of around 5 or 6 hundred dollars.  If you  
just need to convert the image as an end user, Kodak sells a program for about  
$40 to convert the image for both the Mac and PC platform.  Kodak has yet to  
deliver the "UNIX" version of either the developer kit (the $500 or $600  
package) or the end user app (the $40).  I say "UNIX" because we all know that  
unless you get the source code, each platform is different.  And since the two  
options I've talked about (the developer object code version and the end user  
executable) have no source code. From what I have heard from Kodak, their  
definition of UNIX is SUN, and that will ship sometime in the next year.  

So what if you want source code?  That's $100K, I believe.  Apple cut a deal  
with Kodak to put PhotoCD support into QuickTime, which I believe went out the  
door with QuickTime 1.5.  This, coupled with Apple's new 300 and 300i CD ROM  
drive, presents a coherent strategy for addressing PhotoCD support.  Given that  
SGI has licensed QuickTime from Apple, we can assume that SGI will (at some  
point) have support for PhotoCDs built in.

So where does this leave NeXT?  From what I've gathered, $100K is a lot of  
money to NeXT, and they're not convinced they should spend it.  I don't really  
disagree, but between no real Wacom support and no easy way to import images  
from PhotoCD, a NeXT running Appsoft Image is not looking as nice an  
alternative to a souped up Quadra running Fractal Paint and PhotoShop.  I'm  
bummin', because the combination of a color NeXT with a Wacom tablet, Appsoft  
Image, an Apple 300 CD-ROM drive, a stack of Photo CDs, and Stone Design's  
3DReality had me salivating, but real reality (no pressure support in Image and  
no Photo CD support) is beginning to dawn...

--

-->  Michael B. Johnson
-->  MIT Media Lab      --  Computer Graphics & Animation Group
-->  (617) 253-0663     --  wave@media-lab.media.mit.edu
-->  NeXT Mail accepted at  wave@nordine.media.mit.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc