Re: Graphic formats IIgs can handle

[nathan@subzero.winternet.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4rfu0p$qal@zap.io.org>, Myles Fudge <crownmi@zap.io.org> wrote:
>For example, is there a GS program that can display .AVI files?  

   Not to my knowledge. AVIs usually require fairly beefy 486 and
Pentium boxes to display with any semblance of speed and quality;
the GS would probably be fairly outclassed here. 

   Maybe if it was decompressed and translated (a la FLIConvert) they
might be doable, but you really start running into file size
limitations-- the dithering needed to get any sort of picture quality
off the GS's screen would _really_ slow down display and increase file
size. [Dithering is adding noise, which is the opposite of what
compression wants] Further, almost all $C1 picture displayers want to
be able to load the entire movie into ram and run it from there. Go
past about 20-30 seconds and you've just exhausted a 4MB GS.

   I'm not sure what all this brouhaha about watching movies on my
computer screen is anyhow. About the only ones I've got are the
digitized clips of efx from the Babylon 5 Screen Saver for Windoze.
My VHS tapes of the episodes they took the clips from are higher
quality, and contain the entire episode. Yes, I'd have to move the 20
feet to the living room, find the tape and watch it, but when the
exact same content is available at far higher quality with little to
no convenience cost, I'll take the better one any day now.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
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