SUMMARY: video output from a SS2

From: Bill Hart (hart@ml.csiro.au)
Date: Sat Feb 16 1991 - 15:04:28 CST


My original request was

> I have just ordered a colour SS2 for the purposes of scientific visualization.
> What I would like to be able to do is record on video single frames in a
> sequence to build up a movie. From looking at the Sbus list and from
> previous stuff it appears that the only things available to do this means
> you have to buy a frame grabber. The problem for me is we simply don't have
> the money for this. I know with amiga's all you have to do is buy a thing
> called a genlock (for a couple of hundred bucks) and away you go. Is there
> something similar for a Sun ?

I wasn't after a frame grabber (convert video to rasters) but the opposite
(rasters to video), which seem to be what most of the commercial products
are for.

The general consensus seems to be that the Sun's are not like Amigas and
SGI's and you can't just buy a genlock to generate sync for a video recorder.
You need to buy a frame buffer that has NTSC/PAL output or a scan converter.
Surprisingly there doesn't even seem to be any commercial SBus products
available to do this sort of thing (I hope I'm wrong).
I thought it was a common and fairly logical sort of thing to want to do with
a workstation, be able to produce video taped animations for demos, conferences
etc, but obviously not. I have asked my local Sun graphics expert, who has
asked another expert, and he will give me a 'definitive' answer. If it looks
reasonable I will pass it on. I'll also try and get some info on the SBus
frame buffers and see which ones look reasonable

Anyway thanks for info suggestions and anecdotes from :-

tgsmith@East.Sun.COM
vasey@mcc.com
varsun!inacomp!jdw@Sun.COM
hartigan@hanksville.phast.umass.edu
pratt@coraki.Stanford.EDU (suggested that HDTV recorder may work)
ohnielse@ltf.dth.dk (suggested using movietool)
mark@deltam.com



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