Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!pepper!cmcmanis From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Apple eating our lunch Keywords: MultiMedia/Desktop Media you know that thing that Macs do. Message-ID: <125384@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 27 Sep 89 21:39:17 GMT Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Lines: 101 Attached is a copy of an article from EET that describes how Apple if off and running, out to establish a standard (or try to at least) for Desktop Video just like they did with PostScript for Desktop Publishing. Long time Amiga owners will "puke" at their ability to put into product "innovations" that everyone who have ever voiced an opinion about the Amiga and desktop video has already invented. The key things to note here are : a) *APPLE* is doing the development work, they aren't waiting for some underpaid and undermotivated third party developer to beat the odds and create something that takes the Mac market by storm, and creates a defacto standard. Rather they are taking a leadership position and saying "Here, this is how it will be done." Commodore did that with IFF at first and it spawned a wide variety of paint programs that could and did interact with each other as well as a host of tools to make use of everything. By not being proactive in the development of IFF ANIM, SOUND, and TEXT standards, projects doing things like Animation floundered and produced dissimilar and incompatible data files and output. b) When someone asks "Who invented Desktop Media" Mssr. Louis-Gasse is going to say "Apple of course." And while he will be dead wrong when it comes to accuracy, he will in fact be correct if he modified it to "Who invented usable Desktop Media." This is not a flame so much as it is a warning. I know a lot of people at Commodore both professionally and personally and I realize that they have varying degrees of experience in marketing/strategy and that they have even more wildly varying degrees of authority to do anything about problems. This is an example of something you have to go out and say "This is the way it is." and screw the developers who bitch and moan about how they favor their XYZ architecture. Some will complain, more will respect you, and when the developers figure out that they can make products that are useful because they adhere to a Commodore dictated standard then you will see progress. Accept the fact that you will make mistakes and that sometimes you will do more harm than good. However, you will also learn and make progress. Being indecisive and "cooperative" often leads to developers that like you and stagnation all around. >from the August 14th Electronic Engineering Times: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Essentially the Media Control Architecture synchronizes the flow of compressed video, audio graphics and data streaming through a Mac's I/O ports, disk drives and CPU. Synchronize is the key word here. A sound bite takes up a discrete amount of time, but the period that a video or graphics image lasts may run shorter or longer. The control architecture makes it possible to cut and paste images, sound, text and graphics making sure that they overlap smoothly. "To the Macintosh, these media will just be new data types, flowing through a host computer in lockstep," said Apple products president Jean-Louis Gassee. Apple third-party developers began trying to meld Hypercard applications with real-time control almost as soon as the software appeared two years ago. But without a standardized central architecture, users of many of the fledgeling multimedia products typically ended wit audio and video out of sync or stopped dead in their tracks. Apple chief executive officer John Sculley demonstrated a BBC package for assembling audiovisual programes. It uses a method called time-flagging to tightly match sound and video. "If a CEO can do it, anybody can," joked observers as Scully put together a mixed-media presentation in front of the packed house. Despite such assurances, though, the soundtrack failed to play on cue. Also demonstrated was Big Time TV, a package from HyperPress Inc of Santa Clara that lets the Mac capture sound and video in real time and treat them as if they were binary files. Video digitizers from a number of companies were previewed, as were Hypercard tools that control external video and CD sources from Voyager Press (Los Angeles) and Optical Data Corp. (Warren NJ). It's known that an ANSI/ISO document now being drafted will address industry concerns with many of the issues covered by the Apple architecture, particularly time-coding video, graphics and audio files and image compression and decompression. An early version of the specification is expecte to be announced with weeks. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "If I were driving a Macintosh, I'd have to stop before I could turn the wheel."