Subject: REVIEW: DCTV 1.0c
From: Brian C. Wright <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

This is a review of version 1.0c DCTV (Digital Composite Television)
produced by Digital Creations.  In the package comes 4 disks, manual, and
external DCTV box.  Included on the disks comes a paint system,
digitizer/image processor, and DCTV->IFF conversion software and
registration card.  There are a few utilities and 2 disks of images.  My
DCTV is currently running on an A3000/16 with four megabytes (two chip,
two fast) running AmigaDOS 2.04 KS version 37.175.  In general, the system
is quite nice and quite worth the money.

** Requirements and specifications:

DCTV requires at minimum one megabyte of memory.  It uses the 23 pin RGB
port and the parallel port for digitizing.  DCTV has a maximum resolution
of 768x432 in full NTSC color at the present (unless superbitmaps are
implemented).  DCTV's lowest resolution is 640x200.  It uses 3 and 4
bitplane high resolution interlace or non-interlace screens for display.
The DCTV box decodes these images into full NTSC color.  If you have a hard
disk, you will be a lot happier, although you can use floppies.  If you
intend on saving 24 bit ILBM images, be prepared to have about 600-800k
free per image.  Without the DCTV-RGB adapter, genlock use with DCTV is not
possible.  The software will run on both 1.3 and 2.04 (KS 37.175).  It will
also run on a 68000 as well as 68030 with speed improvement.

** Introduction

Since the day I had placed my order for DCTV, I had been anxiously waiting
for it to arrive.  I had always been waiting for the day to have greater
than 4096 colors (other than Dynamic HiRes).  Well, DCTV is no
disappointment above and beyond its few flaws.  I had already used a DCTV
over at a friend's previous to my order.  I didn't really have any idea of
the full capabilities of this system.  To my surprise, I had *REALLY*
underestimated it.

I removed the very professionally printed outer sleeve of the box and
opened it to find a parts list, a plastic wrapped DCTV box, an envelope
containing four disks (again with the professionally printed labels), and a
very nicely printed spiral bound manual.  I immediately removed the
contents of the box and proceeded to hook the system up.  It may have taken
me all of 10 minutes to connect it up.  The software took a little more
time than that to copy over to the hard disk.  I would have used the
supplied installation script, but my multiple assign to FONTS: would have
caused problems (my current system disk is full and the fonts would have
been copied there).  DCTV requires its DCTV.font in the FONTS: directory
and the iffparse.library in LIBS: before the system will run.  For maximum
functionality of the system, it would be best to have two monitors for
DCTV.  One monitor for your DCTV display and one for your RGB output for
Workbench.  I run my system using my 1950 for WorkBench and my 1080 for the
DCTV.  DCTV is stated to run on systems with one megabyte of memory, though
if you intend to do heavy DCTV work, plan on getting more.  After using the
system for a while on my three magabyte machine, the system runs out of
memory occasionally.  I would have to say that the minimum one megabyte
system would only barely allow it function.  To use the digitizer, you must
sacrifice your parallel port (quite usual for a digitizer).  Keep in mind
that I haven't tested everything on the painting system out yet.  I am
still in the process of learning it.

I shall divide the software review into three sections.  This will then be
followed by some remarks about hardware and final thoughts.  Three programs
are included in the DCTV package: DCTVProc, DCTVPaint and Convert.  The
DCTV executable is just DCTVProc, DCTVPaint and Convert combined.
DCTVPaint and DCTVProc (with Convert included) are also available as
smaller executables, but lack the integration of the DCTV executable.

When you first run DCTV, the first screen that pops up is an Amiga 640x200
screen.  From this screen, you can pick your destination: options,
digitize, paint or convert.  If you choose process/digitize or paint, you
will get a green sort of screen, this is your queue to switch to a
composite signal.  Once in composite, the green screen will turn grey with
a 3D look.  You can now start viewing, painting or digitizing.

--------------------------------SOFTWARE---------------------------------

** DCTVPaint:

DCTVPaint is the NTSC color painting system for DCTV.  This paint system is
quite complete, but has a few missing features and some rather unobvious
functions that should be made obvious.  The one thing that DCTV is
completely lacking is an UNDO feature.  This isn't to say they didn't
provide ANY means for undoing.  There is a fast load and fast save feature
that will quickly save/load a file (and it is pretty fast too) to/from any
disk device.  With this function you can quickly save/load a file for an
undo-like action.  I'd have rather seen a true UNDO, though.

Another function that should be readily and easily available is the CLEAR
SCREEN function.  It isn't easy to find or easily accessible.  You have to
click shift-clear (when the color button is depressed).  Also, to grab a
color from the screen you shift-click onto the image area and it will grab
the color.  To put the color in a well, you shift-click in the well.

As for the tools available to you, you have all the standard features one
would expect: circle/elipse, arc, line, box, and dots.  All of these can be
filled or not filled depending on whether you depress the fill button. My
favorite feature of this paint system is the stencil operation.  It is very
very nice.  You can create a stencil around anything using any tool just as
you would to paint.  You can delete or add to the stencil.  Then when
finished, pick your favorite operation (fill box, gradient, etc) and cover
your stencil.  The stencil reminds me quite a bit of the way real frisket
works.  You can save your stencils as well.

Some other features of this include warping of images around shapes
(circles, squares, freehand shapes, etc), gradient fills, radial gradient
fills, linear gradient fills, and horizontal and vertical gradient fills.
You can pick your colors from any of 16.7 million colors (256 shades per
red, green and blue).  There are also pattern fills which include tiles,
wallpaper and brick.
 
Other tools include rubthru, blend shade, water (water color effects?),
smooth, filter and airbrush.  Since there are many combinations of possible
effects that can be had with this paint system, I haven't tried every
possible combination yet.  Overlaying transparent tints or brushes is done
very well.

There is a cut/paste tool for brushes.  Since the cut brushes are limited
only to being moved and pasted, real-time drawing with a cut brush can't be
done.  Resizing, flipping and saving the brush is possible.

When the the amount of available memory becomes low, the software may or may
not cut a brush.  If it can't cut the brush, you don't get a requester.
You don't get anything.  The busy pointer goes away and that's it.  Other
operations tell you if there isn't enough memory for the operation.
Cutting a brush shouldn't be any different.

On the paint screen you have 36 color wells.  You can save these palettes
if you need to.  You can put any color in any of these wells without the
restrictions of HAM or 32 color palettes.

You may have up to two buffers open at once.  This is how the rubthru
works.  Having two buffers open at once requires much more memory than just
one buffer.  Two interlace overscan images in the buffers can easily fill
my memory sufficiently to keep me from digitizing in high quality or
cutting a brush.  I usually have about three megabytes free, sometimes
less.  When running something as memory hungry as this I usually don't run
anything else.

There is a text brush feature.  You can pick your font from any of the
included fonts (which some of them are quite nice), write your text into
the provided string gadget, hit return, then pick the tack.  You will then
see a stencil made up of your text in the font you chose.  From here you
can paste the stencil anywhere and do whatever you would normally do with a
stencil.

You can magnify by 2x, 4x, or 8x with the magnify tool. You may scroll 
around in magnification with the arrow keys. 

** DCTVProc:

This is the digitizing and image processing section of DCTV.  With this
section you can not only digitize images, adjust the images you digitize or
adjust any image you import into DCTV.  The image processing types
available are color, tint, brite, contrast, sharp, red, green, and blue.
You can add or subtract any of these to or from the image.  The image
processor does quite a good job of adding or subtracting any of these
attributes from the image.  The sharpness, if too much is added, will make
the image look quite strange.  You do not have to commit to the modified
image you see on the screen.  There is a MAKE button to show you any
changes, but if you wish to make it permanent you click the COMMIT button.
There is also a SWAP button that allows you to swap between buffers.

With the digitizer, you can digitize from either a video camera or a taped
or still image.  The image must be still for about 6 seconds on the fastest
scan speed.  On the slowest scan, it's about 10 seconds.  Any interference
in the signal will significantly affect the performance of the scan.  DCTV
digitizes its images in full 24 bit color which can be saved in any of
three formats: IFF24, Display, and RAW.  When you digitize, you can choose
interlace or non-interlace.  You may also choose 3 or 4 bitplanes and
overscan.  An interesting addition to this program allows you to choose
whether the incoming signal is interlaced or non-interlaced above whether
or not you choose to have the output be interlace or non-interlaced.  There
is also a standard quality or high quality digitizing option.

One thing that must be addressed that really isn't discussed in the manual
is the problem with interference.  All cables should be as _short_ as
possible.  These cables should also be isolated from one another.  If the
video input cable is near any other signals (coaxial cable or electrical),
interference will result in the digitized image.  Also, do _not_ use an A/B
switcher with it.  The use of this will also significantly degrade the
digitizing performance.  After I moved my input cable away from all my
sources of interference and removed the A/B switcher, my digitized images
are now quite superb.  Another thing that sort of irritates me about the
digitizing software is that it automatically smooths the digitized images
on the last pass when it's finished.  I then have to sharpen the image by
about +11 everytime.  There should have been an option to turn this off.

Digitizing from various sources will produce varying results.  To date, I
have digitized from a Xapshot, a laserdisc and a camcorder.  The motor from
the Xapshot causes interference when connected directly to DCTV's input.
The images from it come out with jaggies.  Images from my laserdisc come
out perfect everytime.  They are very good.  The images digitized from the
camcorder are also just as good as the laserdisc.  I don't have a decent
still frame VCR so I can't test this.

** Convert

The convert part of the program allows you to convert IFF, Display or any
of the 3D image formats it will load to any of the standard Amiga formats
(2-64 colors or HAM) or to DCTV, IFF24 or RAW format.  The conversion
utility also provides the same image manipulation that DCTVproc offers, but
quite a bit slower.  You may manipulate the palette of the image as well.
You may choose any of 4 dithering options: none, ordered, diffuse, and
average.  You may also choose the screen size you are wanting to convert
the image to.  If you want to save to standard Amiga IFF formats, you must
save here.  The paint and digitize menu only saves RAW, IFF24 or Display
format files.

---------------------------------HARDWARE----------------------------------

** Image quality and overall value

The display quality of DCTV is as good as your composite monitor.
Composite signals have the tendency to be fuzzy.  Even so, the images are
still quite striking and the ability to be able to edit these images in 24
bit is a _big_ plus.  Some really interesting results can be had with the
digitizing and painting systems.  The composite signal doesn't get into
my way with DCTV's overall capabilities.

The overall value of this product is very high.  It is worth every cent of
the $391 I spent for it.  The fact that it is not only a paint system, but
a 24 bit digitizer, image processor and conversion utility makes the
package a striking value.

** Hardware

The hardware of DCTV is a smallish box that is black.  The DCTV logo is a
professionally printed sticker on the box.  The cords are a little short,
but I assume this cuts down on interference.  On my 3000, because of the
closeness of the 23 pin RGB port and the parallel port, I had to pull out
one of the screw-in knobs on the parallel port connector cable.  The cable
that connects into the RGB port has a passthrough so you can still connect
another monitor.  Again, the parallel port will be needed for the
digitizer.  Because this box plugs into the RGB and Parallel ports, it can
be used on any Amiga.

[Ed. note: Since the A1000 has a nonstandard parallel port, it will require
an adaptor to make use of the digitizing functions. - JLT3]

The size of the box is about 4 in. x 5 in. x 1.5 in.

** Final Comments

A few comments about the current version of DCTV software are in order.
While working with the system, memory can get low.  It would seem there
isn't an easy way to purge all non-visible buffers.  This should be
available.  Sometimes I have had to quit out of the program to claim my
apparently used memory (fragmentation?) and start over.  After I quit and
restart, the memory problem that I was having has disapperaed.  The only
options available to be saved, are those that appear on the OPTIONS screen.
I'd like it a prefered resolution and bitplanes under the digitizer.  It
would be nice if it could remember some of my favorite paint settings (the
size of the brush, the amount of flow, etc).

An upgrade (to V1.1?) is expected soon.  The upgrade will cost $15.  This
includes disks, shipping and an update manual.  The person I talked to at
Digital Creations said that the update will change the tutorials section in
the manual considerably.  He also stated that the paint and digitize
software has improved immensely.  I can only hope an UNDO feature is part
of this.  Since I just bought my DCTV and hadn't sent my registration card
in, he told me to go ahead and send in my $15 for the upgrade.  They would
just send my upgrade out when it's available.  I hope that the upgrade will
deal with superbitmaps.  Other things I'd like to see is load routine for
GIF files and other 8 or 24 bit formats outside the Amiga realm.

As for the software, DCTV has one of the best paint systems I have seen to
date.  The system is a little memory hungry, but that is to be expected as
it is dealing with 24 bit images.  Some of the advantages of the DCTV
system is the DCTV format file size is incredibly small.  A 150k DCTV
format image can be as large as 800k saved in IFF24 format.  The RAW files
usually run about 250k.  The other big plus is that DCTV format images can
be displayed on any IFF viewer as they are standard Amiga IFF 8 or 16 color
high resolution images (the DCTV hardware is necessary, though).  Because
of this, real-time animation is possible (within the constraints of
Hi-Res).  Comparing DCTV to other similar 8 or 16 color high resolution
paint systems, it runs a little slow on a 68000.  On my 3000, it runs at
about the right speed, but couldn't hurt being a little faster.  Assuming
that DCTV does buffering and changing the buffer as well as the screen
image, it is pretty fast.  Loading a DCTV image takes about 15 seconds.
Loading an RGB8 (Turbo Silver and Imagine format) image takes about 25
seconds.  The stability of the system is to be admired.  It has _never_
even crashed once on me.  When it runs out of memory, it produces a
requester that either tells you it is out of memory and sometimes suggests
an alternative (like standard quality digitizing).

Since this system is NTSC color, I do not know if there is a PAL version
available.  It doesn't seem to work properly in PAL mode on my 3000.

** Conclusion

I highly recommend this system to anyone who is a serious artist or
illustrator.  If you need better graphics with more than 4096 colors, DCTV
is quite worth the money.  Other systems may claim real-time 24 bit
painting, but look at their price.  None of them provide digitizing at 24
bit levels AND real-time painting at about 21 bit color for less than $500
(and DCTV can usually be found for under $400).  The images provided on the
extra images disks look great.  It's just too bad that they didn't provide
some of the images that are on the cover of the box.  I'd have liked to
seen some of them displayed for real. :) Painting in 24 bit color is
incredible!  (When displayed at 21 bit or NTSC color.)

If you have any further questions, comments, or would like tell me something
that I left out, please email me at [email-masked].

[Ed. note: Or 'F'ollow up to comp.sys.amiga.graphics for public
discussions. - JLT3]
--
Brian Wright                                  ///
                                             ///   ONLY Amiga
[email-masked]                  \\\ /// makes it possible!
[email-masked]  \\X//