Subject: REVIEW: Vidi Amiga 12 RT video digitizer
From: [email-masked] (G. O. Jones)
Date: 22 Sep 1996 18:02:00 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Vidi Amiga 12 RT

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	Full Colour Video Digitiser, Real Time capture (ie. no freeze
frame required)

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Rombo
	Address:	Kirkton Campus, Livington, Scotland
			EH54 7AZ

	Telephone:	(44) 0506 414631
	FAX:		(44) 0506 414634

LIST PRICE

	I paid around 139 UK pounds for mine, although the prices are
much cheaper now.

DEMO VERSION

	None

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		2MB RAM required.  More is recommended.
	        Video hardware, NTSC, PAL or Secam.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS 1.3 or greater.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 1200, 2 MB Chip RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM, 50Mhz 030 CPU.
	Workbench 3.0.

INSTALLATION

	Uses a custom script: an icon is dragged to the target
directory and is double clicked.

REVIEW

	The Vidi 12RT hardware plugs into the Amiga parallel port.  It
is a fairly large unit which causes some irritating problems. First,
due to its width, the serial port on the A1200 is obscured by the
right hand side of the case, meaning you will have to remove your
modem or MIDI interface each time you wish to use it.  You can get
around this problem by making an extention cable.  There is an order
form with the unit for this cable but I feel it should have been
included free. The second problem involves powering the unit.  Due to
its power requirements, you need an external power supply.  Yet again
this is not included and so you will need to purchase one.

	The Digitiser has 3 inputs.  The first 2 are standard
composite video inputs and the other is a Super VHS input (or YC).
You can select which input to use using the software so you don't need
to fiddle with switches on the unit itself. Big Box Amiga owners may
have a problem plugging in the digitiser as the parallel port is lower
down than on the A1200.  The extention cable will come in handy for
this problem too.

	The software that comes with the digitiser consists of a
Grabber, a simple Image Processor and a basic Animation arranger. The
Grabber page has all the controls for grabbing images: you can alter
the Hue, Saturation, Brightness and Contrast of the images, select the
input to be used, and even set it to grab images in a loop with a time
delay between each grab.  There is also a trigger function that will
grab an image each time a joystick button is pressed: handy for a
simple security system.  

	The Image Processor contains the usual features found in most
Amiga graphics programs.  You get Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Blur etc.
These functions are fairly useful, but a dedicated program will do
this much better.

	The Animation arranger allows you to arrange your stored
frames into an Animation.  It displays thumbnails of the images which
can be selected and moved around, deleted etc.  You can then save them
as an IFF ANIM file.  The Vidi software doesn't seem to like
palette changes or loop frames so you may have to convert the Anim
using another program before it will work with certain programs.

DOCUMENTATION

	64 Page manual, laser printed.

	The manual is reasonable.  It has example images, a tutorial,
setup instructions for the hardware, and most importantly a
troubleshooting section.

LIKES

	Quality of grabbed images are good.  S-VHS input, PAL/NTSC
and SECAM are autodetected,

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	The case obscures the serial port and won't connect to Big Box
Amigas without an extention cable. Needs external power supply.
Software doesn't use ASL filerequesters.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	ProGrab from Gordon Harwoods seems to be better supported.  It
has a PCMCIA option for A1200 owners for faster grabs.

BUGS

	There seems to be a bug in the Grab page.  After selecting the
Mix function to convert to the image to a lower colour mode, returning
back to the Grab options resulted in a guru. There is a V2.0 of the
software but this isn't a free update.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	Rombo have released PC versions of their Digitisers, however
they still sell their Amiga version and even still sell their Atari
version. There is a help hotline mentioned in the manual.

WARRANTY

	None mentioned in the manual.

CONCLUSIONS

	Although the ProGrab 24 from Gordon Harwoods is more popular
than the Vidi, you can buy a Vidi 24RT for less than a ProGrab, which
makes it a good value. The Vidi 12RT's picture quality is good and the
software is useful. A1200 owners may want to consider the ProGrab and
its PCMCIA option, or the recently re-released Videomaster.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1996 G. O. Jones.

---

   Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator
   Send reviews to:	[email-masked]
   Request information:	[email-masked]
   Moderator mail:	[email-masked]
   Anonymous ftp site:  math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Web site: ftp://math.uh.edu/pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews/index.html