Sony 6000 video disc and Silicon Graphics

[Wes Bethel]

In article <1991Jun21.193048.1587 at odin.corp.sgi.com+ blythe at sgi.com (David Blythe) writes:
+In article <91172.145330SONDRICK at HASARA11.BITNET> SONDRICK at HASARA11.BITNET (Rick Jansen) writes:
+>In our visualization lab we plan to use a Sony LVR6000 video disc
+>for recording computer animations and still pictures. 
+>... 
+>For example, Wavefront Data Visualizer has an animation facility,
+>where you can specify the number of frames to generate. It can take
+>a while (seconds) before the next frame is ready...
+
+I don't believe the Data Visualizer has any support for recording to
+devices [yet?].  On the other hand, it may not be such a bad thing to spool
+the images to tape or disk so that when you do record you can add a few frills
+like better titles, dissolves, longer intro and exit frames ... (production
+values)
+
+>Well, so much for ideas and plans. Does anyone on the net already
+>have experience with a similar setup including a Sony disc and
+>Silicon Graphics equipment? Any information would be very welcome!
+> 
+
+To the best of my knowledge the LVR can be controlled directly via RS-232
+(or some serial interface -- I don't know the difference between the 5000
+and 6000), so why bother with the V-LAN or the PC?  Just plug it into the SGI
+and control it 

As a number of people on the net have indicated, the Sony disk makes a
good mastering device, solving the problem of render rate vs. record rate.

What bothers me is that many of the vendors (SGI, Stardent, etc) have
their own setup for solving this problem.  Why is this a problem?  Many
of these vendors will try to sell you an expensive scan-converter, or
sell you something which takes as input the RGB lines to the monitor,
or some other configuration which is unnecessarily expensive or proprietary.

Here at LBL, we have made extensive use of the SCRY movie system, which is
essentially a software layer for transporting images around in an ethernet
environment.  There is server and client software.  The idea is that there
is a central server somewhere to which clients can connect and record frames
onto the videodisk in a frame-at-a-time fashion.  When the sequence
has been completely recorded (often, this takes DAYS), then a tape can
be dubbed off of the videodisk.  Also, this setup accomodates the use
of various packages which are suited to different applications.  For
instance, we use AVS as a rendering engine for scientific data, then use
a paint box for producing title frames.  The bottom line is that the
Scry code is designed to be portable to nearly any platform that supports
"sockets".

As for the Sony 6000, I personally don't know anything about it.  We use
a Sony 5000 and it does allow disk control via an RS232 channel.  

wes



-- 
wes
ewbethel at lbl.gov