Video Playback on IIci

[jasonfortheworld]

I have an upcoming film where video playback on a color CRT is needed, but currently we only have Apple displays like the RGB High Resolution to use as the monitor.

In hopes of avoiding the need to go out and buy another CRT with composite or RF inputs, I was wondering what kind of video quality could be expected on a IIci if you play a file off a BlueSCSI? As long as we can hit something in color, around 400x300 pixels (but this is pretty flexible) , and at least 20 FPS I think that would be fine.

I have a Turbo040 accelerator I can toss in for extra performance if that would help, but no other extra hardware beyond 128mb of RAM.

Alternatively, if anyone knows how to feed a composite, VGA, or RF signal into something like the RGB display that would also be equally helpful in this case.

 

[olePigeon]

What about just using a Mac-to-PC adapter and connecting the monitor to a PC? Slap an emulator on it and hide the PC away, then have the Mac on the desk for show. Even with a Turbo040, the IIci is probably too slow for anything past 320x240 at 10 fps. If that even. You'd need a hardware decoder or video capture card of some sort.

 

[jasonfortheworld]

What about just using a Mac-to-PC adapter and connecting the monitor to a PC? Slap an emulator on it and hide the PC away, then have the Mac on the desk for show. Even with a Turbo040, the IIci is probably too slow for anything past 320x240 at 10 fps. If that even. You'd need a hardware decoder or video capture card of some sort.

Mostly I'm just trying to avoid spending more of the production budget by trying to use what I already have. But I'm also unfamiliar with going PC to these old Apple displays. I only know about going from the vintage Macs to a modern display.

 

[Mk.558]

They did make video input processing cards, but they were *expensive* and most people tend to hold on them pretty well. Usually the A/V Macs were what you'd need for that, all of which were '040 or PPC, which wasn't a complete solution, but better than none.

How much video playback is required? There's a guy who made some thingamajig that can reportedly play 21 FPS video on a SE/30, so a IIci might be able to get 30.

 

[jasonfortheworld]

They did make video input processing cards, but they were *expensive* and most people tend to hold on them pretty well. Usually the A/V Macs were what you'd need for that, all of which were '040 or PPC, which wasn't a complete solution, but better than none.

How much video playback is required? There's a guy who made some thingamajig that can reportedly play 21 FPS video on a SE/30, so a IIci might be able to get 30.

I probably need about 60-90 seconds of video playback. I know of MacFlim which is a great program, but unfortunately it's only compatible with 1bit black and white displays. It doesn't know how to handle color or grayscale.

I'll probably end up just running some tests on my IIci later this week to see what QuickTime is able to handle.

 

[Mk.558]

JDW did a test here some years back, around the time of the Great Crash of 2014, using a Sorenson converter and QuickTime. Results weren't that great, but could be worse. 320x240 with 24 fps is pretty normal, if you're lucky, but 15 fps was more typical. I can't find the posts.