Video playback on Plus/Classic

[luddite]

What are the best (if any) options for fullscreen video playback on a bare bones Plus/Classic? Ideally I'd like to take some existing short mpeg files and convert them to play on the Plus/Classic... assuming this is even possible, what kind of frame-rate would be possible?

 

[Mac128]

My first reaction was to laugh. I mean the first requirement is to dither your video source down to 1-bit color. But there may be some application. I seem to recall some animation software that could be used to create full motion movies, possibly 15fps? If so, theoretically you could export your video to the same format. But, I seem to recall true video playback required a 68030. I'll look up available software later ...

 

[LCGuy]

As Mac128 said, it might be possible if you use some kind of animation software or whatever, but you can forget about anything that uses QuickTime - even QuickTime 1 requires a 68020.

 

[porter]

What are the best (if any) options for fullscreen video playback on a bare bones Plus/Classic?

No problem, just by-pass the Macintosh motherboard and use the B/W monitor using the analog signals directly.

 

[Bunsen]

You can forget mpeg or anything else that requires decompression on the fly. Uncompressed 1 bit 512x384 stills shouldn't take too much space - just store them as a sequence of images in a folder, run a slideshow type program and ramp up the refresh rate. At 3 or 4 frames per second you would approach anime quality

 

[Mac128]

So I've come up with some animation software from the Plus era. It's called Hayden VideoWorks and seemed to have been pretty popular and well reviewed. There were several others as well, all of which seemed to be based around MacPaint. In which case you should be able to create individual frame outputs which would be compatible with this software. It did not discuss a frame rate, but interestingly restricted a 512K Mac to only about 2,000 frames with 24 animated objects on screen at once. So figure a Mac Plus would be 4x that or 8,000 frames, or at 15fps, about 8 min.

The Classic era has some software called Macromedia FilmWorks. However, I cannot find anything that has system requirements, so it may have required a 68020 minimum. Even then the same source discusses that QuickTime may have trouble managing 15fps and drop frames. So I would guess, a 68000 would play even fewer fps. Not the best for video.

That's about it. Prior to the Power PC, there does not appear to have been much in the way of video playback software for the Mac aside from Quicktime.

There is also of course Hypercard, though I'm not sure if it produces animation per se.

You definitely have your work cut out for you here. Not sure the exact application here, but you might consider starting with an SE/30 or Classic II, which will run QT and produce 1-bit video graphics. From there you can use QT to export dithered and reduced frame sequences, which you may be able to import in to the afore mentioned vintage software.

 

[superpantoufle]

So I've come up with some animation software from the Plus era. It's called Hayden VideoWorks and seemed to have been pretty popular and well reviewed.

Not sure about it, but I definitely DO have a couple of DD floppies with a similar name on them lying in a box that came years ago with my 512Ke. I remember briefly trying that software on the said 512Ke. There was a System Disk with the app and some data disks. I didn't produce any content, but I remember an "iMove-like" workbench (is this an overstatement? ) in which you could arrange frames, and then having them playing back. I'll look it up, and I'll be more than happy to share if it sounds interesting to you!

 

[luddite]

So I've come up with some animation software from the Plus era. It's called Hayden VideoWorks and seemed to have been pretty popular and well reviewed. There were several others as well, all of which seemed to be based around MacPaint. In which case you should be able to create individual frame outputs which would be compatible with this software.

That sounds perfect...

Not sure about it, but I definitely DO have a couple of DD floppies with a similar name on them lying in a box that came years ago with my 512Ke. I remember briefly trying that software on the said 512Ke. There was a System Disk with the app and some data disks. I didn't produce any content, but I remember an "iMove-like" workbench (is this an overstatement? ) in which you could arrange frames, and then having them playing back. I'll look it up, and I'll be more than happy to share if it sounds interesting to you!

Hey, that would be great!

 

[luddite]

You can forget mpeg or anything else that requires decompression on the fly. Uncompressed 1 bit 512x384 stills shouldn't take too much space - just store them as a sequence of images in a folder, run a slideshow type program and ramp up the refresh rate. At 3 or 4 frames per second you would approach anime quality

That's a good backup option.

 

[Mac128]

That's a good backup option.

And if you end up doing that, which I think you will have to, even with Quicktime due to the 1-bit dithering, you might want to use this to process each still frame to get the best image under 1-bit conditions. Time consuming, but I've never seen a video plug-in that converts to 1-bit where the video content was still decipherable and not just some random blocks of black & white.

http://www.tinrocket.com/software/hyperdither/

 

[luddite]

Now that's going to be *very* useful! Thanks for the tip.

 

[~tl]

I can't remember the name of it... but I remember seeing someone's home-brew video compression scheme for some type of 8-bit computer (can't remember if it was the Apple II, C64, etc). Might be worth looking in to, if you can track it down. I'll see if I can dig up a link to it...

 

[LCGuy]

There's 8088 Corruption, a guy got full screen, full motion video working on an original IBM PC, with the 4.77 Mhz 8088.

 

[Osgeld]

C-64

http://www.demoscene.tv/page.php?id=172&lang=uk&vsmaction=view_prod&id_prod=13238

 

[~tl]

There's 8088 Corruption, a guy got full screen, full motion video working on an original IBM PC, with the 4.77 Mhz 8088.

AHA! That's the one! Cheers [] ]'>

 

[superpantoufle]

I found the floppy I was thinking of. The app is called MacroMind VideoWorks II. A liitle googling pointed me to MacroMind Wikipedia page, where I learned that that MacroMind later became Macromedia. VideoWorks is the first name of what later became Macromedia Director, now Adobe Director.

PM sent to luddite.

 

[Mac128]

VideoWorks is the first name of what later became Macromedia Director, now Adobe Director.

Interesting, they do not credit either VideoWorls or MusicWorks to Hayden, which I thought was another defunct company from the early Mac days. Who knew it turned out to be Macromedia. Thanks for that! EDIT: Ah! I get it ... just looked at an ad and see Hayden was the distributor, it says right on the box developed by Macromind!

I would love to have a look at that software.

ALSO: Based on a French review of the software from a 1985 MacExpo I found, it appears that VIdeo works could playback from 3 to 60 frames per second, which seems miraculous for a 512K.

 

[tomlee59]

That "8088 Corruption" hack is pretty impressive, indeed! I admire the twisted mind(s) that conceived of, and executed, its development.

Given that it evidently uses a VQ-based codec, I'm curious whether Quicktime (say, version 2 or thereabouts) and Cinepak could produce similar results on a Plus/Classic. The minimum system I've ever tried is an unmodified PB140, which produced better-looking video than I'd expected. I'd be interested in hearing from those of you who have tried Cinepak on less-capable machines.

 

[Mac128]

The minimum system I've ever tried is an unmodified PB140, which produced better-looking video than I'd expected.

Given that the 140 meets the 68030 minimums for QT, I am still somewhat surprised it produced good video at all at 1-bit resolution. The limitations of the 8088 video are obvious: while full screen, full motion, the resulting video is little more than blobs of color vaguely resembling the things it attempts to depict. Trying to imagine it in B&W reduces it to little more than stick-figure animation to be useful. Nevertheless, impressive on a Mac Plus.

I'm tempted to just stick an SE/30 in there, modified with a grayscale card and lie. ;-)