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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 09:38:54 -0400
> Maybe I'll just get one of those PC to TV convertors;
> >anyone have any experience with these?
>
> A guy at work was telling about his friend that had one. He said Command
> & Conquer was cool to play on it, except that you needed to sit across
> the room in order to play (he had a big TV too).

I haven't used a PC to TV converter, but most of the monitors that can
double as a TV suck wind.
The dot pitch is so bad your graphics look terrible. :-P

Steven A. Tinner
bluewizard@*****.com
http://www.ncweb.com/users/bluewizard
"Great. Five loons against the list. (run!!!)" - Dvixen
Message no. 2
From: Drekhead <drekhead@***.NET>
Subject: Re: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 11:09:04 +0000
On 10 Apr 97 at 9:38, Steven A. Tinner wrote:

> > Maybe I'll just get one of those PC to TV convertors;
> > >anyone have any experience with these?
> >
> > A guy at work was telling about his friend that had one. He said
> > Command & Conquer was cool to play on it, except that you needed
> > to sit across the room in order to play (he had a big TV too).
>
> I haven't used a PC to TV converter, but most of the monitors that
> can double as a TV suck wind. The dot pitch is so bad your graphics
> look terrible. :-P

Steve, isn't it the other way around (TV's that double as monitors?)

The PC-TV converters that I have seen work pretty well, but keep in
mind that a TV does not come even close to the resolution of a
monitor, so at resolutions of 640x480 or higher, the picture gets
quite blurry and grainy. Graphics look OK, but forget text unless
you are using an ungodly large font.

Now, for a Shadowrun related question. Is Trideo technology explained
anywhere? Is it holographic projection, 3d on a flat screen, or a
hybrid of some kind? Also, are the video pickups on a telcom 3-d or
2-d?



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If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot
stomping on a human face...forever. -George Orwell
Message no. 3
From: "Faux Pas (Thomas)" <thomas@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 10:52:06 -0500
On 11:09 AM 4/10/97 +0000, Drekhead typed:
>Now, for a Shadowrun related question. Is Trideo technology explained
>anywhere? Is it holographic projection, 3d on a flat screen, or a
>hybrid of some kind? Also, are the video pickups on a telcom 3-d or
>2-d?

It was my understanding that trideo units have a base 1m by 1m, like a
coffee table, and the imaging area is above that like a hologram up to
about a 1m height. I'd venture a guess that it's in Shadowbeat.


-Thomas Deeny
telltale.hart.org

"I'll get it." [BLAM BLAM BLAM]
"Man, you suck."
-Hellboy and The Savage Dragon, trying to prevent Hitler's brain from
escaping.
Message no. 4
From: "Fisher, Victor" <Victor-Fisher@******.COM>
Subject: Re: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 11:53:25 -0400
>
>The PC-TV converters that I have seen work pretty well, but keep in
>mind that a TV does not come even close to the resolution of a
>monitor, so at resolutions of 640x480 or higher, the picture gets
>quite blurry and grainy. Graphics look OK, but forget text unless
>you are using an ungodly large font.
You're going to have to wait at least a year from now, when HDTV's
are introduced on a large scale in the U.S. [the delay is because 1)
Americans are notoriously resistant to change; check out the metric
system, and 2) networks won't start producing HD programming until then.

>Now, for a Shadowrun related question. Is Trideo technology explained
>anywhere? Is it holographic projection, 3d on a flat screen, or a
>hybrid of some kind? Also, are the video pickups on a telcom 3-d or
>2-d?
A combination of all three, depending on how
much money you have to spend.
Telepresense is considered holographic projection, where a person's
images are replicated in, say a boardroom, or your living room for
meetings, etc. This doesn't involve 'jacking in' to the Matrix, however
this option is most expensive as it requires projectors, motion
trackers, carteographic software to generate a full image of the object
based on samplings of avaliable views, etc.
Virtual boardrooms [or chatrooms] create a computer-generated
fascimile of whatever enviroment desired as a meeting place [a large
office, or the shores of Fiji]. This requires a datajack, or at least a
S.Q.U.I.D. trode set [they appear in Nigel Findley's book 2XS, and in
the movie Strange Days]. This is probably the option taken by most
people.
And the most likely option used by people is the '3D' flat screen
projection, as this is the cheapest to generate [I'd say a descendant of
>HDTV]
Message no. 5
From: Drekhead <drekhead@***.NET>
Subject: Re: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 14:51:09 +0000
On 10 Apr 97 at 10:52, Faux Pas (Thomas) wrote:

> It was my understanding that trideo units have a base 1m by 1m, like
> a coffee table, and the imaging area is above that like a hologram
> up to about a 1m height. I'd venture a guess that it's in
> Shadowbeat.

Sorta like the game table that Chewbacca and R2-D2 were playing on in
the Falcon in Star Wars?

If so, that is not what I thought at all. Of course, I've never read
Shadowbeat, so I don't know what is official or not, but the novels
had lead me to believe that trideo sets are wall units, and very
large. I always imagined it like an electronic version of those
ribbed 3-d postcards you can buy, but with lifelike resolution. In
other words, the image doesn't come out, but goes back. Does that
make any sense?


#@&%*===========================================================*%&@#
# DREKHEAD - drekhead@***.net, drekhead@***.com - Tim Kerby #
#@&%*===========================================================*%&@#
#@&%*===========================================================*%&@#
# --- http://users.aol.com/drekhead/home.html --- #
#@&%*===========================================================*%&@#
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot
stomping on a human face...forever. -George Orwell
Message no. 6
From: "Faux Pas (Thomas)" <thomas@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 14:21:57 -0500
On 02:51 PM 4/10/97 +0000, Drekhead typed:
>On 10 Apr 97 at 10:52, Faux Pas (Thomas) wrote:
>
>> It was my understanding that trideo units have a base 1m by 1m, like
>> a coffee table, and the imaging area is above that like a hologram
>> up to about a 1m height. I'd venture a guess that it's in
>> Shadowbeat.
>
>Sorta like the game table that Chewbacca and R2-D2 were playing on in
>the Falcon in Star Wars?

From Star Wars, I'd say my image of the trid unit would be like the display
used by the rebels in Return of the Jedi when they were going over the
Endor/Death Star mission briefing.


-Thomas Deeny
telltale.hart.org

"I'll get it." [BLAM BLAM BLAM]
"Man, you suck."
-Hellboy and The Savage Dragon, trying to prevent Hitler's brain from
escaping.
Message no. 7
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: TVPC (Was - Re: Immortals?)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 00:28:15 -0400
> Steve, isn't it the other way around (TV's that double as monitors?)

Both really.
IMO they either do one or the other well.
Unless you go and spend @ $10,000.00 and score one of Mitsubishi's new 40
inch plasma TV's!

40 inch diagonal picture, and only @ 6 inches deep!
A thing of beauty!

<Oh geez, selling retail TV/video has corrupted me! :-)>

Further Reading

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Thwap!