Let's play cartoons on STE, TT, Falcon

[ParanoidLittleMan]

After some time again dealing with 16 color mode AV playback on Ataris.
I spotted Pink Panther collection, and it looked as ideal for some not much HW demanding audio-video playback on our oldies.
Usually, hand drawn animated movies are at 12 fps real framerate most time, there is no many color, so just good for STE low res mode.
It plays on res 320x200 px, 12 fps, audio is 25033 Hz, mono - that's possible on STE, TT, Falcon . Actually, video works on ST too, and no audio, looks not so good (512 colors instead 4096) .

Does not need some very fast mass storage - about 700 KB/sec rate will be enough for flawless playback. This player works well at 50 and 60 Hz screen refresh rates - so PAL, NTSC, RGB, VGA .
http://atari.8bitchip.info/LavCre/LAVP3.ZIP - 110 MB, includes 2 videos. Conversion to 16 colors is hardest part in preparation. One video is done with usual color reduction+dithering, other is done with posterize effect - and that looks best actually, since source is just not good - too noisy, some strange luminance gradient - right side of screen is always brighter than left. What made color reduction too flickering.
Will write about how to convert usual videos into format suitable for this player. How to make it looking good.

Edited January 12, 2018 by ParanoidLittleMan

[ataricrypt]

This sounds quite incredible!! Nice work mate.

[+DarkLord]

Amazing work on this stuff. Loved the earlier video releases you've done

as well.

 

Be great if we could somehow get audio for the ST versions, especially

accelerated machines (I know, it's not just how fast, it's the extra hardware

on the STe, TT, Falcon).

 

Sub-titled shows could still work. I can easily see myself watching Pans

Labrinth like that...

 

Thanks for the time and effort spent on this. Incredible results.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

YouTube links: https://youtu.be/a1u9wx832nM

https://youtu.be/2wJ4SJ2HiYU

Then, link to corrected Pink Phink video DL (mkv) http://www.mediafire.com/file/obeyz8te2y6til4/PinkPhinkCorrected.mkv

50 MB (not for Atari). Removed nasty gradient over screen - left side is more pink, right more blue. And cleaned out noise.

What is available online is pretty much bad - noisy, jerky - I seen even framerate of 27 fps (WTF!) . I don't know why that color gradient - was it result of film degradation, getting some light or whatever. Oscar material - not a joke.

 

Pans Labyrinth - huh - that was good movie. But watching it in16 colors would be little bad for eyes Not to mention that 2 hours would take some 3GB, Cartoons are better for this, mostly.

Sound of ST would be possible, but very limited quality - must lower samplerate to not take too much CPU time (STE DMAA doesn't slow down CPU at all) . I think that everyone should get now at least STE

[+DarkLord]

Agreed about the STe, much more capable machine.

 

I just love the idea of playing videos on my 68030 STacy.

 

Cartoons like Blackstar, Dungeons and Dragons, Jonny Quest,

etc, would be just awesome.

 

Thanks again for all the hard work.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

This is some kind of low end Atari STE AV player - reduced framerate, reduced colors. Good thing with 12 fps is that it can play well on PAL and NTSC, and of course lower transfer rates from disk.

I can look some of mentioned ones, but intention is to write guide, so anyone can make conversions self. Will be not so simple for beginners, but it is not bad to learn something about audio/video technology, conversions.

[+DarkLord]

I look forward to the guide. Thanks!

[marss]

Thanks for the guide. I would love to see a video player for the Lynx 2

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Thanks for the guide. I would love to see a video player for the Lynx 2

Not hard to solve when you have time and machine. Send me one working piece, and I may have time too. Or maybe not, if it has good games

[tjlazer]

Nice!