=========================================================================== BBS: NEO-TOKYO 2099 II Date: 02-17-95 (02:45) Number: 3260 From: RYOKO Refer#: NONE To: ALL Recvd: NO Subj: IBM subtitling hardware? Conf: (21) Rec.arts.a --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sydney@umbc.edu (Ryoko) Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County Sender: sydney@umbc8.umbc.edu <3htlb3$j4s@gopher.chem.wayne.edu> In article <3htlb3$j4s@gopher.chem.wayne.edu>, James Yee wrote: >Saotome Ranma (ranma@u.washington.edu) wrote: >: I am looking for information regarding IBM compatible subtitling >: hardware. If anyone has information about cards, periphery devices, and >: software currently available I would appreciate it. > >: Thanks, >: ranma@u.washington.edu >: > >Ditto for me. Please send me a CC or post info on the Net. Thanks. > >Jim There was a huge tread (ie. flame war) about this last summer. The final conclusion of which was to get the Great Valley Products G-Lock VGA+ and to use zero-g (ftp to venice). Below is a summary or several posts that I've cut and pasted together that talk about/review the cards good and bad points. I think that William Chow of AA has this set up so you might want to e-mail him for more info too. A whole bunch of people who were interested in IBM PC genlocs and subtitling program emailed me. Instead of answering them each individually, I thought I would just post this on r.a.a. for everyone's benefit. Hardware: Many people asked me which PC genloc they should get. As far as I'm concerned, there's one and only one PC genloc to get in terms of price/performance. This is the GVP G-Lock VGA+ card made by Great Valley Products. I'll give several reasons: GVP 1-(215)-354-4495 1) When my friend first bought it, it was priced at $1000, when I bought it, it was priced at $500. Now the stinkin' people at GVP have price it down to around $300. There is no reason not to get this card at $300. I'm happy that GVP has become so agressive in the PC genloc market since Commodore's demise. I just wished that they did this BEFORE I paid $500 for my card. For even cheaper pricing, look in the latest Video Magazine. If someone has GVP's phone number handy, they may want to post it. I no longer have it. 2) The G-Lock VGA+ has one of the cleanest output that I've seen. I've played with the Visionetic, RocGen, AVerPro, and other misc genlocs priced at $500 - $600. None of them comes even close in terms of clearity and cleaness of the GVP output. For those of you who have the Magni VGA Producer Pro, this card uses the exact same genloc circuitry but you don't pay the $1000 to $1500 demanded by Magni. How do I know this? For one, the card itself is manufactured by Magni. Also, I got the specs for both the VGA Producer Pro and the G-Lock VGA+. The specs are identical! GVP licensed the technology from Magni and they have undercut Magni's pricing. (I doubt people at Magni will be very happy when they find out). The only weakness that I saw with this card is that it somewhat reduces the color intensity of the input siganl. But for $300, it's a steal. 3) If you want something better than the GVP G-Lock VGA+, you will need to spend at least $1000 to $1500. The only other cards that I can think of to get are: Video VGA 16, Bravado, Targa, and maybe FAST Video Machine. These suckers are expensive. 4) The ZeroG subtitling program written by my friend (some people mistakenly think that I wrote this. This is incorrectly. I made suggestions but I did not touch 1 line of code) works with this genloc without any other software support (other than DOS). The program can control all funtions of this genloc. 5) If you have a crappy VGA card, this is a good excuse to upgrade. The genloc comes with a SVGA chip, the ET4000AX. Although this chip is getting old and not nearly as fast as the new generation of accelerated VGA chips, it's still one of the better ones. Plus you get 1MB of video memory. So, for $300, you get both a genloc AND a SVGA adapter. Software: Currently, I'm using ZeroG V1.0 written by my friend. So far, in the PC arena, I have not seen anything that's better than this program. The program still has ways to go before it can compete feature for feature with JACOsub but I think it's getting there. Some of it's features: 1) Uses fonts with drop shadows for easy readability. The fonts are actually converted Windows True Type fonts. Unfortunately, the font conversion process is a bit troublesome at the moment but the big win here is that ANY Windows True Type font can be converted and used for subtitling. 2) You can define "styles" for your subtitles. These styles can be either font size, color, smart/dumb line wrapping, fade in/out, text placement, zone definitions, and misc other features. 3) I wrote a little quick and dirty program to convert JACOsub timed script to be used with ZeroG. Although you loose the formating information, you can at least use most JACOsub script with this subtitler now. ZeroG can also read in TurboTitler timed scripts. In the near future, we will put in the reading of JACOsub scripts directly into ZeroG to save this conversion step. 4) This program has all the basic timing features built in. You can actually read in ASCII scripts and start timing with this program. It also has a built in time ramp feature to correct time drifts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > I'm also checking on the GVP G-lock VGA+. The way I understand it >you can only have the picture on both the TV and the Screen it your >computer monitor supports the NTSC output from the G-lock. So you'll >have to check you monitor and/or call GVP and ask them. Well, since no one has answered you and most of these people haven't used the GVP card before so I guess I'll answer your questions: : I am trying to decide whether or not I should purchase this card. If : anybody has some input (good or bad) on the card, please feel free to : share it with me. I've looked at most of the genloc boards for the IBM PC. Unless you want to spend over $1000, this is the only card to get. The ouput is clean enough to rival cards in the $1000 range. For $300 or so, it's a steal (look in Video Magazine). : I have heard (from the trusty salesperson) that the card does not : actually put any video on your screen that comes in from the S-Video/ : Composit jack. If this is true, then how would I do subtitling? Would : I have to look at what comes out of the card (ie on a TV). I would : much rather be able to watch the video on my computer monitor because : it has about a billion times better resolution. Is there any way to get a : picture capture of anything that is inputted to the card? What the salesperson said is true. You won't see the input from you VGA monitor (this is the same way for all the other genlocs that I know of for PCs). What it does have is a S-Video/Composite input/out jacks. You feed the input signal in (from a LD player or SVHS deck), the card genlocs the VGA screen signal to the input siganl, and the the final signal comes out of the output port. What you need to do is hook up a TV