Sony 6000 video disc and Silicon Graphics

[David Blythe]

In article <91172.145330SONDRICK at HASARA11.BITNET> SONDRICK at HASARA11.BITNET (Rick Jansen) writes:
>In our visualization lab we plan to use a Sony LVR6000 video disc
>for recording computer animations and still pictures. This appears
>to be not quite so trivial as we thought it would be at first.
>Especially the synchronization of video equipment and the program
>delivering the pictures itself is not quite clear (to me).
> 
>For example, Wavefront Data Visualizer has an animation facility,
>where you can specify the number of frames to generate. It can take
>a while (seconds) before the next frame is ready. As far as I can
>see (correct me if I'm wrong please), there is no way to trigger the
>video equipment to record a frame as it is finished, from Data
>Visualizer. It IS possible though, to capture the frames in RLB
>files, and process them later, recording the animation frame by
>frame onto video disc. This has to be done with a self-written
>application.

I don't believe the Data Visualizer has any support for recording to
devices [yet?].  On the other hand, it may not be such a bad thing to spool
the images to tape or disk so that when you do record you can add a few frills
like better titles, dissolves, longer intro and exit frames ... (production
values)

> 
>Silicon Graphics has a product called Video Creator to record onto
>video tape. Video Creator (VC) is connected to a Silicon Graphics
>workstation. It is connected to the RGB signals, and is controlled
>via the SCSI interface from an Iris. Via a coax cable VC controls a
>little box called V-Lan box, which controls the actual video
>recorder. In a window on the Iris screen you can control the
>operation of Video Creator, like start and stop the VCR, record
>single frames etc etc. Schematically this setup looks like this:
> 
> 
>  +----------+   RGB     +---------------+ PAL/NTSC +--------+
>  |  SGI     |-->--------| Video Creator |--------->| VCR    |
>  |  Iris    |           +---------------+          +--------+
>  |          |            |        |   +-------+      |
>  |          |-->---------+        +-->| V-Lan |-->---+
>  +----------+  SCSI                   +-------+  control
> 
>We intend not to use a VCR, but the mentioned Sony disc. We are
>still investigating if a Sony disc can be controlled by a V-Lan box.
>(These boxes are configurable.)
> 
>Using a disc that can hold 36250 frames per side requires some
>administration, which is not covered in the above schematic. We
>could imagine a setup like the following scheme, where the laserdisc
>is controlled via a Mac or PC, while also an administration of
>recorded sequences and stills is kept.
> 
>  +----------+   RGB     +---------------+ PAL/NTSC +-----------+
>  |  SGI     |-->--------| Video Creator |--------->| Sony 6000 |
>  |  Iris    |           +---------------+          +-----------+
>  |          |            |        |   +-------+      |
>  |          |-->---------+        +-->| PC    |-->---+
>  +----------+  SCSI                   |  +    |  control
>                                       | disk  |
>                                       +-------+
> 
>Well, so much for ideas and plans. Does anyone on the net already
>have experience with a similar setup including a Sony disc and
>Silicon Graphics equipment? Any information would be very welcome!
> 

To the best of my knowledge the LVR can be controlled directly via RS-232
(or some serial interface -- I don't know the difference between the 5000
and 6000), so why bother with the V-LAN or the PC?  Just plug it into the SGI
and control it