Smart question, it's an open standard now, with Apple being the key vendor who needs it the most, my guess is the driving force moves to them with the Card vendors keeping in step.
For some history, the first SGI I worked with was a 4D20, which is back 1988 or so, did elections, game shows, weather gfx the whole lot with them. But now it's a PC world and Nvidia/ATI are driving it ( mind you Nvidia is SGI reincarnated in many ways, or how Jim Clark wanted it to go back in '93 or so ) and I would never want to go back to those days, we don't spend alot less on kit, but we have so much more redundancy and functionality at 1/10'th the price for hardware.
You can keep the synoptics & use animation to show how it is moving during the day + overlaying morphing sat clouds ( historical but gives a nice initial indication ), which works nice, I presume Weatherscape XT does it, certainly Weatherscape original did.
I haven't heard in fairness complaints that are technology based, they are all complaints about decisions made in the design of the graphics and choices made regarding what available content to utilise.
P.S. Can't comment on (1) as I have not seen them, but regarding (2) used correctly I would argue animating Isobars & fronts is more understandable giving the presenter more time to describe additional detail.
Same Name maybe, everything else is totally differrent, TVNZ's was running on an IndigoII MaxImpact until last week, when it switched to Linux also. The big difference is the code base & design philosophy. The TVNZ one is the original & alot older ( '96 written ), based on a web UI, using perl scripts to start up & trigger events ( unix signals ) & hand drawn regions for clouds, able to be tweaked every hour, generally every 6, then interpolated in real time. It also is tightly coupled data & presentation, which was my fault, but it was built in under 3 months from memory by one person ( me ), 4 years 5 odd people for the WeatherscapeXT:) ( XT does a vast amount more UI wise & they had some smart AGP->PCIX video transfer, pity the FX4400SDI came along ). The TV3's Weatherscape XT integrated UI gives a heap more control & flexibility. TV3 WeatherscapeXT is also using modelled clouds. To even the screwup's equation, they used opengl lines for rain ( it looks that way anyway ), whereas I used antialiased lines on poly's, mine scale width with distance, theirs don't:), I used that alot & would not change it. Nigel
I know someone in NY who has been waiting for months for phone & broadband. The reason his building does not exist according to the Telco's, the fact he & a number of others live in the apartment block is obviously an aberattion that can be explained a correct computer mapping of the buildings in NY & he live in an alternate universe of bricks & mortar.
Nigel
The big question is does the 8500 Genlock to incoming video, if it does, then that is the reason the weather channel want it, Nvidia chips don't ( it's a right royal pain, we've spent a fair bit covering for it ).
Another posibility is they have worked out how to get SDI out ( Serial digital CCIR601 ), which even if you can't genlock would be a major win & with 5k + O2's to replace, no doubt they can convince a manufacturer to do that for them.
But maybe they just decided ATI's video output was better, either way, this is great news, broadcast video has been hamstrung by only having SGI video for years ( yeah I love the company & have spent my fair share with them, but it's frustrating watching gamers play with performance I can't ).
Nigel
Hi,
Does anyone know anything about this chip ?, www.nvidia.com has nothing about it & nothing usefull fell out of google either, sounds like Apple stole a real march getting being first to release this one:).
Nigel
Slashdot Mirror
Panasonic's P2 uses SD cards in a PCMCIA frame with raid for exactly this.
Smart question, it's an open standard now, with Apple being the key vendor who needs it the most, my guess is the driving force moves to them with the Card vendors keeping in step. For some history, the first SGI I worked with was a 4D20, which is back 1988 or so, did elections, game shows, weather gfx the whole lot with them. But now it's a PC world and Nvidia/ATI are driving it ( mind you Nvidia is SGI reincarnated in many ways, or how Jim Clark wanted it to go back in '93 or so ) and I would never want to go back to those days, we don't spend alot less on kit, but we have so much more redundancy and functionality at 1/10'th the price for hardware.
You can keep the synoptics & use animation to show how it is moving during the day + overlaying morphing sat clouds ( historical but gives a nice initial indication ), which works nice, I presume Weatherscape XT does it, certainly Weatherscape original did. I haven't heard in fairness complaints that are technology based, they are all complaints about decisions made in the design of the graphics and choices made regarding what available content to utilise. P.S. Can't comment on (1) as I have not seen them, but regarding (2) used correctly I would argue animating Isobars & fronts is more understandable giving the presenter more time to describe additional detail.
Same Name maybe, everything else is totally differrent, TVNZ's was running on an IndigoII MaxImpact until last week, when it switched to Linux also. :) ( XT does a vast amount more UI wise & they had some smart AGP->PCIX video transfer, pity the FX4400SDI came along ). :), I used that alot & would not change it.
The big difference is the code base & design philosophy.
The TVNZ one is the original & alot older ( '96 written ), based on a web UI, using perl scripts to start up & trigger events ( unix signals ) & hand drawn regions for clouds, able to be tweaked every hour, generally every 6, then interpolated in real time. It also is tightly coupled data & presentation, which was my fault, but it was built in under 3 months from memory by one person ( me ), 4 years 5 odd people for the WeatherscapeXT
The TV3's Weatherscape XT integrated UI gives a heap more control & flexibility. TV3 WeatherscapeXT is also using modelled clouds.
To even the screwup's equation, they used opengl lines for rain ( it looks that way anyway ), whereas I used antialiased lines on poly's, mine scale width with distance, theirs don't
Nigel
I know someone in NY who has been waiting for months for phone & broadband. The reason his building does not exist according to the Telco's, the fact he & a number of others live in the apartment block is obviously an aberattion that can be explained a correct computer mapping of the buildings in NY & he live in an alternate universe of bricks & mortar. Nigel
The big question is does the 8500 Genlock to incoming video, if it does, then that is the reason the weather channel want it, Nvidia chips don't ( it's a right royal pain, we've spent a fair bit covering for it ). Another posibility is they have worked out how to get SDI out ( Serial digital CCIR601 ), which even if you can't genlock would be a major win & with 5k + O2's to replace, no doubt they can convince a manufacturer to do that for them. But maybe they just decided ATI's video output was better, either way, this is great news, broadcast video has been hamstrung by only having SGI video for years ( yeah I love the company & have spent my fair share with them, but it's frustrating watching gamers play with performance I can't ). Nigel
Hi, Does anyone know anything about this chip ?, www.nvidia.com has nothing about it & nothing usefull fell out of google either, sounds like Apple stole a real march getting being first to release this one :).
Nigel