I'm curious which part is the weak link in our setup and what would be the
simplest/most cost-effective way to improve the image quality. Is the usb
connection the weak point, choking away video quality? Would we greatly
benefit from a video capture card and/or firewire video converter? We don't
mind a data rate of well over 200 kb/sec so long as the computer text is
legible.
It sounds like there are a number of issues contributing here.
One might have to do with the USB input. From what I understand the
bandwidth those devices provide is relatively low. An A/D converter
or just a regular DV camera can do the digitazation for you. On most
DV cameras you can use the analogue ports as input ports (as long as
the camera was not purchased in Europe).
The other bottleneck is the encoding G4. 400 MHz is a bit slow for
the compression you need to achieve.
If you're streaming in a multicast network you can increase the data
rate dramatically, giving you the choice to use a lighter code with
the expense of bandwidth.
The other is the size of the desktop on the PowerBook. Try making it
640x480 so everything looks larger in relationship to the screen size.
Another thing you can do if the PowerBook is running OS X is this:
1.- Go to the Universal Access Preference Pane on the PowerBook
2.- Click on the huge button that reads "Turn On Zoom".
3.- Now, press Opt-Apple-"+" to zoom in or Opt-Apple-"-" to zoom out.
4.- Set the video to mirror the desktop on the S-Video out.
This will allow you to zoom in and have the screen follow your mouse.
This way things will then be really large on the TV screen. I just
tried it on a PowerBook 800 and works like a champ. You just gotta
love OS X.
--
_ . _
Francesco Schiavon
i n s t r u c t o r
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