[Coco] CoCo Video Player Project

[John W. Linville]

On Sat, Apr 04, 2009 at 09:05:19AM +1000, Nick Marentes wrote:

> The real challenge is the decoding of a compressed video format fast  
> enough on a CoCo3 to have a reasonable frame rate. That Timex Sinclair  
> demo seems to be doing that...but would anyone really want to watch a  
> black and white blocky (text block based) video??

Many video players limit their supported formats, some to quite unique
ones.  I don't see why a CoCo video player couldn't restrict itself
to a format prepared specifically for the CoCo.

> Sock Master's demo showed what can be achieved using 64K uncompressed  
> hi-color frames. I guess the challenge is writing an M/L decoder for  
> AVI, mpeg or some  format which would be possible for the 2Mhz CoCo to  
> decompress and play back at a decent frame rate (15fps?) with a  
> reasonable color depth (16? Maybe good for animations and cartoons?). I  
> believe it is possible but in an age where we all take for granted the  
> ability to play 30fps, high color videos on our phones, how many of us  
> "old timers" are there that will be impressed for long?

Those phones can also play video games beyond the capabilities of a
CoCo -- so what???

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.