Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 20:36:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Sinclair-Day Subject: Quadra 630 TV/Video review I recently purchased the Apple TV/Video System for the Quadra 630 and thought I'd share my experiences with it, this should also apply to the Preforma and LC models. Before buying the Quadra 630 and the video system, I owned a Quadra 660av and will make some comparisons between the two. WHAT YOU GET for $249. A Manual (clear and well written). 1 Disk with the Apple Video Player extension & application. 1 CD-ROM with Avid VideoShop 2.0 and upgrade coupon to 3.0 1 Screw. 1 Remote control w/ battery (cool!). 1 Cable/Antenna Tuner Card. 1 AV Card w/S-Video IN, Composite Video IN,Stereo Sound IN 1 Warranty Card. INSTALLATION was very simple and took about 5 minutes and involved removing the back plate on the Q630, removing 2 screws, and sliding the motherboard out. The AV card goes in the Video slot on the mother board and installs in seconds, it is secured by the screw that came in the box. The motherboard is slid back in the case and fastened by the 2 screws. Next to the monitor port are 2 screws on a rectangular plate which must be removed, the plate comes off and inside is a ribbon cable that attaches to the Tuner card. The card is slid in the hole and secured by the 2 screws. At this point you attach your cable TV or antenna cable to to the card and put the back plate on. Now hook up all the other cables and install the software. If you have a VCR or Camcorder you can hook it up to the AV card. THE REMOTE CONTROL will turn the Qaudra 630 on/off, mute the sound, change channels, adjust the volume, turn the video software on/off, toggle the video display size, and has controls for the internal CD-ROM allowing you to play, stop, eject, pause, forward and reverse tracks on audio CD's. It's very small and light, about 2"x3"x 1/4", and is a Sony remote (model RMC-A1). If you have a Sony TV w/ remote in the same room as the Quadra 630, you may run into problems as it emits the same infrared signals as the Apple remote. If you turn off your TV, you can also turn off your Mac or if you use the remote to turn the Mac on you will also turn your TV on. However there is an option to disable the Apple remote, and you can always use the keyboard or mouse to do everything. SOUND from the Tuner or AV card is passed through the Q630, like it is with the CD-ROM, so it's not limited to 22MHz 8bit stereo unless you are recording the sound or are using the internal speaker on the Q630. I recommend getting external stereo speakers or hooking the Q630 up to your stereo system. What I really like about the sound on the Q630 is the ability to have 3 different sound levels, one for the CD Audio, one for the TV/AV cards, one for all system sounds. Setting these sound levels is done through the sound control panel under volumes. So if you are listening to a CD at a loud volume and the Mac makes a system sound it won't blast you out of your seat. All three sound levels can be active at the same time, meaning a CD can be playing, the Mac can be making noise, and watch TV. I have the TV and CD volumes set high and the system volume kept low. When I had the Quadra 660av there was no control over this, so if you were listening to a CD at a loud volume and the system beeped you were blasted by that beep. No More. ;-) APPLE VIDEO PLAYER software allows you to watch TV, view video from a VCR or camcorder , capture still frames and record QuickTime movies. The Channel Setup option is very straight forward. Here you choose what type of signal you are going to be using (antenna, cable, HRC cable), then choose the auto add option, this will scan your cable and add all channels that have a signal, including scrambled channels. You can then go and remove any scrambled channels if you want. A nice feature is the ability to give each channel a name, for instance channel 31 can be named CNN. Channels can also be assigned passwords to eliminate children (or adults) from watching stuff they shouldn't, but removing the channel preferences file circumvents this. TV Reminders allows the Video Player software to remind you when certain programs are on. It will even turn the the TV tuner on , or give you a reminder 5 minutes before the program is due to air. The Control Window is where everything can be fine tuned. The video source can be selected (TV, Video, S-Video). Brightness, sharpness and tint adjusted. Sound sources selected (Mono, SAP, Stereo) as well as balance, bass and treble. Closed captioning is also supported (Off, CC1, CC2, Text1, Text2) in windows 320x240 and larger. Capture options include freeze frame, save still image, and movie capture. If using the Apple Video software to capture QuickTime movies, there are only three compression settings (None, Normal, and Most). Also the video input standard can be set (NTSC, PAL, SECAM). The video viewing size can be anywhere from 160x120 to 640x480, and is always in 16bit color regardless of what bit depth your monitor is set to. With the Quadra 660av, the monitor had to be set to a depth of 256 colors or less in order to view video, while with the Quadra 630 you can be in thousands of colors and still view video. The quality of the video display is also better on the Quadra 630. The Quadra 660av displayed it's video on the monitor in an RGB signal, while on the Quadra 630 it is displayed in a YUV signal which is what your TV uses. The result is a crisper, cleaner image with less color bleading. The quality of the image once it is above 320x240 in size, employes a scheme called pixel doubling, meaning that every 1x1 pixel now becomes a 2x2 pixel area. The result is a coarser image, but it's really not that bad, especially if you are a few feet away from the monitor. The Pixel doubling scheme is much better on the Quadra 630 than it was the Quadra 660av. Video capture frame rates using the Apple Video Player are 17fps at 160x120 and 12fps at 320x240 with sound (there is no option to disable the sound, you can mute it though) and it is caputered to the hardrive with no option to capture to RAM. I haven't used VideoShop for capturing yet, but it should be about the same rates for capturing to the hardrive, though it does allow capturing to RAM and the ability to disable sound thereby increasing the frame rate. When I use Premiere 4.0 to capture video, I set the image size to 320x240 and the capture frame rate to 5fps with no sound. My VCR (JVC HR-D820U) can play back video in slow motion at 5 frames per second and this is what I capture. I then set the playback rate to 600% and make the movie and it comes out to 30fps. Then I go back and record the sound and insert it and re-record the movie. This is the only way I know of to capture 30fps quicktime in a decient size window without investing an arm and leg in additional hardware. I am very pleased with the Quadra 630 and the Apple TV/Video System, much more so than I was with the Quadra 660av. I would recomend the TV/Video System to anyone who wants to get started in Quicktime, or likes to watch TV, especially while getting work done. ;-) Andrew Sinclair-Day | The Rock Garden | Between the brain that plans Sinclair@PCNET.COM | 982 State Street | and the hand that builds, AndrewSD@EWORLD.COM | New Haven, CT. 06511 | there must be a mediator.