Bell & Howell (De Grafe Video Presentation)

[Jules Richardson]

A bit more info's arrived on the De Grafe system resold by Bell and 
Howell which I mentioned on the list a few weeks back...

The machine's circa 1986 and is a large desktop system, comprising main 
unit, small screen, tablet and keyboard. Cost 21,000 pounds when new.

Capable of 4096 colours at 16 transparency levels simultaneously from a 
palette of 16M (in 1986!), with 768 points per line horizontal 
resolution (no idea of vertical, but as it's for TV type use I expect in 
the region of 500 - 600)

Capable of real time digitising from four mixable inputs. Genlock 
capability with RGB input and PAL + NTSC output.


It sounds rather awesome - can't wait to get hold of the hardware and 
see how it's constructed (I wonder if it's totally custom, or based 
around something like an S100 chassis. Whatever, it must have some 
serious silicon in there to be able to shunt that much data around at TV 
quality)

cheers

Jules