Radius Inc, the San Jose, California firm used BAFTA’s MultiMedia Showcase as the launchpad for RadiusTV, an integrated computer television subsystem for Apple Computer Inc Macintosh II users, RadiusTV has a video processing engine and an external audio video input processor and television tuner. It displays and digitises live 16-bit images in real-time in a resizable window of up to 640 by 480 pixels. It also digitises sound in real-time, and provides access to information in the television signal’s vertical interval such as closed captions and calibration settings. A variety of video and televison devices may be used with RadiusTV, including television and cable broadcasts, still video cameras, video laserdisk players, cassettes and tape recorders. A development toolkit consists of a library of modules which perform editing and display function, and they can be invoked from development languages like C, Pascal and Hypercard. RadiusTV is packaged with two software programs, one of which operates as a desk accessory, the other as an application. The first supports the display of live video or television inside a Mac window up to 640 by 480 pixels, and provides control of features such as channel selection, audio volume, picture control and image freeze. Theatrics is an image processing and special effects application providing mirrors, mosaics, tiling and rotations. RadiusTV is available in the UK from this month. It costs UKP2,200 without a televison tuner, and a fully compatible tuner version will ship in the first quarter of 1991. The company also launched a 24-bit Display Interface Card with integrated graphics acceleration and video output capability for Apple’s 13 colour monitor. Radius DirectColor/GX has on-board acceleration claimed to speed up scrolling and sizing functions by as much as 600%, and it provides 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 24-bit operation. DirectColor/GX is compatible with Apple’s 32-bit Quickdraw and supports NuBus Block Transfer. It requires a 13 RGB colour monitor, a Mac II, Apple System Version 6.0.5 or greater, and 32-bit QuickDraw. The product is available now through Radius dealers and Apple resellers and costs UKP800.
