Quote: from Raijin Z on 4:03 pm on Mar. 10, 2002
Lemme break it down, as I see it.
ONE: Cinepak compression appears to leave more artifacts than MPEG would when compressing the same source.
Not necessarily true. It depends what type of footage you are compressing (i.e. CG vs "live" footage). You can also assign a higher or lower data rate to the video depending on how much space you are willing to give up for audio too.
TWO: Cinepak compression is inefficient compared to more recent codecs. For as crappy as the video is, the filesize should be smaller. Not Sega's fault though.
Firstly, you negate the first sentance with the second. Of course the filesize will be larger with a more inefficient codec. Secondly, what 'more recent' codecs are you comparing to? The PSX and Saturn came out at around the same time, so the technology available was the same.
THREE: Saturn doesn't have a great abundance of working RAM to play with. Streaming high quality video with a 2X drive to compensate for such little available memory would be iffy.
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The amount of RAM avilable is irrelivent with streaming video. That's the point - it streams off the disc, meaning other than a small buffer, the actual RAM requirements are low. How much RAM do you think your CD player has? Also the Saturn's drive is the same speed as the PSX.
EDIT:
That didn't work too well...
(Edited by Curtis at 7:15 am on Mar. 11, 2002)