IBM Corp has recently been showing its new software motion video multimedia technology in Boca Raton, Florida, running in a window on an Ultimedia PS/2 Model 57 with a 20MHz 80386SLC CPU running OS/2 2.0, Microbytes reports. A pre-announcement, with no commitment to ship dates – that’s what IBM specialises in. IBM’s motion video, as opposed to standard full-motion video, is implemented purely in the software. The demo videos were created predominantly with a consumer-grade camcorder – a mini video recorder – using a high degree of data compression in the data capture process. A 320-by-240-pixel window with 256 colours was used to display 16 frames per second. Mark Tempelmeyer, IBM’s manager of multimedia system software, concedes that the new video technology is not the same thing as full-motion video, which requires between 24 and 30 frames per second; IBM claims its software motion video compares favourably to Apple Computer Inc QuickTime’s typical performance of 15 frames per second at 160 by 120 pixels. IBM’s Ultimedia demo system was driving a 1,024 by 768 XGA display. A system performance monitor, Pulse, was used to demonstrate that the percentage of CPU power consumed by its motion video technology was typically less than 50%, which IBM claims indicates that an 80486-based personal computer would be superfluous.
