Actually, you could probably fake the high res cursor by using two sprites with a suitable colour table and choose the pattern based on the LSB of x-coordinate.

@Sonic_aka_T: Yes, maybe the small/no difference is because the Z80 also has a lot to do, so it's not a problem, that the VDP is a little bit more slow. With a SW mouse pointer (like in the CPC version) I wouldn't be able to avoid flickering, when it's on an area which is currently repainted. In the CPC I already test, if the pointer is inside such an area or not to decrease the amount of flickerings. But on the MSX currently it looks a lot better with no flickering at all.

@Edwin: I would still have two non-transparent pixels. But I will try this out!

The video converter and some other things are working now more or less, but I think the next release won't come before the weekend, so here is another picture:
http://www.symbos.de/files/symcpcmsx.jpg

Wow Prodatron,
looks reaaaaly nice! *thumbs up*

Video convertor? I guess this means that on the fly conversion is too slow. Does this mean that MSX and CPC video files will be different? Let me know cos I was going to start on the symstudio video side again soonish, cos other than the stuff you've mentioned to me previously I think the msx video looks to have a ratio problem that needs solving.

Perhaps we could looks combine both msx and cpc file output into the same file. Okay we double the size, but since video is only of use on HD anyway that's not an issue is it. We could then look at 16 and 256 colour too.

@Trebmint: It would be possible to do on-the-fly conversion, but so much CPU time would be wasted, and the frame-rate would be very poor. So when SymPlay opens a video and finds out, that it is encoded in the wrong way, it asks, if it should convert the file.
Hm, I am still not sure, if it is a good idea to put both versions in one file. I wouldn't like to store each second frame in MSX and each other second frame in CPC format, as then the player always has to skip one frame, which will cost a little bit performance. If the MSX version would be appended at the end of the CPC version it will first take a little bit time to move the file pointer to the correct position.
Regarding the ratio: On my CPC monitor I have nearly an exact ratio of 1:1. On my MSX-TFT I have a ratio of 1:1,65. Btw, is this the "official" ratio in Screen6?
It's not as bad as 1:2, but you are right, it would be good, if there is an option for this in SymStudio, too.
Btw, does anyone have an idea how the palette could be "designed" in 16 colour mode?

I think you should just extend (if needed) the video format to allow for different types of encoding. You can code routines for both MSX and CPC to play both formats. One will be fast on each system, the other won't. This should make it possible extend things to 16 colour videos as well. Maybe in the future this could be changed into a simple form of loadable codecs.

A separate tool to convert one video type into another would complement this. Plus you could make this conversion tool little fancier.

I see no reason why we can't have the entire cpc file followed by the msx file. Okay double+.5 the size, but atleast the file will be cross platform. So would there be an issue with the increase of ratio from a memory point of view? A 192x128 cpc frame = 6144bytes, with an increase of say ratio 1:1.5 would be 288x128 msx frame = 9216bytes.

For the 16 colour palette I guess we'd have to have a set palette, else this would cause visual issues when running multiple applications. Since we have to keep the original palette 0-3 the reserved, we could perhaps set the palette out as a grey scale.
0 = 100%
1 = 0%
2 = 33%
3 = 66%
4..15 being ascending percentages from 0% upwards
It would probably be a good idea to set these palettes according to cpc colours as it has the most limited range to maintain platform mobility (I'm thinking games here!)

Prodatron: ~where in Germany do you live? Anywhere near north-NL?

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@Trebmint: It would be possible to do on-the-fly conversion, but so much CPU time would be wasted, and the frame-rate would be very poor. So when SymPlay opens a video and finds out, that it is encoded in the wrong way, it asks, if it should convert the file.

I managed to do on-the-fly conversion using a simple table-driven routine, using BDOS calls to load the data from an emulated IDE device. I was unable to test on hardware, but blueMSX did manage to render 8fps vids properly. I'm guessing something similar should be possible using direct IDE access in SymbOS.

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Hm, I am still not sure, if it is a good idea to put both versions in one file. I wouldn't like to store each second frame in MSX and each other second frame in CPC format, as then the player always has to skip one frame, which will cost a little bit performance. If the MSX version would be appended at the end of the CPC version it will first take a little bit time to move the file pointer to the correct position.

Prolly not a good idea indeed. The best thing would then be to convert the data before playing. Doubling the size of the already huge VID files seems like something you'd want to avoid. Even a simple seperate converter app should be fine, you'd only need to convert VIDs once, and with some proper planning it should be possible to 'update' the file instead of rewriting it, eliminating the need to have xMB free on your drive.

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Regarding the ratio: On my CPC monitor I have nearly an exact ratio of 1:1. On my MSX-TFT I have a ratio of 1:1,65. Btw, is this the "official" ratio in Screen6? It's not as bad as 1:2, but you are right, it would be good, if there is an option for this in SymStudio, too. Btw, does anyone have an idea how the palette could be "designed" in 16 colour mode?

Hard to say, while it's easy enough to look up the exact timing in the VDP's application manual, it's harder to predict how each MSX setup will have it's monitor adjusted. Most MSX monitors can do both H and V strech, meaning that not even in 1:1 modes the ratio will actually be 1:1. Of course the interrupt frequency and line-count further affects this ratio.

Regarding the palette; really hard to say... One way would be to go with ANSI-Terminal-like colors, something Windows-ish would be an option too. Of course having 8 different shades of gray is also an option, making rendering color-pictures in greyscale more appealing and leaving 4 colors for maybe red, green, blue and yellow. Another option would be to have SymbOS use 4 of the 'gray' colors, which could then be slightly 'colored' while still being a proper way to render 'gray scaled' pictures and leaving 8 colors, perhaps 2 shades of the primaries. Anyhoo, many, many options...

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I see no reason why we can't have the entire cpc file followed by the msx file. Okay double+.5 the size, but atleast the file will be cross platform. So would there be an issue with the increase of ratio from a memory point of view? A 192x128 cpc frame = 6144bytes, with an increase of say ratio 1:1.5 would be 288x128 msx frame = 9216bytes.

Well, perhaps after MSX another platform may be assimilated You can't very well continue to add mode-specific data to the file. By the time all our cultures have adapted to service SymbOS a VID file will require FAT64 to be storeable! The best thing, IMHO, would be to either make a conversion app, or have the VID player prompt the user the first time a 'non-native' VID file is played. The player could then 'localize' the VID file the first time it's played, updating the file to the most logical native format for that specific platform.

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For the 16 colour palette I guess we'd have to have a set palette, else this would cause visual issues when running multiple applications. Since we have to keep the original palette 0-3 the reserved, we could perhaps set the palette out as a grey scale. 0 = 100% 1 = 0% 2 = 33% 3 = 66% 4..15 being ascending percentages from 0% upwards It would probably be a good idea to set these palettes according to cpc colours as it has the most limited range to maintain platform mobility (I'm thinking games here!)

Grays would be best for VIDs indeed. Especially in 'full screen game mode' they'd look pretty pretty on the MSX2+ screens, which can show 16 levels of gray effortlessly.

Hmmm, how long would it take to convert a 20mb file from 1 format to another and then store it? Probably longer than it would take to watch it. Also fine for same mode conversion, but add into the mix 16,256 colour and 1:1 against a 1:1.65 ratio and the conversion starts to lose quality. You really need the original source. Okay so the file size may be larger, but video is only viable on large storage devices anyway so double or treble the size won't really be an issue.

I wouldn't write symstudio so it forces the user to encode video in x number of formats anyway, but it seems an obvious thing that you can with no effort support cpc,msx, enterprise or whatever machines symbos appears on in the future. Also I see no reason why the files can be seperated if all the formats are output at the same time. I'm just very conscious that msx coders don't only produce code for msx, and likewise for the cpc.

@Wolf: I live in Moers, which is very close to Venlo, and I need about 2 hours to Amsterdam. But it's not so far in the north. Btw, if there is some interesting MSX party in the Netherlands just tell me

Regarding video formats: It doesn't matter for me, what we will have at the end. If you will integrate the "double-pack" feature in SymStudio I can support it of course.
In 16 colour mode I hope, that it is possible to have something real colourful, as I wouldn't like to have only grayscales again. Maybe we can find a good palette, I remember that I had a good all-round-one for graphics in CPC demos.

Prodatron: this sunday msx club groningen has its 1yr aniv. Usually the active part of north-NL is there. Organised by snout and another guy you prolly don't know anyway. It woud be nice if you could come by and demo symbos (you know, that thing you started in your old long-gone CPC-days.. ^_^) or have a chat with others, or just have some of the aniv.cake. There're prolly be a newspost about this today or tomorrow.

Venlo-Groningen by train is about 3-3.5 hours I think.. leave early (tho via Nijmegen would be smarter I think, if possible)

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Quote: Regarding the ratio: On my CPC monitor I have nearly an exact ratio of 1:1. On my MSX-TFT I have a ratio of 1:1,65. Btw, is this the "official" ratio in Screen6? It's not as bad as 1:2, but you are right, it would be good, if there is an option for this in SymStudio, too. Btw, does anyone have an idea how the palette could be "designed" in 16 colour mode? Of course the interrupt frequency and line-count further affects this ratio.

Yes, uh... I tested if in PAL mode and here I have 1:1,42. So maybe it would be good just to assume 1:1,5 as an average.