Aztech ISA Video Galaxy Oscar MPEG1 video/audio playback board NEW RETAIL BOXED
Comment There is some history in this 16 bit ISA card, designed and built around the World's first ever MPEG1 chip which came from C-Cube supported by hardware contributions from many corporations who were and remain leaders in semiconductors - Toshiba memory, Motorola memory controller, SGS Thomson DAC for both video and audio, AMD processor, TI processor, 8 chips from National Semiconductors, 10 from Texas Instruments, Phillips stereo, KEC amplifier, offerings from Cypress / IC Designs and a few others. The near full length 16 bit ISA card was groundbreaking at the time enabling Video CD with stereo sound, but the astonishing pace of progress in the area of graphics saw all of the video features available on this 1992 hardware, as well as 3D included on a single card by 1996. Even so, it remains an interesting development which is the only choice for early machines when accomodated by a 26 pin feature connector on the graphics card or mainboard, internal and external cables included. Description The OSCAR MPEG playback board brings you Theatre-quality full motion video right on your desktop. You can watch a full length Hollywood blockbuster or sing along to your favourite hits on Karaoke. A new dimension in PC video, the OSCAR brings you a whole new world of mulimedia realism and excitement. Real Motion Full Screen Video on your PC? Playback CD-I Digital Video titles?
Enjoy your favourite full length feature films, Karaoke hits or Hollywood Blockbusters on CD-ROM? Clear playback from 16-bit CD Quality Stereo sounds assisted by software controls?
Supports MPEG layers 1 and 2. Full compliance with MPEG 1 standard (ISO CD 11172)? Resolution of 352 x 288 with PAL format? Resolution of 352 x 240 with NTSC format?
Playback full screen video at 30 fps (NTSC); 25 fps (PAL) Video Feature? Digitise PAL or NTSC video in YUV 4:2:2 format?
Video overlay display up to 1024 x 768 super VGA mode? Supports 32k and 64k hi-colour ISA/VESA VGA card? Zoom live or still video?
RGB colour separation of video data. Supports MPEG Audio layers 1 and 2? 16 bit stereo PCM at 32KHz, 44.1KHz and 48KHz sampling rate?
Software controls of volume, treble, bass and mute for ease of use Input / Output Source? One VGA feature connector from VGA card?One 15 pin D-sub connector to VGA monitor and VGA card? One 3.5mm Mini jack for stereo speaker output jack - 2 x 2W for 4 ohm speaker or 2 x 1.3W for 8 ohm speaker Video Memory Buffer? Press comment from 1995 in Malaysia. The status of having an MPEG-1 (Motion Picture Experts Group) video playback card is almost equivalent to the prestige of owning a Rolex watch.
Now, there more than 15 hardware manufacturers producing at least 20 models (but only half of them are available locally) of MPEG-1 video playback cards. Among the manufacturers which have joined the MPEG-1 arena include Creative Technology, Aztech Systems, Diamond, Umax, and a few Taiwanese hardware manufacturers.
The sudden surge in the number of MPEG-1 video card manufacturers has contributed to the rapid decline in prices of such products. This development is consistent with the law of economics (or more precisely price theory) which states that an increase in the supply of a product, ceteris peribus, will cause the price of that particular product to drop. Nowadays, MPEG-1 video playback cards are getting more and more affordable.
Like the RealMagic and Video Blaster MP400, the Video Galaxy Oscar can be used to playback MPEG-1 encoded Video CD's, CDi movies and Karaoke CD's. To play CD-i movies you will need to have a CD-ROM drive that supports CD-i format. However, CD-i support is now less important since most of the latest movies are in VideoCD format (which can be read by CD-ROM drives that comply with the ISO9660 standard). The Video Galaxy Oscar comes with a Windows-based MPEG player which allows you to add real time video effects such as solarise, polarise, zoom and strobe video to the MPEG-1 encoded video clips. As with the RealMagic and the Video Blaster MP400, the Video Galaxy Oscar only supports output to the VGA monitor.
Since it has no built-in TV output you'll need to get a TV Coder to use this MPEG-1 video playback card with a TV.