Why 4 minutes? Today's 14.4 modems typically get close to 2000 bytes/sec.
with compression. The 40K grid would probably consume somewhere around
200Kb (avg. 5 bytes per value). Compressed at 8:1 25Kb, which would take
12.5 sec. I'm not sure how the 2 compression schemes would beat against
each other but even at twice that much time, that's 25s. 28.8 modems are
fairly inexpensive and getting cheaper every day. They have even better
compression. I'll bet the above scene would get down to under 10 sec.
ISDN should be cheap enough for home installation within a couple of
years. That will double or quadruple the speed again.
Don't worry so much about transmission speed. Worry more about making
your scenes efficient so they can run fast with little compute power...
--
chris marrin Silicon http://www.sgi.com/Products/WebFORCE/WebSpace
(415) 390-5367 Graphics ," http://reality.sgi.com/employees/cmarrin/
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"As a general rule, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell."-...-'
- excerpt from "A Horror Movie Character's Survival Guide"