Kickstart roms???

The DraCo as mentioned earlier is a compatible Amiga architecture hardware, that runs AmigaOS. On amigaland, the kickstart rom contains the boot up code and some essential parts of the operrating system.

 (picture taken from http://www.amigakit.com)


The DraCo uses a two set Amiga 3000 kickstart roms (version 40.68 which usually come with AmigaOS 3.1) .  In some DraCo models, these two roms are integrated into a single one, which in that case, it is wrongly labeled version 40.63, despite being just the same 40.68.

(picture taken from DaMi http://draco.efektivne.eu/index_1.htm)
 

The DraCo upon boot heavily patches the mentioned rom contents to make itself more compatible with AmigaOS and also provides drivers for its peculiar hardware by adding and renaming RomTags/Modules.

The DV module (aka Firewire module)

The DV module is a set of 2 PCB boards and an expansion bracket with cable and connector that attaches to the DraCo Motion board providing a FireWire input. The core of this DV module is the Sony DVBK-1, which is a board manufactured by Sony and sold to many OEM´s to integrate FireWire into their hardware solutions.

 (picture credit: taken from http://www.amiga-hardware.com/)

A curious note, worth mentioning,  is that the DraCo DV module has a serious resemblance to the earliest MacroSystem Casablanca NLE FireWire modules.

The big drawback of the DV module is that still, video was handled with the lossy motion-jpeg standart, and video was internally converted from digital to analog, so in the end, it just provides a FireWire video input to the DraCo, but unfortunately loses the benefits of digital video regarding image noise prevention and High Definition resolutions.

Another thing, I almost forgot to mention: support for the DV module starts with Movieshop 4.4