Amiga VideoToaster: la rivoluzione video comincia da qui

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Revolution: the Video Toaster and the Amiga computer (Part 1)

Revolution: the Video Toaster and the Amiga computer (Part 2)

Newtek Video Toaster 4000 1994 Video

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Amiga: Videotoaster System 2.0 Demo from NewTek

Amiga: VideoToaster Samples from NewTek

[Seiya]

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certo, a guardarlo oggi sembra anche banale come programma, ma allora deve aver fatto stralunare gli occhi al mondo professionale.

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si, specie con l'uso di Lightwave 3d

Amiga - Lightwave 3D - Modeler Essentials Part 1

Amiga - Lightwave 3D - Modeler Essentials Part 2

Lightwave 3D 3.5 for Commodore Amiga [ 1994 ]

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articolo completo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster

alcuni punti interessanti

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The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of standard-definition in NTSC, PAL, and resolution independent formats on Commodore Amiga computers and subsequently on computers running the Windows operating system. It comprises various tools for video switching, chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation. The Video Toaster won the Emmy Award for Technical Achievement in 1993.[1]

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"Although initially offered as just an add-on to an Amiga, it was soon available as a complete turn-key system which included the Toaster, Amiga, and sync generator.[citation needed] These Toaster systems became very popular, primarily because at a cost of around $5,000 US, they could do much of what a $100,000 professional video switcher (such as an Evans and Sutherland) could do at that time.[citation needed] The Toaster was also the first such video device designed around a general purpose personal computer that was capable of delivering NTSC broadcast quality signals.[citation needed]

As such, during the early 1990s the Toaster was used quite widely by many Amiga, desktop video enthusiasts and local television studios and was even used during The Tonight Show regularly to produce special effects for comedy skits. It was often easy to detect a studio that used the Toaster by the unique and recognizable special switching effects.[4] The NBC television network also used the Video Toaster with Lightwave for its promotional campaigns, beginning with the 1990-1991 broadcast season ("NBC: The Place To Be!").[5] Also all of the external submarine shots in the TV series seaQuest DSV were created using Lightwave 3D, as were the outer space scenes in the TV series Babylon 5 (although Amiga hardware was only used for the first season). Interestingly, due to the heavy use of dark blues and greens (where the NTSC television standard is weak), the external submarine shots in seaQuest DSV could not have made it to air without the use of the ASDG Abekas driver (written by Aaron Avery at ASDG - later Elastic Reality, Inc.), written specifically to solve this problem.

An updated version called Video Toaster 4000
 
was later released, using the Amiga 4000's video slot. The 4000 was co-developed by actor Wil Wheaton, who worked on product testing and quality control.[6][7] He later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product.[8]""

[TheKaneB]

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Hai evidenziato due frasi prive di riferimenti oggettivi. E' probabile che siano vere, oppure che siano soltanto opinioni personali di chi le ha scritte.

Wikipedia è spazzatura per quanto mi riguarda

[Z80Fan]

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Non a caso ci sono due bei "[citation needed]".

[lucommodore]

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Hai evidenziato due frasi prive di riferimenti oggettivi. E' probabile che siano vere, oppure che siano soltanto opinioni personali di chi le ha scritte.

Wikipedia è spazzatura per quanto mi riguarda

Ma no dai compare, basta essere consapevoli che ciò che ci trovi non sarà mai la verità assoluta ma l'interpretazione di chi ha scritto...
Su wikipedia le robe su Amiga le han scritte senz'altro gli AmigaOStici

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http://www.markrandall.com/about-mark-randall/startups/

After college and stints as a software engineer for various Hollywood production studios, Mark Randall joined some hacker friends in a fledgling, bootstrapped startup named NewTek that would go on to create a radical new tool: the Video Toaster. Far ahead of its time, the Toaster was the first computer-based hardware to ever manipulate live video. Shipped in 1992, and now featured in textbooks on the history of media, the Toaster ignited a revolution that changed an industry.

Prime-Time Emmy Award for Technical AchievmentWhen the first prototype was shown in a tiny booth at the back of the NAB show, makers of traditional “big iron” video gear costing hundreds of thousands of dollars scoffed, saying these “computer punks” were no threat to high-end television gear. They were proven wrong when the Toaster quickly became one of the most successful products in the history of video production, winning an Emmy award in 1993 for outstanding technical achievement. As the tuxedo-clad Toaster “punks” walked the red carpet in Hollywood to receive their Emmy award, it marked the end of the analog era and the birth of desktop video production.

More then just a product, the Toaster became a symbol for the democratization of media, putting the means of production in the hands of the masses. The NewTek team was dubbed “revolutionaries” by Tom Brokaw in a lengthy feature on the NBC Evening News, featured as “the bad boys of video” in Rolling Stone Magazine and covered in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, NY Times, WSJ and many others.

The Toaster first found acceptance with cable access studios and event videographers. Comedian Dana Carvey even wore a Video Toaster T-shirt in the Saturday Night Live skit, and subsequent film, “Wayne’s World” about two cable access commandos broadcasting from their mother’s basement. It then began proving itself with corporate, local, and eventually, national broadcasters. Demo videos, such as this one produced by Randall, starring Toaster users Penn Jillette, champion skateboarder Tony Hawk and actor Wil Wheaton, were crucial in convincing a skeptical industry the future had arrived. Watch for a cameo appearance by NewTek’s own private jet.

Video Toaster 4000In 1993, Randall gave a speech at the NAB conference predicting, “Someday your favorite TV show will be made by you or someone you know“. This seemingly bizarre prediction, made before the consumer Internet existed and more than a dozen years before YouTube and video recording phones would be born, has come eerily true.

The Toaster was based on Commodore’s Amiga computer and as Commodore began to decline, creative differences arose between senior NewTek executives, largely about moving to the PC platform as well as moving the company out of Topeka, Kansas. After attempts to resolve the situation reached an impasse, a handful of key NewTek executives, including Paul Montgomery and Randall, left the company to start Play Incorporated in California. NewTek remains an industry pioneer, now selling the TriCaster, a descendant of the original Video Toaster that bears the same revolutionary spirit. See more photos.



http://www.newtek.com/company/about-us.html


Tens of thousands of people fell in love with NewTek’s pioneering Video Toaster®— the world’s first real “television studio-in-a-box.” For the first time, everything to make a broadcast television show was available in one system: live switching, digital video transitions, titling, keying, video paint, still store, and 3D animation. NewTek ignited the desktop video revolution, and television production was never the same.

One of the incredible capabilities inside the Video Toaster was LightWave 3D®—a 3D animation toolset that paved the way for visual effects-laden television, animated films, and top-selling video games to hit the market, including “Babylon 5,” Stephen Spielberg’s “seaQuest DSV,” and “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.”

In 1993, NewTek made LightWave 3D available as standalone software. 3D graphics and animation no longer took a PhD, a supercomputer, and $40,000 worth of software. Starving artists everywhere could turn their creative vision into reality—fast, and on a shoestring budget. In fact, many of those starving LightWave™ artists went on to win Emmy® Awards for their stunning visual effects work―more so than any other group of 3D artists.

[TheKaneB]

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... e anche chiedere all'oste se il proprio vino è buono, non conta come fonte

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trovate riviste sul videotoaster!

http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/amiga/magazines/video-toaster-user.htm

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... e anche chiedere all'oste se il proprio vino è buono, non conta come fonte

ehm il background di questo tipo FA PAURA!

http://www.markrandall.com/about-mark-randall/

E sembra una persona molto autorevole del settore. Eh ma già, avrà inventato tutto per mistificare la realtà, visto che si tratta di amiga 

[Amig4be]

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Hai evidenziato due frasi prive di riferimenti oggettivi. E' probabile che siano vere, oppure che siano soltanto opinioni personali di chi le ha scritte.

Wikipedia è spazzatura per quanto mi riguarda

Ma no dai compare, basta essere consapevoli che ciò che ci trovi non sarà mai la verità assoluta ma l'interpretazione di chi ha scritto...
Su wikipedia le robe su Amiga le han scritte senz'altro gli AmigaOStici

Appunto spazzatura, inizio a temere che anche molte riviste amiga dell'epoca fossero abbastanza spazzatura... qualcosa che andava oltre all'essere di parte o al voler vendere un numero maggiore di copie. Specie negli anni intorno alla chiusura di C= , 93,94,95

Figuriamoci a distanza di vent'anni con gli originali ricordi ingigantiti da innumerevoli discussioni da forum\bar. Siamo arrivati quasi al livello di veridicità dei Vangeli... 

[TheKaneB]

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... e anche chiedere all'oste se il proprio vino è buono, non conta come fonte

ehm il background di questo tipo FA PAURA!

http://www.markrandall.com/about-mark-randall/

E sembra una persona molto autorevole del settore. Eh ma già, avrà inventato tutto per mistificare la realtà, visto che si tratta di amiga 

Non voglio sminuire il lavoro di questo tizio e del magnifico VideoToaster che ha finanziato, solo ti sto dicendo che citare se stesso che parla della SUA creatura non conta come "fonte", perchè è di parte.

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articolo del Gennaio 1995

http://www.videomaker.com/article/1576

The most popular of the computer-based DTV switchers is the Emmy-award winning NewTek Video Toaster. With over 35,000 units sold, the Toaster is easily the most successful product in the history of desktop video. In spite of the Amiga's success, however, Commodore US recently filed for bankruptcy. A buyout of the now-defunct company is pending--you may want to consider Commodore's uncertain future when selecting a platform.

The Toaster's four-input switcher has hundreds of wipes, dissolves, and DVEs. It also includes a character generator, dual frame buffers for graphics overlay, a frame grabber and still store, and a 24-bit color paint program.

Perhaps its best feature, however, is Lightwave 3D, one of the most powerful 3D-animation programs available. Many Toaster owners say they bought the Toaster mainly for its 3D capabilities. Its success has been so great that NewTek has announced that this program is now available for Windows. NewTek has also introduced a nonlinear card called Toaster Flyer, which turns the Toaster into a nonlinear editing system. (See next month's DTV column on nonlinear editing for details.)

The Video Toaster has some drawbacks you should know about if you plan to use it in editing. As a live four-input switcher, the Toaster works fine with genlocked studio cameras (all cameras synchronized or "locked" to the same sync generator signal). Many Toasters perform this function in small TV stations. But if you want to use the Toaster with video tape recorders for editing, or even with more than one live camcorder, each source will need a time base corrector.

The TBC stabilizes the uneven tape signal and synchronizes input signals so frames start at the same instant. This allows you to mix them together. Plug-in card TBCs, such as the two-channel Digital Creations Kitchen Sync, are very popular with Toaster owners.

Another problem: the Video Toaster is not an "Audio Toaster." It handles only video signals. If you want to dissolve from video track 1 to video track 2 and crossfade from audio 1 to audio 2 at the same time, you'll need an additional audio mixer.

Edit Control
This brings up the Toaster's biggest flaw--it lacks edit control. As you saw from the second article in this series, a computer-based edit controller can automate the assembly of your videotape masters. It allows you to flawlessly perform cuts and transitions with special effects. Some editing packages, like the Amilink system from RGB Computer & Video, actually trigger the Toaster during editing.

But if you choose a system like RGB's Amilink, you'll be missing one important element in the Desktop Video revolution, the timeline-based interface. Most editing systems still use an interface called an edit decision list (EDL). Each edit event appears as a line with the type of edit (cut, dissolve, wipe, DVE, etc.) and the precise time code of the event start and duration. Time codes for the source tapes and record tapes are both given.

While professional editors are quite familiar with this system, some skill is required in reading an event list. It is not at all easy to get a sense of pace and timing from a list in which clips of different lengths appear as single lines.

In a timeline-based interface (See Videomaker's April 1994 Desktop Video column for details), a graphic bar represents each clip of video or audio. The bar's length indicates the duration of the scene; often the bar displays a recognizable frame from the video clip. The editor simply arranges these bars into a timeline of edit events. The whole process helps you visualize the sequence of scenes.

The two other major computer-based switchers are FAST Electronics' Video Machine and the Matrox Studio. Both include audio mixing, TBC/frame synchronizers, and timeline-based edit control for two source decks (A/B roll editing).

A Highly Integrated Machine
The FAST Video Machine integrates many functions on a single card. These include a 6-input, 2-bus switcher/SEG with over 300 Sony-compatible transitions and unlimited user-designed effects. It also has two TBC frame synchronizers, so it will synchronize any of the three inputs you select on a bus for mixing with the video from the other bus. Two frame buffers support title/graphic overlays.

The Video Machine can handle a large number of edit protocols--Sony LANC (Control-L), Panasonic 5-pin (Control-M), Sony ViSCA, 25-pin RS232 serial, and 9-pin RS422 serial. It comes with machine control profiles for over 250 decks and camcorders. You can set it up to work with your machines by just choosing their names from a list in a dialog box.

The FAST Video Machine has NTSC/PAL and S-video inputs and outputs. It can function as a standards converter, since it can input NTSC and output PAL signals at the same time. The 8-input audio mixer is organized into four stereo pairs. You can cut or crossfade to another audio track at the same point in the timeline that the video cuts or dissolves.

FAST's editing software, called VM-Studio, uses a timeline interface like that of the popular Adobe Premiere. It has a Video 1 track and a Video 2 track separated by an FX track. To edit, you simply drag clips and effects from the Project Window and drop them into the timeline. The Video Machine can also display an EDL event list for those who want a list output in standard formats (Sony, CMX, GVG, etc.).