Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!nosc!crash!pro-graphics.cts.com!bobl From: bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Video Toaster: WHERE IS IT? Message-ID: <4390@crash.cts.com> Date: 13 Sep 90 23:56:35 GMT Sender: root@crash.cts.com Lines: 151 In-Reply-To: message from S36666WB%ETSUACAD.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu Brian speaks of flack from manufacturers of $90,000 systems and how the NewTek Toaster does this for around $5000. Well, I was just seriously playing around with the Toaster at Video Expo in NYC yesterday. I went through ALL the programs that come with it, CG, Lightwave, Toasterpaint, DVE, Color Enhancement and I can tell you quite truthfully, that although the Toaster is a great product at a great price, it doesn't even come close to some REAL dedicated $20,000 systems. That would be too much to expect from the product anyway. I just want to dispell the gossip surrounding this product. It does some great stuff at a great price but let's not create a fantasy here. It does NOT do any of the promised features as well as dedicated systems that cost twice oops..make that around 10 times as much. Let's run down the list shall we. The DVE effects The DVE effects are nice. They look good and move smoothly. They seem to do what they are suppose to do. If the Toaster only did DVE effects and cost $1595, it would still be a deal. On the other hand, the Toaster will does not have the capability to squeeze and image correctly. I will squeeze an image but it will have VERY discernable pixilation artifacts. It is a hardware problem and there are no plans to update this. That means that all squeeze zooms are going to have to move fast and off the screen. That makes the Toaster almost useless for quarter frame squeezes and such for anyone other than wedding guys. Another problem is that you cannot program multiple DVE moves. Only one move at a time that can be kicked by the GPI. You cannot group moves. There is an out here however, you can probably write Arexx scripts to do this but it seems that would be difficult as C programs would have to actually control the moves themselves. Also, you cannot pick a move and tell it how many frames you want the move to complete in. A serious problem that can probably be fixed in a new release of the software. At this time you have 3 speeds for DVE moves, Slow, Medium and Fast. The Character Generator The CG is reasonable. Page creation looks fairly easy and it seems that the CG COULD feasably be used in an On-Air setup if someone really new the software. There are some problems with the CG. The most notable being that the text doesn't look like 35ns to me. I can see very discernable jaggies that shouldn't be there. This is the single worst problem with the CG. For the most part, the CG works better than any current Amiga CG program and it also looks better. Toaster Paint ARGH! This program is a hover! Sorry, but I just don't think that anyone wants to paint on a HAM screen and then have to render that to the Toaster to see what it looks like! Basically you have a Digipaint III interface for painting to the Toaster. You do all your work in a super bit-map HAM image and then it has to be rendered to the Toaster for looksies. Although you have a few more controls in your Digipaint workspace and the image renders rather quickly to the Toaster, I find no reason why we can't simply paint on the real Toaster frame buffer space. You work in 24-bit space in the Digipaint interface but not working on the REAL image is rediculous if you ask me. I find Toaster Paint to be next to worthless. I would find myself cringing everytime I would have to deal with this paint package. I imagine that time constraints is what caused this "stop-gap" paint package to come to market. I imagine that the reason it is bundled with the Toaster is so that a user will at least be ABLE to modify an image. I expect a REAL 24 bit paint package to be available within 6 months to a year for the Toaster. Lightwave 3D Well, it's got a great interface. I looks like Caligari and works like it also. It seems very easy to operate and very easy to build a scene and animate it. I didn't see the modeler because they didn't have it loaded on the hard drive (hmm...wonder why). I imagine that the modeler needs some last minute work as I understand that Alan Hastings was "back at the shop working very hard". I also heard a few people say that some of the delays were due to getting Toaster Paint and Lightwave together and bundled with the system. I figure that the modeler for Lightwave is still being finished up. Renderings look very nice (as 24 bit images should) and from what I was told, complex scenes could be rendered in around 15 minutes. I was also told that very complex scenes could take quite a few hours. A scene of a pool with about 5 different types of mapping (texture, bump, shadow, etc) was proposed to have taken 15 minutes. A videotape of Alan's latest rendered on the Toaster was playing. It was called "Rush Hour" and it looked very good. Problems..well, I can tell you right now that you are NOT going to get Digital Arts output from this package. Don't get me wrong, this package has alot of features an outputs some really great images but the algorythms are not as good as some 3D packages that have been around for the past 5 years for the IBM platforms. There seemed to be noticable aliasing in all the images. I imagine this is just a software problem and that future versions of Lightwave will address these problems. Otherwise the images looked very good. As for animation. The Lightwave program only supports KEYFRAME ANIMATION techniques. There are no spline based paths or such. You seem to be stuck with keyframe animation. I was told that you could load in Videoscape motion path files so that would mean you can use Pro-Motion files for animation paths. Let's hope so. You can also load in Videoscape objects. Well, did you expect anything else?? All in all, I find Lightwave to be a step above any other 3D packages out there for the Amiga as it is the cheapest one to support full 24-bit rendering. Caligary Broadcast would cost you about 8 times more if you include all the extra hardware/software you need to create 24-bit output. Oh, and the modeler is reported to support point editing... Just a few more problems..boarders. There are only 8 colors to choose from for boarders on DVE effects. The DVE effects come programed with or without boarders and those boarders are fixed sizes. What this means is that if you have an effect that has a boarder on it, you are stuck with the size of that boarder and the boarder itself. You can't adjust the size of the boarder but you can adjust the color of it. In most switchers, you can turn on the boarder and adjust the size of it for ANY effect indendently of the effect. I think they should address this problem. I was told that the 8 color limit would be changed in an upgrade of the software to allow for 256 levels of color. Other problems were that there was no way queue a bunch of still store frames for viewing on the Toaster. You basically pick a frame, show it, pick a frame, show it. No interface to pick a batch of frames and then show them with various timing parameters an effects between the frames. This is just a software item and will probably be addressed in a future update of the software. All in all the Toaster is worth much more than it's $1595 price tag especially since the paint (ha!) and 3D software are included. I just want people to realize that the Toaster isn't the be-all end-all and it's not going to solve all your needs in one nice package. I think that those of us in the video industry will find that it is just one more tool available to us for the creation of video/graphics. At this point, it is probably the cheapest product available with the most capability. I also understand that if you put in your order today, you will probably have a Toaster by the beginning of the year. Another note, NewTek has FCC class A approval. I was told that class B is a non-issue (I assume that it's sewn up). Some developers and dealers have units at this time. I was told that dealers would be receiving only a single Toaster for demo until full production starts. I understand that once production starts that there will be 1000 produced a day and that backlog orders should be cleared up by the beginning of the new year. So, order your Toaster today and get a nice New Year's present! If you are interested in a Toaster or a complete system, you can contact me via email at the below address. I will put you on our waiting list as we have several Toasters on order. -- Bob ______ Pro-Graphics BBS `It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!' ________ UUCP: crash!pro-graphics!bobl | Pro-Graphics: 908/469-0049 ARPA/DDN: pro-graphics!bobl@nosc.mil | America Online: Graphics3d Internet: bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com | CompuServe: RIP _________ ___________ Raven Enterprises 25 Raven Avenue Piscataway, NJ 08854