Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!silver!amhartma From: amhartma@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Andy Hartman - AmigaMan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Amiga given great review in Video Review... Message-ID: <1991May10.181552.17245@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> Date: 10 May 91 18:15:52 GMT Sender: news@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington IN. Lines: 88 In the June '91 issue of Video Review, the Amiga gets a spotlight (well, almost). All of this is reprinted without permission. I don't have anything to take so don't bother suing me...:-) The article starts on page 25 with an Amiga 2x00 & 1084S taking up the entire page. The title of the article is "Computer-Age Video" In all fairness, I have to say that the article (after the Amiga part) goes into the I*M and M*c as platforms. Though neither gets the space the Amiga did. In addition to the pic. on the cover page of the article, the article boasts a 1-page size series of pics using the Toaster and a smaller pic of a stand-alone Toaster. It looks exactly like a 1-drive A2x00 with a 3" grey vertical band on the left side of the computer. There is no "Amiga" on the case, it says VIDEO TOASTER. It's clearly a 2x00 though. -------------------begin article (Amiga part)-------------------- The Amiga: The Amiga might not be a household name just yet, but it should be. Currently, the Commodore-manufactured Amiga is the most capable and cost-effextive computer for desktop video applications, offering a wide variety of inexpensive peripherals and software. Because the Amiga's clock rate, or speed of transferring information, can easily adapt to the NTSC frequency of 3.58MHz, it can assimilate video signals more readily than the other platforms. Amiga hardware accessories tend to be simple and affordable. Without question, the most impressive new add-on for the Amiga is New Tek's Video Toaster ($1,595), a plug-in board that turns an Amiga 2000 or 2500 computer into a destop production studio. The Toaster has generated an awful lot of ink since its introduction last year, but this is one of those rare cases where the product actualy surpasses the hype. The Video Toaster combines a genlock with a broadcast-quality special-effects generator (capable of 125 different transition patterns), a titler, 3-D modeling/ animation, frame grabbing and a paint program. Up to four video inputs receive still or moving images. These images can be stored on the computer's hard disk and recalled easily for processing or editing. All this power does come with a caveat, though: The program uses up a great deal of computer memory. A big eight megabytes of RAM (random-access memory, or how much memory your computer can work with at any one moment in time) is required for all the software included in the package. Considering that most basic IBM compatibles have one megabyte or less of RAM, video "toasting" requires some serious computer hardware. Moreover, any videotaped sources (though not laser discs or live cameras) fed into the Toaster must go through a time-base corrector (TCB) first for proper timing and synchronization. TCBs, though expensive, are coming down in price: Digital Processing Systems has started shipping a (relatively) low-priced TCB - list price $995 - that fits into a slot on the Amiga. In the larger picture, these are small complaints. When you consider that a loded Amiga system including the Video Toaster retails for about 1/10th of what just one professional special-effects generator might go for, you're not just talking cost-effectiveness, you're talking revolutionary power to the people. The Toaster is so revolutionary, in fact, that it's striking out on its own. At presstime, NewTek was planning to repackage the Video Toaster as a stand-alone, Amiga-compatable computer for video processing. Including a 52 megabyte hard drive and all hardware (except for a pair of NTCS monitors), the new Toaster is scheduled to ship this summer at a list price of $3,995. While the Video Toaster represents a total software/hardware package for the Amiga, there are a host of less ambitious peripherals for this platform. Amiga genlocks are especially affordable, starting at under $100. VideoLinX offers a unit caled the AmiGen (about $89), which locks an incoming video signal to the Amiga and sends a combination of computer and video signals to a VCR for recording. This means you can overlay titles or graphics onto motion video. More professional genlocks are available, such as the ProGen (about $350) from Progressive Peripherals. The ProGen also includes software that allows for special color effects, so you can recolorize your video images. Inexpensive software is also plentiful in the Amiga world. Digi-Paint3 (also from NewTek) lets you paint with up to 4,096 colors simultaneously - quite a bargon at $60. VideoTitler (about $95) from Oxxi/Aegis provides 3-D titles that can be spun, stretched, and animated using either Amiga fonts or additional fonts supplied with the program. Aegis Development's Animator is a 3-D animation program that comes bundled with precreated images for less than $100. Images from other Amiga programs can be used as backdrops for animated scenes, and once you're locked into video, this animation can be "printed" on tape. ---------------------end article (Amiga part)---------------- -- Andy Hartman - Amiga Man | It doesn't matter what I say, IU doesn't amhartma@cssun1.cs.indiana.edu | listen to me anyway! I leave my first AMHARTMA@gold.ucs.indiana.edu | born to IU for tuition and my sense of amhartma@silver.ucs.indiana.edu | humor to Fisher-Price for research...