Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!dgp.toronto.edu!sheasby Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics From: sheasby@dgp.toronto.edu (Michael C. Sheasby) Subject: Re: Toaster professionalism? Message-ID: <1991Jun1.200216.11627@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> References: Distribution: comp Date: 2 Jun 91 00:02:16 GMT Lines: 28 cimshop!davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) writes: >Somebody I know who works at a television station mentioned that they've used >Amigas with Video Toasters for some work, but don't consider the output of the >Toaster to be "truly" professional. Being a layman myself, I'm not quite sure >what he means (something about the "cleanness" of the signal). Can someone >shed some light? Hokay... The output from the toaster is just vanilla ntsc composite, which just doesn't cut the mustard in a professional setting. For a television station worth its salt, only 'component' video hardware will do. Component boxes split the image down into R-Y,G-Y,and Y (Betacam), Y and C (S-VHS) or R,G,and B (computer output before encoding)... the basic idea being to preserve the quality of the video as long as possible before it gets mashed down into a composite signal for consumer audiences. The toaster doesn't have the bandwidth (horizontal resolution) to compete with truly pro effect boxes, and would look pretty cheesy beside them. It just doesn't make sense to shoot Betacam, convert to composite for a frame store, doodle on the image with a toaster, then output from composite back to Betacam/Abekas/3/4 SP or whathaveyou. so there ya go. $.02, please. ---Mike. .