S36666WB%ETSUACAD.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu (Brian Wright) (09/11/90)
On 6 Sep 90 23:56:10 GMT you said: >In-Reply-To: message from cdimick@suns.es.com@bambam.UUCP > >Seems that Newtek has gotte an FCC approval for Industrial use only at this >time. That means not for sale to consumers yet. I recently talked to the >person responsible for dealer sales and she told me that the holdup was the >printing and packaging at this point. I wouldn't expect to see them shipping >until the middle of October. Some dealers may receive them in the next 2 week >however. Only those dealers who specificly sell to the industrial video >market will have them however as the consumer FCC approval is still pending. I question whether the consumer version will ever become available. There has to be some flack coming from the manufacturers of hi-end $90,000+ motion graphics systems. Here comes the Toaster that can produce the quality and effects, that one of these $90,000 systems can, for +/-$5000. If everybody can remember the battles that were fought about releasing the DAT, it is now here with quite less than a BANG. The music industry wouldn't stand for consumers to have professional quality equipment in their homes. The music industry's case was one of piracy, but there were, I suspect, underlying motives as well for keeping it out of the consumer's hands. I also suspect this to be the case for the Toaster as well. If the consumers do see a home Toaster unit, it will probably be less than that of the Industrial model. It will probably have limited effects with less than broadcast quality. Let's hope this isn't the case, but don't be surprised if the consumer version turns out to be less than expected. The gov't. is very good about restricting technology to the consumers. >-- Bob ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ======================================================================= ||To steal from one is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. || ||___________________________________ ---UNKNOWN--- || || | / / || ||---Brian Wright | / / || ||---s36666wb@etsuacad.etsu.edu | \ \/ / Only Amiga || ||---Commercial Artist and Amigaphile| \/\/ Makes It Possible!! || =======================================================================
erick@CSUFresno.EDU (Eric Keisler) (09/12/90)
In article <30071@nigel.ee.udel.edu> S36666WB%ETSUACAD.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu (Brian Wright) writes: >I question whether the consumer version will ever become available. There has >to be some flack coming from the manufacturers of hi-end $90,000+ motion >graphics systems. > ... > ... If the consumers do see a home >Toaster unit, it will probably be less than that of the Industrial model. It >will probably have limited effects with less than broadcast quality. Let's >hope this isn't the case, but don't be surprised if the consumer version turns >out to be less than expected. The gov't. is very good about restricting >technology to the consumers. > >||---Brian Wright | / / || >||---s36666wb@etsuacad.etsu.edu | \ \/ / Only Amiga || >||---Commercial Artist and Amigaphile| \/\/ Makes It Possible!! || > ======================================================================= Total, unequivocal, BS. Over the *years* NewTek has consistently maintained it's focus of the Toaster's marketing: a breakthrough video device offering high-end performance at (relatively) low-end cost. If NewTek changed this stragegy, essentially releasing a crippled product for consumers (can you say PC Junior?) they might as well close their doors and start wearing kelvar vests :-). This won't happen. Hey, just call NewTek and ask 'em! After they get finished chuckling at your statement, they'll quell any fears you may have. --- eric
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (09/12/90)
In article <30071@nigel.ee.udel.edu> S36666WB%ETSUACAD.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu (Brian Wright) writes: >I question whether the consumer version [of the Video Toaster] will ever >become available. There has >to be some flack coming from the manufacturers of hi-end $90,000+ motion >graphics systems. Here comes the Toaster that can produce the quality and >effects, that one of these $90,000 systems can, for +/-$5000. If everybody >can remember the battles that were fought about releasing the DAT, it is now >here with quite less than a BANG. The music industry wouldn't stand for >consumers to have professional quality equipment in their homes. Uh - why? There are still plenty of reasons "consumers" won't get studio quality sound for their own recordings, including the acoustic qualities of the garage, the quality of consumer microphones, etc. Otherwise, you hit the point: > The music >industry's case was one of piracy Exactly. With digital-to-digital recording, every duplicate is exactly as good as the original, with no degradation, to the nth generation where n is arbitrarily large. Pirates can make copies as good as the originals forever. Which happens to be exactly the same as the current status quo of computer software, and the music industry doesn't need that any more than we do. > but there were, I suspect, underlying >motives as well for keeping it out of the consumer's hands. Forgive me, I mean nothing personal, but this sounds paranoid. It implies shady dealing by equipment manufacturers to limit the quality of low cost gear simply to keep their profits unjustifiably high. Unless I'm mistaken, anti-trust laws make this illegal. I know that this kind of thing is done sometimes within the product line of a single company, for reasons of market positioning. A Manguson technician once told me that the speed upgrade from the M80-32 to the M80-42 [both IBM mainframe clones] was really, actually, a matter of taking the NOPs out of the microcode. But NewTek has no higher end products to protect like this; the Toaster is it. I'm reminded of a rumor I heard once about a guy who had invented an amazing new carberator (sp?) that would make a car go 100 miles to a gallon of gas; and that the evil oil companies paid him millions to destroy it, so to keep their profits high. (Of course, I heard another version of the rumor where they actually murdered the guy.) -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/
d6b@psuecl.bitnet (09/13/90)
In article <21941@grebyn.com>, ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: > Forgive me, I mean nothing personal, but this sounds paranoid. > It implies shady dealing by equipment manufacturers to limit the > quality of low cost gear simply to keep their profits unjustifiably > high. Unless I'm mistaken, anti-trust laws make this illegal. [I'm not the author of the original article, but I can't resist...] The company involved is Japan Inc., and last time I checked US laws don't apply in Japan. To my knowledge, *no* US company makes consumer DAT machines. But they aren't the ones restricting commerce -- it's the US recording industry. They are using various forms of threats and intimidation to dissaude the Japanese from marketing the DATs here in the US. Probably legal, but certainly unethical. Sorry for getting off the subject. :-) -- Dan Babcock
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (09/14/90)
S36666WB%ETSUACAD.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu (Brian Wright) writes: |Toaster unit, it will probably be less than that of the Industrial model. It |will probably have limited effects with less than broadcast quality. Let's |hope this isn't the case, but don't be surprised if the consumer version turns |out to be less than expected. The gov't. is very good about restricting ^^^^^ |technology to the consumers. The GOVERNMENT???? You've been reading too much alt.conspiracy -- John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash
bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) (09/14/90)
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 baer@qiclab.uucp (Ken Baer) (09/17/90)
In article <4390@crash.cts.com> bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) writes: >Lightwave 3D > I imagine that the modeler needs some last >minute work as I understand that Alan Hastings was "back at the shop working >very hard". Allen finished a few weeks ago (according to him). Sounds like it's in the packaging and printing stage. > 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. Yes, this is true. But, Allen said that he does smooth out the paths into splines, but you don't ever see the path. We are planning on adding Toaster output to Animation:Journeyman as soon as we get the necessary hardware (a Toaster) and appropriate support code. Journeyman has full spline motion paths, time graph editing, spline based objects, IFF and algorithmic textures, and 24bit output. JMan is a much different program than LightWave. LightWave seems to be better for logos, mechanical animation, and Evans & Sutherland looking stuff. Journeyman is intended for 3D character and organic style animation, though it can handle mechanical animation too. Personally, I look forward to using both programs. >-- Bob > UUCP: crash!pro-graphics!bobl | Pro-Graphics: 908/469-0049 -- // -Ken Baer. Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises / Earthling \X/ Usenet: baer@qiclab.UUCP or PLink: KEN BAER "These new tax forms really aren't much easier" -- Mighty Mouse.
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (09/18/90)
bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) writes: >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! [great review deleted for space] Hey Bob, remember the story about the boy who cried wolf? Well, in my book, Newtek has cried toaster RSN too many times for anyone to seriously place an order before they actually have the toaster in stock. I have heard that the toaster would be out in two or three months for around 3 years now. This may be the time, but I wouldn't send my money in yet. -- John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash
bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) (09/22/90)
In-Reply-To: message from sparks@corpane.UUCP > bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) writes: >> production starts that there will be 1000 produced a day and that backlog Ooops...big mistake there, that should have been 1000 a WEEK instead of day. -- 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
hassinger@lmrc.uucp (Bob Hassinger) (09/25/90)
In article <4569@crash.cts.com>, bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) writes: >> bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury) writes: >>> production starts that there will be 1000 produced a day and that backlog > > Ooops...big mistake there, that should have been 1000 a WEEK instead of day. On September 22nd I asked at The Memory Location and was told: 1) It is 1000 per *month* - a much more reasonable figure. 2) The toaster HAD passed FCC class B! 3) As reported supplies beyond one per dealer for demo whould take a while yet Bob Hassinger hassinger@lmrc.UUCP