Just wanted to pass along my impression of a quick demo of the Toaster Flyer 
I saw today.  A new Horizon video store opened here in Sacramento and they 
brought the machine from their S.F. bay area location.  
What impressed me the most was the quality of the video output to a 14" Sony 
composite monitor.  IT LOOKED REAL GOOD!  ... and after hearing that the 
scenes I was watching came from a second generation S-VHS that was then 
digitized ... it was hard to believe.  
I watched as the operator used a mouse to drag a video clip from one window 
like box to another where it was inserted between the clips already there or 
appended to the end of the row of large postage stamp sized "crutons".  He 
also showed us where to find a icon collection of transition effects which 
also could be dragged for insertion anywhere in the string of existing video 
clips.  Having two transitions in a row isn't allowed and a warning box 
appeared.                          
I asked about a way to get an idea of the length of each of the clips 
represented by the crutons and was shown that clicking on them would bring up 
a box showing the size of the clip file ... like .... 26378787499049!  HA! I 
watched the demo guy use a pencil to try to put commas in the huge number to 
translate it to meaningful megabytes.  Maybe somewhere there is a minute, 
seconds, frame indication, but I didn't see it.  A discussion with others 
observing the demo brought up concerns about the hard drive sizes and types 
required.  We were told that what we were seeing was in the higher of two 
available digitizing qualities, and that would allow for approximately 5 
minutes of video per gigabyte.  The demo system had two 2 gigabyte drives.  
I learned that only the best performing drives of certain manufactures and 
certain models could handle the speedy stream of data required.  If you got a 
drive performance tested by Newtek then you paid a little more, but were 
assured it was capable.  The demo presenter (not sure if he was a Newtek rep 
or store personnel)  said that he'd heard of problems steming from non-tested 
drives.  Sounds to me like the demands of the Flyer put the hard drives right 
on the edge of their capabilities.
 
I picked up on conversation about audio editing capabilities which indicated 
that a separated drive would be required for the audio.
The Toaster 4000 logo was on the box that held the "goodies" and another hard 
disk.  The two external 2 gig drives were housed in a small external box.  
Price of the Flyer is a bit under $5K but you already have to have the 
Toaster, and apparently that is kinda tough to find these days.  They 
indicated they had a number of systems backordered with no idea of delivery 
time.  
I offer this info only as my observation .... no guarantees of accuracy 
intended!  My suggestion, if you are looking at non-linear editing gear, is 
to go see for yourself .... and please pass along YOUR impressions.  I'd like 
to hear them!
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