On (12 Nov 94) Mike Christian wrote to Chris Baugh...
 MC> Yes, I am familiar with the now near-defunct :-( Newtek/Amiga
 MC> Toaster.
There's nothing defunct about Newtek or the Video Toaster.  Commodore
is out of business, but there's a good chance another company will buy
the rights to continue developing, selling and (what a change from
Commodore) *marketing* the Amiga.
 MC> I must admit I am somewhat biased towards the "old school" of
 MC> video hardware - you know, back when you had to spend $40K for
 MC> any kind of DVE, or 60K for a Grass Switcher (before you start
 MC> adding options, of course) and 35K & up for a decent C.G. When
 MC> the Toaster came on the scene I viewed it as a "toy", and I guess
 MC> I never really upgraded my opinion of it ;-)
It can't be a real piece of equipment, because you don't have to
install a separate air conditioned room to put it in!  Ain't it a
shame that frame stores now take a couple of chips instead of a rack
full of circuit boards...
 MC> I had a discussion with a fella from I-Mix about this very
 MC> thing...
 MC> The MAC is just used as a convenient man/machine interface.
That's fine.  The Toaster's a bit unusual because the Amiga has some
good features for video production in the basic computer, as opposed
to the PC clone world where the original design considered even a text
display as an extra cost option!
 MC> However, the TV market is shifting from a QUALITY and FEATURE driven 
market
 MC> to a PRICE driven market(IMHO), as are many industries...
A nice thing about the current shift is that there's not necessarily a
drop in quality as price goes down.  Take the example of audio
recorders.  Today an 8-track CD quality unit is probably less than the
cost of the 4-tracks used to record "Sgt. Pepper's," and the
comparison's more impressive considering inflation.  It almost costs
more to buy a nice desk for a computer than to buy the computer
itself!  We'll soon see the same situation with full broadcast quality
video equipment, whether direct to disk or direct to memory
cartridges.
Love it!
... Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out.
--- PPoint 1.88
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