On Nov 13, 1994 at 22:24, Chris Baugh of 1:105/290.5 sez to Mike Christian:
 MC>> Yes, I am familiar with the now near-defunct :-( Newtek/Amiga
 MC>> Toaster.
 CB> There's nothing defunct about Newtek or the Video Toaster.  
 CB> Commodore is out of business, but there's a good chance another 
 CB> company will buy the rights to continue developing, selling and 
 CB> (what a change from Commodore) *marketing* the Amiga.
Yes, of course, you are correct. I was making a rather broad categorization 
there. I am sure someone will take up the Amiga line and continue its growth. 
What I was alluding to was the fact that without an Amiga, the TOASTER is 
pretty useless (unless they move to other platforms).
 CB> It can't be a real piece of equipment, because you don't have to
 CB> install a separate air conditioned room to put it in!
Yeah, that's my mindset! .
 CB> Ain't it a shame that frame stores now take a couple of chips instead of 
a
 CB>  rack full of circuit boards...
Actually, I found the older units easier to troubleshoot, but then again, the 
newer boxes don't seem to NEED troubleshooting - they just work!
 CB> A nice thing about the current shift is that there's not 
 CB> necessarily a drop in quality as price goes down. 
True, but there is a definite adverse effect to dealers - ya' gotta sell 
three times as much to make the same number of bucks! The video dealer biz 
has become almost another "comodity" business, like toilet paper, cars, and 
TV sets. The problem (for the end user) is that a great number of the folks 
SELLING these products now have very little technical knowledge, and almost 
NO system integration experience. For example, a local computer dealer 
recently sold a 486DX/66 with an array of video capture, machine control and 
other "plugin" boards to the local Electric Company. However, when the 
computer guy showed up to install all this stuff, he had no idea where to 
start hooking it into the existing system. I was called in as a consultant, 
and found they needed a few more pieces (like Beta to NTSC, RGB to Beta, etc. 
translators). Had the Electric company come to us (or another Video Systems 
House) they would not have had this problem, and associated delays getting 
the system on-line. But then again, we wouldn't have "seemed" to be 
price-competative with the computer house either. So the bottom line oriented 
folks chose to buy from the Computer Discounter cuz it was so cheap. BTW, the 
also mistakenly thought their in-house MIS folks could handle any 
installation problems. They learned that computer and video are still far 
enough apart that someone that is an expert in one, is not necessarily fluent 
in the other (albeit, that is changing rapidly).
                      **Mike**
On the Information Highway at: mike.christian@nopc.jaxx.com
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