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Source of Amiga Video Toaster Software Released
bender writes "About a decade after the release of of the NewTek Video Toaster for the Amiga, OpenVideoToaster is now hosting the source code of the software! The Video Toaster ushered in the age of affordable desktop video in 1991 and was used in products such as Babylon 5 and Jurassic Park."
...in the report for Video Toaster CG as analyzed by CPD.
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I'm not sure at all, but can we excpect improvements in linux video editor with this code ?
I don't know, I just ask.. I just imagine, for example, using some codes to build a NLE editor under Linux... Is it possible ?
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Public Domain? GPL? BSD?
What are we allowed to do with it?
This is a significant development because Newtek brought to the desktop level what used to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment only broadcast stations could afford. It was an Amiga 2000 based box, which is why a reference exists to the Amiga in the first place. The original price was around $5000, and that didn't include the price of time-base correctors, frame-by-frame editing decks, cameras, etc.. But any professional videographer or low-end filmmaker suddenly had the most amazing set of tools to create what was in the hands of only the big players or the well funded. Their original promo video, called "Revolution," was an amazing demo. If you can find a copy, I suggest you view it and see that in 1991 terms this was a truly revolutionary concept.
Beyond that, Amigas with Newtek's Lightwave software were used in the production of series like Babylon 5 and Seaquest DSV. Huge render farms with 10^3 computers were generating graphics for major television series. You had better believe that it's significant from a historical perspective.
Today, Newtek's online editing setups are pretty interesting but vastly different. It's no skin off their backs to release the source because it's not really commercially valuable. That's because in the last couple of years editing come to the point where it is really accessible by the average person. I do technical consultation for video editors, and know for certain that the seed for desktop editing today was planted by Newtek's Video Toaster over 12 years ago.
One last note: the Amiga technology back in 1984 was being bid upon by two companies. The company that won was Commodore, and we know what a debacle of excess and poor marketing they were. The other was International Business Machines, who decided it wasn't valuable. Had IBM purchased the Amiga technology, it's very likely the computing landscape and development of multimedia technologies would have been a lot different and IMO advanced much further for the average person than history as it stands today shows.
Now, there have been rumors around for years about what the Amiga and corresponding technologies have been associated with. Max Headroom (for the background, if I remember).
Now, some people are saying it wasn't broadcast quality, however, a number of people disagree. When the video toaster came out, it replaced a 100K production system for 6K. It took video editing/production by storm. For example, the FOX affiliate in Anchorage used one for years. The station manager told me how it was just incredible and could do much more bang for the buck than anything out there (circa '95).
The effects, depending on how you used them, could look cool or cheesy. Think of the effects of Home Improvement, when they did the scene changed. The one I remember out of the box for the Toaster was the legs crossing on-screen for a scene change.
So, now's the real question... How easy or hard will this be to port? It looks to support other languages, as well. I noticed Kanjii support.
Is the source code Amiga specific? I know they had other systems supported, but later. Amiga source code, at least the OS specific functions, are a lot different than coding today.
Most of the apps they have source to didn't require the additional hardware that the VT came with, which is good.
Personally, I think there might be some gems, but I doubt you'll see whole ports of the applications. Too much has changed since 91.
Us folks left in the Amiga community are kinda hoping for something nice from Amiga. A few of us in the area have our own Amiga user group and have managed to have two demos of the OS4 in the last few months.
Keep you fingers crossed.
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The Video Toaster's hardware was designed by Dana Carvey's brother, Brad.
My highschool got one of these back in 1992 or 1993 and I managed to convice them to give me THREE class periods of independent study time to shoot, write and edit our weekly "TV" show. It was a blast and it really taught me how to work under a deadline -- I was the only student doing the show and fourth period EVERY FRIDAY there had to be 15 minutes of show in the can ready to show.
At the time, it was somewhat of a jewel on our school's crown to have a weekly, entirely student-produced show. We just thought it was more fun that trig.
The last time I poked my head in my high school, they had several classes dedicated to broadcast and communications with a real teacher assigned to it and everything. They were also doing a daily show in lieu of the morning announcements over the PA system.
I feel proud I got to do it my way and learn something in the process. God bless the Toaster -- and who coudln't resist tossing in a few Kiki effects or falling sheep here and there! ;-)
Good times...
Geez, you microsofty, the correct term is guru meditation. This is an article about the Amiga you know.
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Though at Sundance this year, an enterprising individual edited and produced a movie for $218.32, using iMovie.
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The chipset provided the timing and genlock signals necessary for the toaster to work. It is these signals that make traditional editing machines so expensive to produce. The Amiga's chipset gave these to the toaster cards so Newtek didn't have to.
But, if your timing is off by even a percentage, your broadcast signal falls apart, rendering dependent systems, such as the toaster, useless for their primary job of interfacing with these signals. This is analog technology here, can't use digital techniques to solve the problems.
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Basically, Toaster was a hardware package with controlling software, not just a software package. You can't really port it to the PC any moreso than you can port, say, the custom software used in a flatbed scanner to a PC; you might be able to emulate the internal operation, but the hardware itself is missing.
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The Video Toaster I thought was the coolest thing. After I saw a demo of it once, I was totally amazed. As I recall, there was one famous video effect it did. That effect oddly was used by lots of those sucide cults, such as the famous Heaven's Gate in ther propaganda videos.
But there must be a solution. There are generally an almost infinite number of ways of doing something in hardware, as in software. Don't know much about the Amiga, but clearly the internal clocks would need to be synchronised to the incoming video, same as in an audio application. To get 16-bit audio with no corruption, at 44.1KHz sampling, needs about 200pS maximum jitter.But, I don't see why video needs to be so precise, well under one pixel would probably be about OK, say 10nS. The eye is much more easily fooled than the ear. You barely need 8-bit DACs either (24-bit colour), 7-bit is probably adequate.
I guess the Amiga uses a PLL to synchronise everything to the incoming video. It would be hard to do that on a modern PC, you would need to butcher the motherboard to inject your own clock signal, and the crude PLL clock multiplier in the CPU would probably mess it all up again. Sometimes older technology is best.
Proper video editing cards for PCs are expensive because they have to run synchronously to the video, not the PC, amongst other things.
Still, it is good that this software has been released. I wonder if the price of used Amigas is going to rise, as everyone wants a toaster?