Using Video Toaster with PAL Amiga?

[Marchie]

Ok, minor reprieve. I soldered the J102 jumper (despite being assured that it was no different to holding the mouse buttons and setting NTSC at bootup) and got it to boot a couple of times.

But, I hasten to add, only a couple. Still getting a lot of Toaster not responding aand unable to Genlock errors, sometimes followed by a system lock-up. Haven't put a signal through it yet either. To be honest, that's when things went South - I could reliably boot the software at least for a while there, but once I attached a signal it started to go crazy and hasn't been reliable since.

Grelbfarlk I'll try your frequency adjustment over the weekend...

[idrougge]

It is the same, the difference is that the machine boots straight into 60 Hz when jumpered, so the Toaster will not be confused by an initial 50 Hz state.

[Marchie]

All I know is the only time the card has ever worked was with the jumper soldered. Could just be dumb luck of course (of which I've had very little with this escapade).

Anyhow, thanks as always to everyone who has offered advice, I wouldn't even be this far along by myself!

[Marchie]

Ok Wizards,

Switcher software is starting up reliably now. But if I add an input signal the screen starts to jitter and get funky (blocks of pixels get garbled, kind of like a bad digital TV reception).

This happens with the switcher on, and remains when I quit it and go back to WB. If I turn the input signal off, the screen settles. Anyone familiar with this? Is it likely to be a frequency adjustment thing?

[idrougge]

What kind of input signal?

[Marchie]

My PAL camcorder running through an NTSC converter, plugged into input 1 (the top input).

[grelbfarlk]

Right so if you started the Switcher with the camera attached it should sync to that.

There should be an Autohue program in the Toaster directory you can try running that with the camera attached and it should set up a new calibration.

But otherwise the manual frequency adjustment would the the thing I would do. You don't necessarily need the multimeter if you don't have one, but quit the Switcher, the Toaster will still be enabled. Connect the camcorder and slowly rotate the pot until the Program output and RGB stop being scrambled.

And BE CAREFUL! I cooked a Toaster once when my hand slipped and I touched something in the area with a screwdriver tip and smelt the magic smoke. Fortunately back then Newtek repaired it at no cost but my heart damage is likely still not repaired.

And you're definitely in luck if you are getting to the point of the Switcher starting the card is likely ok.

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Right so if you started the Switcher with the camera attached it should sync to that.

No, at the moment I'm starting with nothing attached, I was told (above) that that was the way to go?

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

And you're definitely in luck if you are getting to the point of the Switcher starting the card is likely ok.

Phew!

I'll try the rest of your advice and see how I go...

[Marchie]

Yeah...been a mixed weekend...

Had it booting reliably into switcher and Lightwave, did some renders, moved the machine around, still worked fine.

Plugged a screen into the preview input, a camera into input 2, and it was happy enough, screen was rolling because I hadn't done the frequency adjustment, but it was working as far as I could tell.

I plugged an input into input 1, started switcher, machine crashed and now every time I try to start the switcher, I get garbled screens for a bit, then 'Toaster not resonding'.

I plugged a camera back into input 1, the screen started to jitter, so I adjusted the frequency until the screen settled (didn't bother with the fine adjustment) but this hasn't made any difference to the switcher not starting.

Really getting frustrated with this, could it be my PSU?

Will Switcher fail until I run Autohue?

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by idrougge

It is the same, the difference is that the machine boots straight into 60 Hz when jumpered, so the Toaster will not be confused by an initial 50 Hz state.

Just following up on this J102 vs mouse button at boot to switch PAL/NTSC - I'm really not getting the same results.

For example, I ran a PAL program and, predictably, 20% of the picture was missing off the bottom of the screen (as one would expect since my machine is jumpered into NTSC mode). So I reset, booted into PAL display using the double-mouse button menu and ran the program again, and the same program was totally garbled - fields were offset in a double-image, and the picture was mostly off-screen. When I ran this program before (when the machine was jumpered for PAL) it displayed fine, so clearly changing the display at boot-up is not the same as tripping the jumper.

Or am I missing something? (I don't pretend to be knowledgeable on this, happy to be educated!)

[idrougge]

I think that's a side-effect of having a genlock in your machine. The genlock will decide the clock of your Amiga.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Just following up on this J102 vs mouse button at boot to switch PAL/NTSC - I'm really not getting the same results.

For example, I ran a PAL program and, predictably, 20% of the picture was missing off the bottom of the screen (as one would expect since my machine is jumpered into NTSC mode). So I reset, booted into PAL display using the double-mouse button menu and ran the program again, and the same program was totally garbled - fields were offset in a double-image, and the picture was mostly off-screen. When I ran this program before (when the machine was jumpered for PAL) it displayed fine, so clearly changing the display at boot-up is not the same as tripping the jumper.

Or am I missing something? (I don't pretend to be knowledgeable on this, happy to be educated!)

Sounds like just the joys of having an NTSC machine to me. I used Degrader back in the day I think now it's called Tude to convince the Amiga that it's PAL, which will hold the setting after reboot.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Yeah...been a mixed weekend...

Had it booting reliably into switcher and Lightwave, did some renders, moved the machine around, still worked fine.

Plugged a screen into the preview input, a camera into input 2, and it was happy enough, screen was rolling because I hadn't done the frequency adjustment, but it was working as far as I could tell.

I plugged an input into input 1, started switcher, machine crashed and now every time I try to start the switcher, I get garbled screens for a bit, then 'Toaster not resonding'.

I plugged a camera back into input 1, the screen started to jitter, so I adjusted the frequency until the screen settled (didn't bother with the fine adjustment) but this hasn't made any difference to the switcher not starting.

Really getting frustrated with this, could it be my PSU?

Will Switcher fail until I run Autohue?

Input 1 is considered the "Master" input that the Toaster will try to sync all other inputs to. So switching inputs on the live camera is not really surprising that it "freaked" it out. Try plugging your Camera into input 1 and a monitor into Program Out and running Autohue. But I'd really recommend doing the fine adjustment if you can.

[Pyromania]

Marchie have you downloaded the manuals and gone through them? I'm pretty sure you hook up the camera after booting the switcher. If you have a NTSC DVD player laying around it might sync to that good since it's a digital stable source. I'm just brainstorming trying to help you. I'm planning to setup a Amiga Toaster 4000 system again soon myself. Perhaps I can be more help then.

Link to manuals in case you need it.

http://www.discreetfx.com/Manuals.html

[Marchie]

I've sifted through it, the pdf is slow and difficult to negotiate though.

Will keep trying, I've seen videos that saying the VT doesn't like to mix 16-bit and 32-bit memory (which I'm doing presently). Vamp may sort that issue out...

[Marchie]

A small victory: Indivision ECS was the issue. I'm back into a world of flicker, but at least it runs reliably, ran Autohue for the first time, will accept inputs, etc.

Still don't know how to use the video side of it, but the part I do care about, Lightwave, works!

Note to new players: when you go to Amigakit and look at the Indi ECS product page and read "Video Toaster compatible" - No, no it isn't. At least not for A VT4000 card in an A2000, in my experience.

I am rather missing my VGA CRT monitor though. Guess it's time for a new thread about the best external RGB ->adapter...

[Marchie]

Another little note: when I try to jump to modeller, the system just hangs on the 'busy' pointer. The only time this doesn't happen is when I use 'Switcher.main' (as opposed to 'LWStart' or 'Toaster Start) and I just get an Arexx error, but it all works fine. No biggie, but just wondering if anyone can shed any light on that?

[Pyromania]

@Marchie

If you install a Cybervision64 in your machine it gets along with the VT4000. Then you can use one flicker free montor in 24 bit with the Cybervision64 with ImageFX for example and keep a 15Khz monitor attached to the Amiga for the Toaster. Jens has no Video Toaster 4000 cards unfortunately so never made the Invision cards work with it. That great German efficiency and standard of excellence is not Video Toaster compatible sadly. Maybe not enough of Jen's customers own the most successful video tool of all time (on Amiga)? The Video Toaster was the most successful video editing solution on the Amiga.

[idrougge]

According to Jens, the Indivision is supposed to work with genlocks, but naturally, it's not been tested with the Toaster since that was never released in Europe.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

@Marchie

If you install a Cybervision64 in your machine it gets along with the VT4000. Then you can use one flicker free montor in 24 bit with the Cybervision64 with ImageFX for example and keep a 15Khz monitor attached to the Amiga for the Toaster. Jens has no Video Toaster 4000 cards unfortunately so never made the Invision cards work with it. That great German efficiency and standard of excellence is not Video Toaster compatible sadly. Maybe not enough of Jen's customers own the most successful video tool of all time (on Amiga)? The Video Toaster was the most successful video editing solution on the Amiga.

You know I thought I had tested this with my Indivision, but I can't seem to make it work now. The Indivision is probably at fault here, there must be some way of disabling it without disassembling my A2000.

Indivision works on the A2000 with Toaster, have the Switcher up on the RGB and Indivision screens right now.