Anyone remember VideoTracker?

[Paul]

This demo making software came from a CU Amiga mag.

Have a look at the demo I quickly compiled with a mod I found. It is best to use WinFellow.

[Tim Janssen]

Of course I know that program. It is one of those weird but wonderful multi-media programs on Amiga. You could add texts to homevideos you made. Other than that it had little other purposes I think. - But maybe I am wrong.

Do you remember Hyperbook? This program also came with a CU Amiga coverdisc. Nowadays I regard this program as the great grandfather of Mickeysoft's Frontpage and HTML in general. Add some pictures, text and buttons on multiple pages, Et Voila: You have created your own Hyperbook/ homepage!
- Wonderful.

[Amiga1992]

It had many more purposes. I found it at Mr Dig's site, and it's terrific! You really can make demo effects....

Does anyone know where to get extra effect "plugins" for the program? I wish to use it in my multimedia showcases at clubs (would work a treat alongside Flash stuff I make

[Paul]

Akira You could try this address http://vca.myweb.nl/vtindex.htm

If you want all the effect plugins from the (v1.42) disk, install the program to hard disk. There are more effects in the lha file, which is automatically decompressed when the install script runs.

Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

[Amiga1992]

Yep, I did that. But I read in the docs there were many more available, or something like that.

Thanks for the URL ayway, seems useful

[Paul]

Akira

The address I gave you does include extra effect "plugins" for the program. I found this out when I dloaded some of the sample videos and decompressed them. The sample videos include new effect "plugins", anims, pics, brushes etc. which are not included with the VT Disk. When I looked at the docs the files where the same.

Try these samples.

21/7/01

After looking at the files I dloaded, the demos did not include as many extra effect "plugins" as I 1st thought. If anyone can show us where to get more, me and Akira, then post here. Thanks.

[otro]

i tested videotracker demo last night and just seemed to be a kick ass software !! i love it
Do u all got the cd-rom version with the manga girl on the cover?
i'm waiting for my copy which should arrive soon D

[kriz]

Sorry for old thread ..

Anyway:

ftp://ftp.back2roots.org/pub/back2ro...v20/readme.htm

Anyone can share this one ? Its allowed to share it....

[kriz]

hehe Found it myself:

http://www.back2roots.org/CDs/Tools/

[Galatran]

Originally Posted by Tim Janssen

Of course I know that program. It is one of those weird but wonderful multi-media programs on Amiga. You could add texts to homevideos you made. Other than that it had little other purposes I think. - But maybe I am wrong.

I think you mean Videotitler!!!

Originally Posted by Tim Janssen

Do you remember Hyperbook?

Yes, but not very happily

Once it became routine to use computer file systems to store and access disparate material, my friends and I wished to move beyond directory structures to some kind of embedded content-based file access system, although we had no idea that such a thing might already have a name. Our circle of friends sometimes discussed how this might be implemented, as (for instance) clicking a city name on a map might open the map file for that city, and so on. We imagined that such a mechanism might be a fairly obvious and widespread desire among computer users.

I had begun programming “embedded file launchers” in C, and was just getting bogged down in the complexity of pointers to functions when a new Amiga product came to my attention.

I don’t recall the magazine that reviewed Hyperbook for the Amiga, nor do I remember any awareness of its Macintosh origins, but on reading the product review, I realized that this was what we had been looking for and what I had been struggling to create!

I immediately rushed out and bought it, and worked with it for a few weeks or a month, but ran into a number of very frustrating challenges. It had a good sized manual which documented the scripting language, but the manual was simply inaccurate. Here’s an example (not an actual example, but a notional example muted by the passage of time).

In C, if you want to understand how to print “Hello World,” you might find this example in your manual:

#include
main()
{
printf(“Hello World”);
}

A decent manual would also explain how to compile and run this snippet to magically render a cheery “Hello World” on your standard in/out device.

But what if your manual’s example omitted the quotes, or the semicolon, or the #include statement, or the parentheses? Although you typed in the examples EXACTLY as they appeared in the manual, what would you do when it bombed in compilation or execution? You might try to isolate the offending snippet and recompile it alone. If that failed, you’d probably look through other examples in the manual and try to guess what was missing. Then you’d begin the trial and error process to understand the failure. Was the string encapsulated improperly? Did it require quotes? Did it require parentheses? Was the manual’s example snippet improperly terminated? etc. Eventually through a variety of research and guessing, you’d get lucky and get that snippet to function. Then you’d move on to the next challenge.

This happened over and over.

Despite it’s absolutely amazing promise, that Amiga product was simply not ready for release. I went back and re-read that magazine review, and in retrospect it had subtly hinted that sometimes using it seemed like trying to guess how to rub the lamp to make the genie emerge. Somehow I’d missed the import of that one one sentence buried in a few pages of glowing review.

In the end, the guessing games were just too much, so a few days before the return interval had expired, I uninstalled it, packaged it all back up, and returned to the shop where I’d bought it. There I learned that opened software packages were not returnable. Fortunately for me, there was another customer standing at the check-out counter, ready to purchase a brand new Amiga Hyperbook package! I explained the challenges I was facing and why I wouldn’t recommend it, but if he really, really wanted to buy it, I’d sell him mine for half the price — $150 vs the $300 it had cost me. He jumped on the opportunity! I never learned how it worked out for him, but imagine that, despite my full disclosure, ultimately each of us were out $150 bucks apiece.

This experience very typically and powerfully illustrates the challenges faced by Amiga adopters. Once we had expended our resources and hitched our cart to a horse, of course we wanted that horse to have a fairly decent run. The Amiga had so much promise, and although much of it’s potential was realized, ultimately, it’s long term potential was squandered. While the Hyperbook experience was probably not a reflection on Commodore leadership and execution, it was very typical of the bumpy Amiga experience, ultimately culminating in the purchase of an IBM-compatible once the PC’s capabilities had so clearly bypassed those of the Amiga.

So, here I am, a grumpy old curmudgeon, still relieving disappointments that most had moved beyond back when the dinosaurs still ruled the Earth. For some of us, the echoes of history continue to resonate long past any relevance.