Truth about amiga in video editing

[Amigo79]

My question is not for fanatic Amiga users.

I have the doubt,that Amiga did NOT dominated the scene of video editing.

That its not true that amiga has been heavily used for start trek,babylon 5,seaquest.

But that the use of amiga was marginal,and also that these was special cases.

I know that was Macintosh+Avid card to dominate video editing.

In the world of video editing,video toaster was only an alternative,low cost solution.
Professionals used Avid.

[hansel75]

Hi, nice trolling from a Mac fanboy, I don't really recall anyone claiming the Amiga dominated the video editing scene.

Oh and, welcome to EAB and congrats on your first post here!

[UberFreak]

So, you registered to an Amiga forum just to troll on your first post?

I worked in a few companies that did editing and subtitling in the 90's, I only saw Amigas and PCs, no Macs.

[Amigo79]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

I worked in a few companies that did editing and subtitling in the 90's, I only saw Amigas and PCs, no Macs.

Thanks.
But the history of video editing says Avid was the first non linear video editor and that dominated.

[Amigo79]

Originally Posted by hansel75

Hi, nice trolling from a Mac fanboy, I don't really recall anyone claiming the Amiga dominated the video editing scene.

Oh and, welcome to EAB and congrats on your first post here!

I was an Amiga fan.
I remember other fan and magazines speak about how amiga was a leader in video editing,thanks to the video toaster,star trek,babylon5,sea quest...

Then I discovered about avid,and amiga video editing myth for me ended.

[Amigo79]

I dont want open another thread,so I will say here that also is not true amiga dominated in graphics.

Professionals used the macintosh2,with 256 colors.

In 1987 amiga myth was already ended.

Amiga never dominated in games,with the pcengine with TRUE 64colors lots of sprites and also 256 colors eventually.

The amiga 4096 colors was a commercial trick.

[Foebane]

What IS this Amigo79 guy smoking? Is it Spice? He sure sounds like a zombie!

[Daedalus]

Nah, just a troll. Probably a disgruntled ST user dealing with his 30-year-old bout of jealousy

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Amigo79

I dont want open another thread,so I will say here that also is not true amiga dominated in graphics.

Professionals used the macintosh2,with 256 colors.

In 1987 amiga myth was already ended.

Amiga never dominated in games,with the pcengine with TRUE 64colors lots of sprites and also 256 colors eventually.

The amiga 4096 colors was a commercial trick.

The Amiga DID dominate in graphics. At least for a while.

When did this 256 colours Mac come out?

What "Amiga myth"?

And how many UK gamers had access to the JAPANESE PC Engine? Don't be illogical.

What do you mean by "commercial trick"?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Amigo79

My question is not for fanatic Amiga users.

I have the doubt,that Amiga did NOT dominated the scene of video editing.

That is not actually a question, but a statement. Assuming you meant to ask: did the Amiga dominate the video editing scene?

The answer is probably yes. And no. Depending on what part of the market you look at.

In Hollywood productions, probably not. In local cable companies and for effects work on TV series, probably yes.

That its not true that amiga has been heavily used for start trek,babylon 5,seaquest.

But that the use of amiga was marginal,and also that these was special cases.

Well, your beliefs are wrong.

Seriously, I could write a massive post detailing all the stuff you can simply find by a Google search or two as well as dive deep into computer history and look up all the stuff in books and magazines, but it's hardly worth it - you could've done most of that yourself but instead came here to challenge common wisdom based on your beliefs (and/or desires) instead.

The use of the Amiga in professional video (and even some movie) productions is well documented and if you don't like this or don't want to believe it, well - you're entitled to that.

Just understand that your belief doesn't change the facts

I know that was Macintosh+Avid card to dominate video editing.

In the world of video editing,video toaster was only an alternative,low cost solution.
Professionals used Avid.

As far as I've been able to find using Google, the avid community forums and Wikipedia, Avid was initially not so succesful and only became successful in 1994-1995 after releasing newer, more capable hard and software.

In other words, the rise of Avid happened after Commodore went under, there where no more Amiga's to buy and as a result the Video Toaster and related products likewise were harder to sell for a while (NewTek only went over to the PC after 1994/1995).

Also, the Amiga/Toaster 'video revolution' was mostly centred around broadcast TV and stuff meant for broadcast TV. Avid's rise to fame seems to be centred around movies. Which is a completely different market.

So... Even if your story is fully true (which I have not been able to corroborate completely during my admittedly short research), it all happened after the Amiga had already faded from the marketplace and in a market that had little to do with the one the Amiga/Video Toaster was used to begin with.

[Amigo79]

thanks for your complete post,roondar

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Amigo79

My question is not for fanatic Amiga users.

I have the doubt,that Amiga did NOT dominated the scene of video editing.

That its not true that amiga has been heavily used for start trek,babylon 5,seaquest.

But that the use of amiga was marginal,and also that these was special cases.

I know that was Macintosh+Avid card to dominate video editing.

In the world of video editing,video toaster was only an alternative,low cost solution.
Professionals used Avid.

Interesting post, but completely wrong.

Not only was the Amiga in standard guise used in many local TV stations, with the addition of the Video Toaster, it was responsible for pre-production work (storyboarding) on a few movies, and used extensively on expensive TV shows like Babylon 5, Seaquest DSV as well as a lot of others.

Quite simply, without the Amiga and the Video Toaster, those shows would never have gotten off the ground......no Amiga, no Video Toaster.

Your revisionist history convinces no-one, especially as the history and a small repository called GOOGLE shows you to be explicitly WRONG.

What a curious way to announce yourself to a forum, make a post with a load of claims that are easily refutable by a cursory use of Google.

You may want to consider not joining other forums if this is how you conduct yourself, its not a great way to stumble through life.

So you think the Amiga had no impact on DTV........ the reality says otherwise.

[trixster]

Lol. Schooled.

[kolla]

Cool to register how all the people who have answered here come from countries where Video Toasters would be quite useless, as it was tied to NTSC - it was pretty much a product solely for the US market. I would argue that LightWave had much more impact than VT had, and though LW modeller on Amiga was used for some production of initial episodes of Bab5 and SeaQuest (and various others), it was just for a very short time - NewTek released MIPS based VT Screamer in 1993 which blew Amiga VT4000 out of the water ten times over and more. A fun thing is that the later Amiga versions of LW supported screamernet which offloaded rendering to other, much more capable systems. For example Sun/Solaris based render farms.

Amiga was used _much_ more for genlocking and overlaying text and graphics on top of video, something it could do in both NTSC and PAL. I am would not at all be surprised if SCALA Amiga system were outselling VideoToaster systems with a large margin.

[trixster]

Wasn’t the Screamer ditched very quickly, with only a few dev systems made?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by kolla

Cool to register how all the people who have answered here come from countries where Video Toasters would be quite useless, as it was tied to NTSC - it was pretty much a product solely for the US market. I would argue that LightWave had much more impact than VT had, and though LW modeller on Amiga was used for some production of initial episodes of Bab5 and SeaQuest (and various others), it was just for a very short time - NewTek released MIPS based VT Screamer in 1993 which blew Amiga VT4000 out of the water ten times over and more. A fun thing is that the later Amiga versions of LW supported screamernet which offloaded rendering to other, much more capable systems. For example Sun/Solaris based render farms.

Amiga was used _much_ more for genlocking and overlaying text and graphics on top of video, something it could do in both NTSC and PAL. I am would not at all be surprised if SCALA Amiga system were outselling VideoToaster systems with a large margin.

Thats pretty much the most useless response ever.

So because im from the UK I cant comment on a FACT because Video Toaster wasnt on general release here, THE IRONY that you're from Norway means I shouldn't take one bit of notice of your reponse

Lightwave was TIED to the Video Toaster and Amiga in the early years, you couldnt use one without the other, so your argument again lacks substance.

It also doesnt matter how short a time the Amiga and Video Toaster was used for those TV series, they were commissioned based on the fact that setup costs using the Amiga and VT were considerably cheaper than rival "professional" systems.

As the series became more popular and required more VFX work, then the budgets were expanded to use better hardware that could render quicker. No one is claiming the Amiga was used throughout the entire run of those TV shows, but the fact remains, Amiga and VT were instrumental in those TV series becoming a reality.

This is a fact, or can I not comment because i'm not American?

And I would hope the Screamer was more powerful than the 4000 Toaster, it was 4 times the price ffs.

Context....get some

[toples50]

Originally Posted by Amigo79

I dont want open another thread,so I will say here that also is not true amiga dominated in graphics.

Professionals used the macintosh2,with 256 colors.

In 1987 amiga myth was already ended.

Amiga never dominated in games,with the pcengine with TRUE 64colors lots of sprites and also 256 colors eventually.

The amiga 4096 colors was a commercial trick.

Go and read Desktop Video World magazine (first issues)to see who dominated the video.

[idrougge]

Why is everyone so quick to blame Amigo79 for trolling instead of either replying factually or just shutting up?

The truth is that non-linear editing really wasn't a thing until the mid-nineties. The Toaster was released in the late eighties and served its purpose for many years. Consider the price of one gigabyte of storage in the early nineties and you understand why non-linear editing was only useful in Hollywood-class environments or in conjunction with linear editing, with non-linear editing used to splice together very short clips before registering them (linearly) on tape.

[grelbfarlk]

Ok, I'll bite since no one seems to know the answer. The Newtek Flyer was needed for nonlinear editing. The Flyer was a combination HDD controller, Video/Audio Capture device that connected directly to the Toaster. You connected drives directly to the Flyer. You typically needed a minimum of two drives, one for Video1 and one for Video2. Three was the recommended configuration so you would have, say drive1 for Video A, drive2 for Video B, and drive3 for Sound. It was a very elegant and polished solution for Amigas.

The nice part was that many, many people already had Toasters and if they wanted to switch up to Nonlinear editing they just had to buy a Flyer and some very expensive SCSI drives to go with it. Now yeah you could buy Avid systems or whatever but the fact was that many people already had thousands of dollars invested in their Toaster systems already. In fact the Toaster was already so dominant and Mac folks were so jealous of it, that Newtek rebranded A2000s and sold them as sort of a remote workstation to be controlled from the Mac so you could pretend you were using a Mac when the Amiga was actually doing the work.


Also Screamers or Screamernet, this was sort of a platform agnostic way of splitting up the rendering load between either other Amigas running Screamernet, that MIPS (?) based Screamer machine or an NT machine. It worked pretty well but the individual nodes in the Screamernet would just render separate frames. So you might have Amiga A rendering frame 1, Screamer machine rendering frame 2, Screamer Machine rendering frame 3. When a frame was done then whatever machine was ready to work on the next needed frame would do so.

You also had the DPS PAR which came before as I recall, that was really only good for stop frame animation and perhaps playing back a broadcast quality animation or a short clip to be mixed into a live broadcast with a Toaster. Or mixing that clip with other video sources (switching) and recording out to tape.

[hansel75]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Why is everyone so quick to blame Amigo79 for trolling instead of either replying factually or just shutting up?

Probably because Amigo69 has come into an Amiga group and not introduced himself properly, and has come across a little rude to our community with his abrupt first post.

Also stating things like "I was an Amiga fan" gives the feeling he is not an Amiga fan anymore, so why join an Amiga group to post Anti Amiga statements then?, unless he is trolling that is.

Then he posts things like "I know that was Macintosh+Avid card to dominate video editing", and "Amiga did NOT dominated the scene of video editing" without any facts/links whatsoever to backup his claims!

He is either trolling or is simply clueless, and maybe next time he should be a little more subtle about things and start of with introducing himself first.