From: tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson)
Newsgroups: rec.video.production
Subject: Re: Near/Broadcast Quality Video!!!!!!!! etco
Date: 26 Aug 92 11:09:27 GMT
Organization: Enea Data AB

ttak@ellis.uchicago.edu (toki  takeuchi) writes:
- I am posting this for somebody:
- 
- I need to know what sort of equipment would be appropriate/best
- for near broadcast or broadcast quality video editing and
- graphics for T.V. programs in Japan.
- 
- What is currently the likely choice for a CPU is a Mac Quadra 950
- with 1.2+ Gigs of disk space, 21-inch Apple Color Monitor
- and 20 MB of RAM.  Also, maybe Video Toaster as the choice for
- video.

The most cost efficient for near broadcast quality work is an Amiga
with a good CPU accelerator card ('030 or '040) and a Toaster card.
You may use the Toaster card in the Amiga 3000 family only after some
minor hardware tweaking, I don't know how it will be with the soon-
to-be-showed-first-time-on-a-computer-fair Amiga 4000.

You will not need the Mac at all, you can do much more directly on
the Amiga.

If you *want* to work on the Mac, there are good products announced
but you never know when they will be available befor you have the
product yourself... Several have S-VHS both for input and output,
which I beleive the Toaster doesn't have.

- 
- Also being *considered* is the Silicon Graphics Indigo or Elan??
- Anyone have info on this?  Prices?  Educational discounts may
- be applicable.  (please excuse the odd sentence construction in
- the second paragraph).
- 

I'm no expert on SG machines, but I beleive that for video specific
work you would rather have a SG Crimson. It's not a cheap solution,
and software is *pricy* on SG systems. It's just that if you think
the quality of the output other systems produce is too low, SG
systems are *high* quality.

- From what I've been reading on the net, it seems like
- converting the whole tape-to-be-edited to digital format
- by importing it onto hundreds of megs worth of disk space
- is the best way to do it.  Agree?

I have not read that particular thread, but it seems like you'll need
very larg HD's even for only a short portion of the film. It seems to
add a lot of inconvenience not being able to have longer sequences
than a few seconds at a time.

- 
- What currently puzzles me about this option is playback?  Can
- a hard drive (4.1 - 20 ms access time) keep up with real-time
- playback when sending it back to the VCR?  Do you need a special
- SMPTE or any time-coded VCR for digitizing video?

The access time is almost without interest here, it's the transfer rate
that counts. I don't know if current systems can transfer the data
quick enough, but otherwise the only option is transfer of only one
frame at a time to a *real* frame-accurate industrial VCR (expensive).
Recording of Lightwave animations requires this anyway.

- 
- What software is there for the Mac?  MacroMind Director or Persuasion
- are hardly adequate for this sort of high-end stuff, no?
- 
- Now, I'm also VERY confused on what the status on the
- Macintosh VideoToaster NuBus board is.  Is it available, going to
- be available, or not going to be available?  Also, will still
- require an Amiga?  Is the Amiga included in the price, if that is the case?
- 
- Thanks a lot!  Please reply directly to ttak@midway.uchicago.edu
- 
- Kenji Takeuchi
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
-- 
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 Tommy Petersson              tope@enea.se              Enea Data AB, Sweden
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