From: glurp@otago.ac.nz
Newsgroups: nz.comp
Subject: DO DA Coruba
Date: 19 Dec 92 03:30:34 +1300
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

>>> Reprinted without permission:


                           DIGITAL EDITMASTER
                        Non-linear Editing System


"The Digital EditMaster system and a Commodore Amiga is a complete,
professional quality, digital video editing suite for under $5000."

               *  Full-motion JPEG Technology

               *  Real-time 30fps Video Capture

               *  Real-time Video Display & Recording

               *  Frame-by-frame Recording

               *  Full Screen Non-linear Editing
 
               *  SMPTE Time Code Read & Write


The Digital EditMaster ($2495 list) system from Digital Micronics, Inc.
(DMI) allows you to edit and produce professional quality video productions
on Commodore Amiga computers.  It lets you capture in real time full-screen
NTSC, PAL and SVHS video to a standard Amiga hard drive at 30 fps (25 in
PAL), edit your production and then output the final results in real-time
to a standard video tape recorder.



NON-LINEAR EDITING SOFTWARE -- Stored video segments can be edited,
modified and played back to tape.  DMI's Digital EditMaster software allows
instant access to any number of video segments strored on the hard drive,
giving complete creative freedom and flexibility to the editor.


THE DMI BUS -- Supports the DMI 32-bit pixel bus which allows direct 32-bit
connectivity with DMI's Vivid 24 (tm) graphics co-processor.  [100,000
Shaded Polygons Per Second, 160 MFLOPS (an SGI Indigo does 4.2 MFLOPS for
comparison), 24-bit Color Gfx, 8-bit Alpha Channel, 2048 X 2048 interlaced
resolution or 1280 X 1024 non-interlaced resolution, real-time simulations]


AUDIO -- The Digital EditMaster and SunRize Industry sound boards are fully
integrated using SMPTE time code for simultaneous digitizing and editing of
both audio and video tracks.


SPECIAL EFFECTS -- Version 1.0 [boy, this is bran new] includes basic cut
and paste capabilities and the abiliy to playback video and frame-by-frame
animation in real-time.  The next version includes A/B roll, simple wipes,
fades, etc.  As the software matures, more and more features will be added
so you defintly want to register your board.  Software upgrades will be
free during the initial stages of development. [This board, being
inexpesive, will probably also attract the support of current Amiga
software companies as well as other third parties so all kinds of software
and support will probably soon be available.]


COMPARISONS TO OTHER SYSTEMS (Avid, Emc2, DigitalFilm, etc.) -- First, the
Digital EditMaster system takes advantage of the incredible speed of the
Amiga bus (33 MB per second) which is not available on other desktop
platforms.  This allows video to be digitized *into* the system using a
very low compression ratio.  This is a distinct advantage over digital
editing systems on other platforms.  Second, the Digital EditMaster system
uses the full motion JPEG chipset from LSI Logic.  The LSI chipset operates
internally at a 4:2:2 digital resolution of 720 X 486.  Other products
which use C-Cubed JPEG chips, generally digitize the video signal at much
lower pixel resolution, as low as 320 X 200.  The high resolution and low
compression ratio of this system make it possible for the Digital
EditMaster to output edited video at Betacam quality.

VIDEO QUALITY -- There have been many articles written describing how JPEG
compression affects video quality.  One such article states that between
5:1 and 10:1 compares to Betacam, 15:1 is considered "visually lossless"
and compares to 3/4 inch, and 25:1 compares to VHS.  [Compression ratios
are selectable from 15:1 to 70:1]



                           Seconds of Video

        compression   15:1     25:1     50:1    100:1


100 MB drive          100       166     333     666

500 MB drive          250       416     833     1666

1 Gig drive           500       833     1666    3333

2 Gig drive           1000      1666    3333    6666


note 1000 sec = ~17 min



For more information:


                          Digital Micronics, Inc
                          2075 Corte del Nogal, Suite N
                          Carlsbad, CA 92009
                   
                          (619) 931-8554    (619) 931-8516 fax
                                 
>>> End of reprinting without permission

To my mind this board goes some way towards avoiding paying for a horrendously
expensive single frame capable VTR. They probably need lower compression
ratios for professional use. Note however that the Ampex DCT digital video
tape only uses 2 : 1 compression ratio and you can do a playback/record loop
for 10 generations at least before noticing image degradation, so maybe 15 : 1
is O.K. , I guess it depends largely on the quality of the original
quantisation.

Actually, the above argument about compression ratios doesn't hold
together at all well, so if you think it's a load of proverbial then
just ignore it. {moderators note: insane ramblings by poster.}

To Alastair; There are a lot more cheap and nice (but slow) 3d rendering
packages out on the amiga now, but the two nice fast packages are still
Calagari at US$2000 and LightWave3D at $US2000 (hey you get a free video
toaster if you want to do NTSC included in that price :)
An Amiga 4000 with 64meg of memory can probably do quite a few 
strawberries/week.

For noncompressed video:
I seem to recall that to do realtime 50 fields per second 24 bit animation
at reasonable resolution you need >40 megabytes per second data transfer
rate to display ram, something that very few workstations, and NO personal
computer can do.

Back to the Amiga:
(I'd rather an HP755 but the Amiga was slightly cheaper) The Amiga's main
claim to fame for video related work, seems to be that it has a lot of
cheap, high quality (low end professional) video hardware. In the US you
have the Newtek Video Toaster, which is a complete 24bit framestore, 4
input video switcher, DVE generator, genlock, 3D rendering 'workstation'
that only requires the addition of an Amiga 2000, a couple of Time Base
Correctors, and a VTR or 3 to set up a minimalist editing studio.

In the rest of the world you have the OpalVision card from Australia which
when you snap on the DVE chip, genlock, framegrabber, and dual input
switcher modules does the same thing more or less. You don't get any 3D
rendering software for this though.

Actually I would quite like to put an OpalVision board, the DMI compression
board, Caligari Broadcast 2.0, a 1.2 gigabyte hard drive, a 64megabyte 
Zorro III (love that name) ram board, and a 16 bit audio card from SunRise
industries in an Amiga 4000 and see how that worked as a cheap
animation/editing system. Cost is about US$15000 without VTR.


All comments/flames welcomed. I have my asbestos suit at the ready. Please
note that I am not a religious Amiga fanatic, so you can talk to me
sensibly on various topics without being flamed.

 - Graham

Newsgroups: nz.comp