video toaster

The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of standard-definition NTSC and PAL video on personal computers. It comprises various tools for video switching, chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation.

First generation systems

The Video Toaster was designed by NewTek founder Tim Jenison in Topeka, Kansas. Engineer Brad Carvey (brother of American actor Dana Carvey) built the first wire wrap prototype, and Steve Kell wrote the software for the prototype. Many other people worked on the Toaster as it developed.

The Toaster was released as a commercial product in October 1990 for the Commodore Amiga 2000 computer system, taking advantage of the video-friendly aspects of that system's hardware to deliver the product at an unusually low cost ($1499). The Amiga was unique among personal computers in that its graphics could run at television's NTSC video frequency (15.75 KHz). The hardware component was a full-sized card which went into the Amiga's unique single video expansion slot rather than the standard bus slots, and therefore could not be used with the A500 and A1000 models. The card had several BNC connectors in the rear, which accepted four video input sources and provided two outputs (preview and program). This initial generation system was essentially a real-time four-channel video switcher. A user still needed three VTRs to perform A/B roll as the Toaster was not a non-linear editor (NLE).

One feature of the Video Toaster was the inclusion of LightWave, a 3D modeling, rendering, and animation program. This program became so popular and useful in its own right that it eventually became its own standalone product separate from the Toaster systems.

Aside from simple fades and cuts, it had a large variety of character generation, overlays, and complex animated switching effects. These effects were in large part performed with the help of the native Amiga graphics chipset which were synchronized to the NTSC video signals; the result being that while the Toaster was rendering a switching animation the computer desktop display would not be visible. The Toaster hardware also relied on having very stable input signals, and therefore was often used along with a separate video sync time base corrector to stabilize the video sources. Third-party low-cost time base correctors (TBCs) specifically designed to work with the Toaster quickly came to market, most of which were designed as standard Amiga bus cards (although they only used the bus to draw power and nothing more).

Like all video switchers that use a frame buffer to create DVEs (Digital Video Effects), the video path through the Toaster hardware introduced delays in the signals when the signal was in 'digital' mode. Depending on the video setup of the user, this delay could be quite noticeable when viewed along with the corresponding audio, and so some users installed audio delay circuits which would match the Toaster's video delay lag, as is common practice in video switching studios. There was no video delay when the Video Toaster was in 'analog' mode.

Although initially offered as just an add-on to an Amiga, it was soon available as a complete turn-key system which included the Toaster, Amiga, and sync generator. These Toaster systems became very popular, primarily because at a cost of around $5,000 US, they could do much of what a $100,000 professional video switcher could do at that time. The Toaster was also the first such video device designed around a general purpose personal computer that was capable of delivering NTSC broadcast quality signals.

As such, during the early 1990s the Toaster was used quite widely by many local television studios and was even used during The Tonight Show regularly to produce special effects for comedy skits.^{[citation needed]} It was frequently easy to detect a studio that used the Toaster by the unique and recognizable special switching effects. Also all of the external submarine shots in the TV series seaQuest DSV were created using Lightwave 3D, as were the outer space scenes in the TV series Babylon 5 (although Amiga hardware was only used for the first season).

The Video Toaster Flyer

For the second generation NewTek introduced the Video Toaster Flyer. The Flyer was a much more capable non-linear editing system. In addition to just processing live video signals, the Flyer made use of hard drives to store video clips as well as audio and allow complex scripted playback. The Flyer was capable of simultaneous dual-channel playback, which allowed the Toaster's Video switcher to perform transitions and other effects on Video clips without the need for Rendering.

The hardware component was again a card designed for the Amiga's Zorro 2 expansion slot, and was primarily designed by Charles Steinkuehler. The Flyer portion of the Video Toaster/Flyer combination was a complete computer of its own, having its own microprocessor and embedded software, which was written by Marty Flickinger. Its hardware included three embedded SCSI controllers. Two of these SCSI buses were used to store video data, and the third to store audio. The hard drives were thus connected to the Flyer directly and used a proprietary filesystem layout, rather than being connected to the Amiga's buses and were available as regular devices using the included DOS driver. The Flyer used a proprietary Wavelet compression algorithm known as VTASC, which was well regarded at the time for offering better visual quality than comparable Motion JPEG based non-linear editing systems.

Later generations

Later generations of the product run on Windows PCs. In 2004, the source code for the Amiga version was publicly released. With the additions of packages such as Millenium and thousands of wipes and backgrounds added over the years you can still find the Video Toaster system in use today in professional systems.

With the latest systems from Newtek they have again brought the full broadcast studio system to the home professional. This has angered, (much as it did in the 90's) quite a few manufacturers of high end equipment and has garnered the Newtek and Toaster name quite a bit of FUD from costlier detractors. Fact is most of you have seen the quality of these systems in action over the years through either Lightwave renderings with Star Trek TNG and Babylon-5 to SeaQuest. You've seen countless in studio created color animation wipes from shows such as Home Improvement with Tim Allen and countless News broadcasts.

The system and systems brough about by Newtek revolutionised the broadcast industry and made it available to far more people than under the old model where the equipment was so overpriced only a major studio/station could afford it.

Tune in, check the credits. You're probably watching a production assisted by Newtek products right now.

Subprograms

• ToasterCG is the character generation program inside Video Toaster.
• ToasterEdit is a video editing subprogram inside of Video Toaster.

External links

• NewTek's website for the latest version
• Flying Toasters - Article by Wired.com
• / Video Toaster at the Open Directory Project
• Open Video Toaster
• An episode of Computer Chronicles featuring the Video Toaster on the Amiga 2000

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