Video editing - some advice please!!

@selco

I must admit that i was a little bit "out" in that forum.
Sometimes the mind sticks into my job, I completely forgot that the machine will be used for home projects.
There is no need for fast work, so no real-time editing is needed.
The projet will be presented in a family / friend audience, so broadcast quality is out of the question.

In this case I surely agree with DraCo!

Sorry if I missled you.

Amiga regards

so now it's a

'M-JPEG sucks!' .v. 'DRACO ROCKS" argument...

ok first motion Jpeg does not 'suck' as you happen to think... film resolution movies are editied on avid hardware on motion jpeg(e.g Blade2)...I dunno if your trying to say that some slow-trash amiga format is better but if you are thats laughable.

draco ... pathetic... slow-obselete and EXTREMELY expensive hardware... it was obselete the day it was made..
the cpu is a MAJOR limit and dont let anyone kid you otherwise...
anyone who trys to con you into buying a draco over a modern editing system is either a shyster or an idiot.

If you got the kind of money to spend to buy a draco... a VT2 should be within your price-range...and a VT2 will utterly urinate upon a draco machine in every possible way.

heck a Targa 2000+Speed Razor 4.7+NT 4.0+firewire I/O  is MUCH more capable and flexable then any draco.

[Jule]

mips_procs seems to be down on the old Amiga systems.  I cannot comment on the Draco but I will come back on his comments about the toaster-flyer.  A fully outfitted Toaster Flyer does not come anywhere near the cost of a new VT2.  There is one such system for sale on this site right now for 2000.  Furthermore, the lightwave that you get with the VT2 is not a full version of lightwave and in my opinion is far inferior to the lightwave 5.0 you get with the toaster-flyer.  You do no need a vhs system to get the signal into the toaster flyer - I feed the composite signal from my Sony VX-2000 mini DV camcorder directly into the Flyer with no need for tbc or any other equiptment getting in the way.  The signal quality is great.  The editing is very fast.  The processor speed is irrelevant except when rendering in lighwave, in which case you can network the Amiga to your pc using screamer net and use the faster processor power of the pc; or you can just let it render overnight while you sleep.  For basic editing I do not believe there is anything faster on any platform.  I have a video for sale that I made last year on my system.  You can order it on my website at www.drjule.com if you want to check the quality.  Again, once I had all the clips arranged it took less than 5mins to "render" an hours worth of video and begin playing it back to be recorded to mini-dv.  Jule

VT2 is not a full version of lightwave and in my opinion is far inferior to the lightwave 5.0 you get with the toaster-flyer

ok in what way (if any) is Lightwave 5.0 inferior to Lightwave Express?

Lightwave Express is just like Lightwave 6.0 except it has FX Monkey....it's got 'OpenGL acceleration' and it 'runs on modern hardware'  meaning it can render more then 3 frames a day.

The processor speed is irrelevant except when rendering in lighwave, in which case you can network the Amiga to your pc using screamer net and use the faster processor power of the pc

ohhh so your going to claim for editing with the flyer that the Amiga is on par with PC's ?

For basic editing I do not believe there is anything faster on any platform.

VT2 is 'non-linear' 'umcompressed' and 'real time' ... I dont think I need to say more then that... go search those terms as they pertain to video.

A fully outfitted Toaster Flyer does not come anywhere near the cost of a new VT2.

ok lets compare prices.

Video Monitor =600$ easily
Amiga Monitor=145$(for a 15")
64MB of EDO is about 100$
A4000D is going to run you about 600$ off ebay and about 1400$ from a reputable amiga dealer (in that case it would be an A4000T not a D)
Video Toaster 'Flyer'  is 700$
Video Toaster 4000 is 450$
a video card for the Amiga about 80$
a 3 gig IDE disk for the Amiga itself? will assume the Amiga comes with one.
4 Scsi2 5gig drives for video will run you about 100$ maybe more depending.
An 060/PPC accelerator for the Amiga assumeing you want one?... well thats gonna cost you 1000$

3775$ total... not counting the fact that you may or may not need decks depending on if you want to use the amiga for AB roll editing.

A VT2 is 2500$+ a system to run it and some disks.

I ran my VT2 on a P4 2ghz 2GB of ram.. with a SCSI2 controller... granted I spent about 5000$ total on my system+ my VT2... my edit system was much more capable all around for editing...

Why would anyone want to logically go out and buy 10 year old editing hardware and spend almost the same ammount of money?.

If I 'HAD" to id of spent much less... as I could now go for the same system at a much lower cost and also use IDE drives with my VT2 instead of SCSI.

The Amiga as a video editing solution is slow and non versitile and anyone who push's amiga on someone asking a legit question like that is just wrong to tell them to go and spend such a high ammount of money on an obselete solution like that.

If the Amiga+VT+Flyer all total where say 400$ or so I'd say go for it...but it's not.

Adobe Premiere and a PC with a single IDE video drive offers greater editing capabilities.

and you can get that for much less.

[Tigger]

Jule wrote:
A fully outfitted Toaster Flyer does not come anywhere near the cost of a new VT2.  There is one such system for sale on this site right now for 2000.  Furthermore, the lightwave that you get with the VT2 is not a full version of lightwave and in my opinion is far inferior to the lightwave 5.0 you get with the toaster-flyer.  You do no need a vhs system to get the signal into the toaster flyer - I feed the composite signal from my Sony VX-2000 mini DV camcorder directly into the Flyer with no need for tbc or any other equiptment getting in the way.  The signal quality is great.  The editing is very fast.  The processor speed is irrelevant except when rendering in lighwave, in which case you can network the Amiga to your pc using screamer net and use the faster processor power of the pc; or you can just let it render overnight while you sleep.  For basic editing I do not believe there is anything faster on any platform.  Again, once I had all the clips arranged it took less than 5mins to "render" an hours worth of video and begin playing it back to be recorded to mini-dv.

This isn't just to Jule, but I quoted his message since it made comments about several things that needed to get cleared on both sides.  

1) MJPEG  -  Until just 5 years ago almost every NLE used MJPEG, on the Amiga either the Draco or a Digital Broadcaster had equal quality to the high end AVID system.

2) Flyer quality - with a clean signal especially from a DV camera, HQ5 mode is only a 2.5 compression and give a lossless compression in many cases, its editor (duplicated and improved in VT2) is frankly amazingly fast to edit with.   Also the flyer technically isnt rendering when you push play, its copying pieces of clips to alternate chains to allow a smooth playback through the toaster.   It renders if you use RenderFX(though really quickly) , it renders if you use lightwave or ImageFX too.

3) VT2 (and for that matter VT3 announced today) has the ability to do uncompressed video along with dozens of compressed formats of video all mixed up together, it also does D1 video, which is technically better then the D2 be get with the Flyer.   However the VT2 card is 2000, and the you need a P4 for it to make its home in.   However the VT2 & 3  are also dual standard so NTSC/PAL doesnt matter, the Flyer is only an NTSC device, so our friend in Sweden probably doesnt want to use it.
     -Tig
PS I am going to be selling my very nice Flyer system in the next few weeks, if you want the system that RenderFX and Promix were written on, look for my post or email me in the next few weeks.  

[Madgun68]

@mips

I know I'm nitpicking, but the prices you quote for an Amiga system are too high.

Amiga Monitor - Check a thrift store. I had 5 of them at one point, and paid no more than $10 for any of them.

4000D - $200, maybe a little more. For $600, it should have a toaster already in it.

I picked up a 4000D with a CyberstormPPC accelerator + extras for over a grand less than the figures you're quoting.

Granted, the prices of equipment can still be high to a lot of people, but if a person is happy with the equipment and the cost, why not?

[Jule]

I want to echo echo madgun68's statement that @mips price quotes are way too high.  Again, I refer @mips to the ad by Thomas Bisso on this web site right now (ad 127) for a fully outfitted Amiga Toaster Flyer system with hard drive space for 2 hours of video at HQ5 (basically beta SP quality) and many hours of audio.  It has everything needed including a good tbc for someone using an analog camcorder.  The $2000 covers it all.  There is no pc system, or mac system, that can do what that flyer system can do at twice that cost.  And you can find full Toaster flyer systems for less than that on ebay.  The going rate these days for full systems (Amiga 4000, Toaster board, Flyer board, some hard drives) is about $1500, and sometimes less.  The system for sale on this site has some more ammenities, but my guess is that it ultimately will go for less than what is currently being asked.  The VT2 board alone costs more than the full Flyer system, computer, video boards, and harddrives included.  Jule

[Tigger]

The $2000 covers it all. There is no pc system, or mac system, that can do what that flyer system can do at twice that cost.

I am going to disagree here.  First of all VT2 does everything that the Flyer does.   I have both of them plus my mac editor (and until recently a digital broadcaster) in my edit suite, and the new toaster will do everything a flyer will do.   In addition,  a P4 computer for a home for a VT2 will not cost you $2000, I probably have less then half that spent on mine.   So a VT2 system more expensive then a flyer system??  Probably so, over 4K as you were saying?? No way.   In addition, I did the last Lightwave 5.0 tapes available, so I am pretty familiar with the program, and I cant think of anything in 5.0 that isnt in Lightwave Express (which is bundled with the new Toaster).
    -Tig  

The $2000 covers it all. There is no pc system, or mac system, that can do what that flyer system can do at twice that cost

A PC from 1998 with a Targa 2000 and Adobe Premiere 5.1 can be gotten for like what? 600$ off ebay? it'll stomp the ancient amiga toaster editor in every possible way except maybe that it cant do live switching but who cares?... thats one lame feature.

I setup my entire PC VT2 machine for around 5K ...and it's a world away from an Amiga 4000 in terms of raw power and editing capabilities...
Aura 2.5b/Lightwave Express/Speed RazorSE/Toaster Edit... it's gotten better in just about every possible way...and it's a WORLD away... OpenGL accelerated modelling... non-linear/realtime/uncompressed editing.

The toaster was a 4 input switcher for AB roll editing and live switching... it has Lightwave tagged on for the ride and they hacked it into a comparatively pathetic NLE with the flyer ...

You wont get the uncompressed quality... you wont get the stability... you wont get the speed... and you definitly wont get the power...

Tigger I agree entirely... but I think it should be noted how much cheaper you can 'match' that 2000 for.. for 600$ you can snag a cheap old edit rig off ebay that will do more just by the token that its a compress-NLE ... granted you will need to render effects but so what? .. a targa or a dps par arent garbage when compared to a VT classic... at least not in my opinon.

about LW Express .v. LW 5.0... I agree completely but you can also mention the things that LW Express has that LW 5.0 did not have.

for example... you can record strokes in Aura and then export them as a motion path to  Lightwave Express and add a null to it and then add an emitter and have particles emit from the stroke path in 3D and  also FXMonkey for doing quick and dirty logo's...and also the EPS Loader I dunno if Amiga had that but I doubt it since illustrator wasnt on the Amiga.
Then you have the OpenGL acceleration of modern Lightwave.
I see them as bieng worlds away... I have LW 5.0 on an old octane box here (just a hobby machine) and there is no comparison of LW 5.0 to 7.5... I dont have my VT2 anymore so I cant compare LW Express but I can compare these.


BTW:  Tig did you check out Aura 2.5b I just started to UVMap with the new Lightwave preview addition ... its pretty badass..

[Tigger]

mips_proc wrote:

BTW:  Tig did you check out Aura 2.5b I just started to UVMap with the new Lightwave preview addition ... its pretty badass..

Yeah the only problem is I have to stop rendering effects to play with Lightwave and UVMapping, might need to build a new Lightwave RenderFarm if this keeps up  , or may just build a whole new computer for VT3, eager to go see it in April.
   -Tig

[Damion]

I really don't know much about editing, and even
I can tell you that for the price of a loaded 4000
you could probably get 2 PC systems that would
waste it...$1000 for a PPC accelerator is about
right, even just the '060 for the 4000
is like $600-700.

Don't get me wrong, the 4000 or Draco is
an excellent hobby system for somebody who's
 into retro - editing, but I would never
recommend them to anyone for their main
system, especially if you're trying to
create proffessional, up - to - date
 projects.

[Jule]

Ok guys, one last try.  First, I am not objecting to the VT2 perse, though I wish it ran on Linux.  However, I am perturbed at mips cavilier statements about how inferior the Amiga video editing systems are, when it is seems clear to me he is not familiar with them.  The second issue is the prices discussed.  I am on the Amiga section of ebay every day and I know what complete Flyer videoediting systems go for - about $1500.  Now what about the VT2.  Newtek will sell the VT2 package sans computer or drives for a mere $2995.  I understand that some other companies might have deals that drop that down to $2500 from time to time, but a cursory search of the internet did not find any today.  But let me err on the side of Tigger and Mipps and assume 2500.  Next, there is the pc.  If you want a pc that fits Newtek's basic recommendations it seems to me it will cost about 2000.  Tigger says about half that for his computer.  Let's compromise and say 1500.  Ok, thats 4000 right there and that does not include video drives.  In order for the VT2 to really outdo the Flyer on basic editing it requires a raid 0 stripped array and a hard drive controller capable of dealing with that.  I'll let Mips and Tigger tell me how much that costs, but I am sure it is not small change.  I am guessing that $500 would barely get you in the door.  That's $4500 vs $1500, or $3000 difference.  I tell you what, you guys give me the 3k and I will get the VT2 and we can end this debate.  Or I can keep going on editing on a system that is not only effective and fast, but is a special pleasure to use because it is on my favorite computer, running my favorite operating system.  And with that, I think I will bow out.  Jule  

[Tigger]

Jule wrote:
The second issue is the prices discussed.  I am on the Amiga section of ebay every day and I know what complete Flyer videoediting systems go for - about $1500.  Now what about the VT2.  Newtek will sell the VT2 package sans computer or drives for a mere $2995.  I understand that some other companies might have deals that drop that down to $2500 from time to time, but a cursory search of the internet did not find any today.  But let me err on the side of Tigger and Mipps and assume 2500.  

First of all you are comparing a used system to a new from the dealer, a used Amiga Video Toaster to the new price of a VT2, the VT2 prices on Ebay are lower then from a dealer and I found dealer prices at $1895.     Most dealers had then at $1995 until a few days ago when they increased to $2495, but are including for free the VT3 upgrade.

Next, there is the pc.  If you want a pc that fits Newtek's basic recommendations it seems to me it will cost about 2000.  Tigger says about half that for his computer.  Let's compromise and say 1500.  Ok, thats 4000 right there and that does not include video drives.  In order for the VT2 to really outdo the Flyer on basic editing it requires a raid 0 stripped array and a hard drive controller capable of dealing with that.  I'll let Mips and Tigger tell me how much that costs, but I am sure it is not small change.  I am guessing that $500 would barely get you in the door.  That's $4500 vs $1500, or $3000 difference.  I tell you what, you guys give me the 3k and I will get the VT2 and we can end this debate.  Or I can keep going on editing on a system that is not only effective and fast, but is a special pleasure to use because it is on my favorite computer, running my favorite operating system.  

My motherboard was $150, my processor $150, my
memory $150, Video card is $100, $200 for drives.   Thats $750, the Raid controller was on my motherboard or it would have been much cheaper.  Thats 2 hours of uncompressed (or 12 hours of DV footage) for the the system.   I dont think $750 is that much more expensive then a 4000 with a PPC or 060 card especially a tower configuration, and its alot more computer, its definitely not costing twice as much as the 4000 right??   So the difference here is the Newtek products.   Old Toaster+Flyer+TBC4+WF/FS+Flyer Drives to get you in the same ballpark as VT2, can you get that alot cheaper then $1895???   Maybe, do you often find that for less the 1/2 that number?? No.   The flyer was great editor in its time (understand it shipped in 1994),  With the exception of the enhancments I and others did for 4.2, there hasnt been a major upgrade for the system and there never will be.   8 years after it shipped, its showing its age, and newteks new editor (which is much cheaper then what we payed for toasters and flyers before) is a much superior product.  As for the final comment, Jule, I dont care what editor you use, I just dont think you should lie about how you cant buy an editor for 4K that will compete with the flyer.  Thats a lie, my VT2 beats my flyer in every catagory, and I own every addon for the flyer plus have unique pieces of software that I wrote and never sold.  
    -Tig

[Bodie]

Hate to barge in here, but out of curiosity, is there any alternative to the Toaster for PAL Amigas?


 :pint:

[lorddef]

I use Newtek Aura Paint and Adobe Premiere on my PC, I'm no pro and I find em just fine.