Newtek's VT5 and Amiga OS 4.1?

[persia]

The absence of a Mac version speaks volumes.  My guess is that there are a fair number of MS Windows APIs used.  The SAM bus is slow and it lacks an Intel based chip.

But, I can't quite even figure out what VT5 even does.  It seems to be a live video switcher, not exactly something that might be of interest to a sizable number of people.

The economics of porting to the same are very bad, there's slightly over a thousand, the cost of porting would be in the range of several thousand US dollars per SAM machine made.

It isn't going to happen.  Newtek isn't a charity...

[persia]

I've never seen the modern NewTek video editing tools, how do they compare with Final Cut, Vega, Premiere or Pinnacle?  NewTek is not a name you'd associate with video editing if you didn't have an Amiga background...

[persia]

The Sam is a joke.

VT% System Requirements

PROCESSOR:

Dual Intel or AMD processors that support SSE2 (Dual core CPUs recommended)
Front-side Bus speed of 800MHz or higher

INTERFACE:

An open 66MHz PCI slot for the VT[5] card is recommended for best performance (Additional slot needed for breakout cable)
Any IEEE1394 FireWire card for DV and HDV capture

GRAPHICS CARD:

PCI Express-based graphics card w/ 64MB RAM per display
DirectX 9.0c or higher # Latest graphics card drivers
Minimum screen resolution of 1280x1024 required
SYSTEM RAM:

2 Gigabytes or more of system RAM

HARD DRIVES::

Software-striped SATA drives for video storage and playback
8 Gigabytes of storage for DVEs and content
System drive with 2GB of free disk space
DVD Drive

OPERATING SYSTEM::

Windows® XP Professional (SP2) or Windows Vista 32-bit
Windows® Media Player 9 or higher
Windows® Media Encoder 9 or higher for streaming

[persia]

@KimmoK

Look at your calendar, it's 2009, the Video Toaster has evolved through 3 generations since it last ran in an Amiga.  VT5 uses the CPUs in your computer extensively.  The SAM is a glorified Mobile Phone, it doesn't have the power to run a VT5 even if the software was there.

But the software isn't there, the APIs necessary don't exist in OS4.1.  VT5 is not a solution for Amiga users.

Open Video Editor is, and even in it's infancy it runs circles around the original Video Toaster software.  Video Toasters are for TV stiudios, if you are making Youtube videos or other videos which don't involve a live digital signal you are better off with Final Cut.

[persia]

@Pyromania

Exactly, start with a 21st century video editor and make it more Amiga like.  The Amiga Video Toaster is very old, it needs a ton of improvements, it's hard to work with.  Starting with Open Video Editor you have something that works with and like current technology.

Some things like games age well, other things like video editors do not.

[persia]

An interesting turn to the discussion.  Yes Amiga Video Toaster ran on Classic Amigas, it actually assisted the AMiga since it didn't really have the power to do the video editing.

Modern Video toaster boards suck CPU like mad.  YOu need one or two Quad Core Xeons to make it fly.  The Amiga Video Toaster software is not going to make these 2000 dollar boards work in an Classic Amiga (or a SAM or Pegasos II for that matter).

The modern video toaster is a speciality device for working with live video streams.

The fact of the matter is that if you want to go forward we have to leave Classic Amigas behind. You aren't going to be able to write a modern video editor like Final Cut and get it to run on Classic Amigas.  

THe old VIdeo Toaster software was a pioneering effort, it went where no software has gone before, but that was 15 years ago, video editing is commonplace and far easier to do.  You can't retrofit the old video toaster software to work like modern programs on modern video.  You need to start over.  

Open Movie editor isn't Final Cut, but it's head and shoulders above Amiga Video Toaster.  Port it and make it more Amiga like.  Once it's ported then you can build on to it.   Maybe give it a new name, Video Pand & SHovel or something...

[persia]

@Crom00

But today things don't need to be digitised.  I haven't seen an analogue source in years.

[persia]

Here's a fun program I just acquired

BoinxTV