Finally the beginning of my video suite gets built!

[leirbag28]

@amigadave

 Just out of curiosity.......why use th Hi8 tape deck?  You could use Digital8 instead which also works with Hi8 tapes but is twice the resolutiojn and its Digital, not analog. Its not worth doing ll that good video, to in the end, end up with a degraded MASTER tape.  once you put it on Digital8 ..it stay Digital and doesnt not degrade if ever so slightly.

If its cost your worried about.........Go on Craigs List.  Seek SONY Digital8 or MiniDV. Or go to Circuit City where they have used Digital8 and MiniDV for very very very cheap.  I got a 3CCD Panasonic MiniDV cam with 2.1 Megapixel Picture camera in it for $120.  perhaps if you make money from your videos, you can replace those decks...........as far as editing with the decks.........Sony cameras usually have LANC control which you can control with Amigas if you have a SCALA ECHO or other serial controllers.  I may have one here called the Singl Frame Controller which I think does just that.

I use Digital 8 and MiniDV and the capture is exactly as the Amiga outputs it.

[leirbag28]

@amigadave

hey......I wasnt in anyway saying that you should upgrade your Toaster Amiga system to a PC one..............What I am saying is Keep your setup, but record on Digital8 or MiniDV...........all of your output...........transporting it to different formats will be much easier and wont degrade any further.........and it plainly just looks better on DV.  As I said..........I use my Amiga for VeeJaying and record the output into a Digital8 Camera that has inputs like a VCR through the S-Video port. Then if I want some digital wipes or different effects that I cannot achieve on the amiga or want to burn it to DVD, I just Use iMovie on the Mac...........o use a Standalone DVD recorder.

Amigas still rock!

[leirbag28]

@amigadave

Trust me.........your equipment is NOT out of date, just your recording equipment (unless you use the Digital8 cams in Digital8 mode which you should....huge difference in quality)

But if YouTUBE and Google video and iPod videos can get away with crap quality video, then so can you depending on what you use it for. If your competing with TV networks, then you might lose, but anything else, your good to go.

You dont have to creat everything on the amiga.
Go here:  www.digitaljuice.com   and get animated backgrounds of Superb quality and convert them to FRAMES using the FREE Juicer 2.0 software and recompile them as Wipes or FLyer animated backgrounds.

As far as rendering speed improvement?  very very easily done.............if you have a PC get WInUAE and emulate and Amiga running lightwave............the rendering speed is much faster!   no need to spend a dime! No need to pass the rendering process into a PC.........just emulate your AMiga for the sake of rendering.........then save the animation back to your real Amiga and Whalla!

It works!