Bought A3000 Cheap with Opalvision

[amiga1084]

Hello All,

I bought cheap A3000 desktop machine with GVP 040 accelerator
and OpalVision card.What I want to know is this card any use
or is it junk.It has RGB type port at the back.I do Video
Editing and I am woundering if I can use it for anything.
Like to hear you comments Thanks

[PaSha]

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=485 contains some info.

[ltstanfo]

The Opalvision card was considered by many to be *the* video processing / video editing card until the release of the NewTek Video Toaster and Video Flyer.

The Opalvision had a large following in the early 1990s and the developer community for it was a small but active bunch.  If you card came with the factory software, you are in good shape and should give the card a try.  If all you have is the card, start searching the internet for software (ebay, etc...).  

I think you will find that the Opalvision is a good card to experiment with but if you really want to do video editing on an Amiga, the only serious option is to use the NewTek cards mentioned above.

Good luck,
Lee Stanford

[amigadave]

@Itstanfo,

The Opalvision card came out after the Newtek Video Toaster card.  It was an attempt to do all the Toaster did and more, and to do it in more than one format, unlike the Toaster, which has always only been available in NTSC.

Unfortunately, the extra features of the Opalvision card were never released.  The infamous "Roaster" chip was never released (although I did hear of one person who claimed to have received one experimental chip that worked).  Opal Paint was regarded by many to be the best paint program available on the Amiga when it was first released.

If there are any users out there that have an Opalvision card with the Roaster chip installed, I would like to see it.  Too bad the company went under.

[T3000]

At the time the Opal card was released, it sported one of the best 24 bit paint packages available. Many other grafix programs could be retargeted through the opal display. Not a workbench graphics proccesor like Picasso but still a great paint package/display device.   Toaster rules.

[ltstanfo]

AmigaDave,

Thanks for the correction.  You are correct about the timeline of hardware release. As for the roaster chip, I heard an interesting story at one of the St. Louis Amiga shows back in the late 90's that a small batch of the chips (maybe your prototypes?) actually did get produced but by the time they were "available", the company was already out of business.  Supposedly the owner / creater of the board had them in his garage but like alot of other late C= era prototypes, disappeared over time.  FWIW, this story came from a NewTek guy who claimed to know the creater of the board.

Listed below is a link to a meeting held in the 1995 where the status of the roaster chip was actually discussed.  Do a search on the page for Centaur Development.

http://www.cucug.org/amiga/aminews/1995/at950727.txt

Regards,
Ltstanfo

[Xanxi]

Hello.
Just to mention, if someone wants an Opalvision card, i have one available for trade or sell.
PM me if interested.

I'm gone

[nyteschayde]

I also have one with original software. Ended up replacing it with a Picasso IV so I could have an RTG workbench.