NAB News
I forgot to answer your question!
>I can't tell from your posting as to whether you are excited about
>this new product from Newtek..are you?
Well, not having seen it, it's hard for me to tell. To play devil's advocate
(which you know I love to do 🙂 ) TODAY, I can buy for the PC, a package
including a card that does full screen video and audio digitizing to disk,
provides editing with the WONDERFUL Adobe Premiere program, and the package
costs $1000. So my obvious question is for NewTek, what do I get for the other
$3K? Granted, I hear it's 8 channel sound, and the video is apparently higher
quality, but the market's getting quite crowded for non-linear editing
solutions. The main concern I have with the Flyer (from the little I've read
here) is that I'm not sure the numbers add up (capacity, price, quality). For
example, 8 channel CD quality sound is 8 x 16 bits x 44.1K samples = 42MBytes /
minute. So for a five minute video, I've eaten over 200MB of hard disk
storage, just for the audio (assuming I'm using 8 tracks, which is unusual, I
grant you). Anyway, D2 quality is 13.5 million 8 bit (or better 10 bit)
samples per second, which for five minutes then, is 4 GBytes. If they're
compressing a lot, it's going to be noticable. So it's not clear to me how
usable this system is. Many people will accept S-VHS quality if the price is
right, but the editing software has got to be GREAT. Plus, while D2 is
digital, technically it's not separated as well as even SVHS! Anyway, NewTek's
floated a lot of prices over the years, so I hope the $4K price doesn't migrate
up too much before the product actually hits the streets.
I agree with what someone else said, that at this point, the Amiga is NewTek's
single biggest liability. If I were a video user, I would not be putting money
into an editing system based on a platform that has almost no dealers, hardly
any manufacturer support, and is bordering on bankruptcy. 3 years ago, the
Toaster made a LOT of sense for many videographers on a budget. Now, I
personally think the proposition is much more questionable. Just so there's no
confusion, I don't blame NewTek for the predicament they're in at all. Like
the many other EXCELLENT Amiga third party vendors (although NewTek stands
alone in their public prominence), they're getting burned by Commodore's
incompetence.