CompuServe Messages

TBC's, TBC's, TBC's…don't forget the cost of TBC's!!!! The following is a portion taken from an Opalvision vs Toaster discussion on Centaur's Support BBS: "…I think that you're missing the point of Opalvision's modular approach — you can add up the prices of all the modules and determine that it's very expensive, but ask yourself: do I need ALL the modules? With just an OpalVision Main Board and the Video Processor, you can: Frame Grab live video; genlock over video with composite or S-Video; render 3D scenes and lay them down to tape single frame or live with OpalAnimMATE; place yourself in a scene rendered with Imagine with the chroma key or luma key function, even behind a definable layer; do full color processing on video (either tape or live, the first source in OpalVision doesn't require a TBC); overlay CG on video; paint an alpha channel that can be used over video; and of course frame grab and paint to your heart's content. I probably left some things out, but my point here is that for $2000 *LIST*, you can actually do MORE than a Toaster, and without a TBC (The Toaster will require a TBC for a taped source to be used as the first input). The only thing a Toaster does that this "starter kit" OpalVision system doesn't is do transitions between two video sources, for which you will need TWO TBCs anyway, unless both sources are live. All of the things you can do with the OpalVision and the Video Processor make it an *extremely* powerful desktop video system, made all the more powerful by an RGB output that can be used for multimedia stuff…" Alan Henry