CompuServe Messages

Chris, I have some difficuly answering your questions since all your jobs are live-mix down whereas all my jobs are shoot & post. For what you doing the toaster is ideal but, as you say, budgetary considerations make it unfeasable. My original A500 setup was an Amiga 500 (big surprise) an A501 memory expansions and a Progessive peripheral memory expansion giving me a total of 2 megs. I did not use a hard drive but did have two disk drives. I also had a Supergen. As far as software, I primarily used Deluxe Paint, Pro-Video Gold, and Video Effects 3D. (I once tried broadcast titler but got so pissed at the program I removed the disk and sent it sailing across the room to break in several pieces). The toaster can do character generation on the fly, if you're able to plan ahead. You can render screens on the preview bus while your program is going on. However, there have been times I had to hook up my 500 downstream for use as a CG. I once had to simulate night vision: I used the TBC to turn the incoming video greenish, the Toaster's Chroma FX to make it grainy, and the 500 to add the obligatory "Simulated Picture" title (in tiny characters on the bottom) and also to fade the entire image to black (all for a 5 second shot!). I don't recall which switcher the WJ-AVE5 is, but consider this: Dollar for dollar it looks like a great deal, almost too good to be true considering the cost of professional mixers. Well, I've found that it generally isn't true. Before you buy any "pro-sumer" equipment (or any equipment), talk to people who are using the same equipment to do exactly (more or less) what you're looking to do. Get a demo reel from them, even if you have to pay them. If I had done this when I started out I would have saved alot of time and ALOT of money. Bill.