CompuServe Thread

Hello folks… I've just returned from a Toaster Expo. (Jeez, I hope I'm the first to post this!) What Toaster Expo is that, you ask? Audio Techniques here in Manhattan held a little open house/seminar for the T4000 and Newtek's own Kiki Stockhammer showed up (as well as two other Newtekker's)! While I don't claim perfect memory, (notice how I've forgotten the names of the Newtekker's except Kiki!) I will try to illuminate some of the highlights… 1. The T4000 was fantastic! Lightwave was even better! But you all know that. 🙂 2. Kiki showed a new 4000 demo tape featuring Penn Jillette, Wil Wheaton, and the skateboarding dude that's made it into the print brochure Newtek's been passing around. She also played a 2 minute teaser for Seaquest which looked dynamite. Congrat's John Gross, your stuff looks way cool! 3. There was a 10 min. Q&A after the formal demo. One of the other Newtek people represented Sales, and he basically outlined what we've all been hearing about… there will a three level upgrade for current 2.0 toaster users, as well as the cooperative NewTek/CBM 2000 to T4000 power-up plan. Expect solid word about all this by next week sometime. 4. No forseeable effort on a Newtek initiated T4000T (Toaster 4000 Tower). ?? 5. Newtek, while still professing to eventually offer a complete video suite, also realizes the importance of what it sees as a growing Toaster market. At NAB, approx. 40 small companies offered 3rd party support for the Toaster, and Newtek is smart enough to see that it would be best to not put these folks out of business too fast. (You could also look at this as their way of not shouldering everything we want from them) 6. Audio support? Look at 3rd party. (see above comment) 7. Digital Video? Hah! They had a good laugh at Quicktime and Video for Windows. Alot of folks (yours truly included!) gave them a good cheer for taking that stand. They mentioned something that completely slipped my mind and almost made my jaw hit the floor. Remember NewTek's Demo Reels? Remember how they quickly pulled out Demo Reel 2 for some weird reason? They had, BACK IN 1987/8, Digiview Pro which would (take a guess) capture live video at about 1/4 screen size and play it back at about 15-20 fps. They didn't go with it because they couldn't understand what anyone would want to do with such a miserable output. They say DVE is definitely in the works but not for about another 2 years or so. They wanna do it right. (Another indicator of this is Kiki's mention that Newtek does not want to associate itself with the term "Desktop Video" anymore because it connotes lame Mac/IBM attempts at such things. They've adopted PVP, Personal Video Production, instead.) 8. PAL Toaster? Yes, also around '95. 9. Toaster s/w on CD-ROM/Syquest/Optical? "Definitely/maybe/why not?" 🙂 10. The Toaster just won an Emmy for Technical Achievement. They're attitude was "so what?" Go figger… 11. When the formalities broke down, I spent a good half hour watching one of the Newtek Tech dudes demo LW3.0 as well as listen in to the Sales guys pitch from his throne. Suffice it to say that I loved the demo but noticed a palpable anger towards CBM from the sales guy. I casually asked if CBM and Newtek are friends now and he said "No, we're just not enemies anymore." 12. Further, he said that CBM is essentially waking up to the fact that you can't fight Newtek, and that a significant reason for their recent shakedown is to focus on the only market they can actually tout as being their own: Desktop Video (or PVP, see above). And the best way for CBM to hold this market, let Newtek do what it's been doing… stay out of their way. In essence, he makes it sound like CBM is going to work for Newtek. That at least here in the states, the only reason the Amiga is still around is because of Newtek. Some proof? He mentioned that sales for the 4000 were pretty flat til about a week ago, when the T4000 started shipping, and now they're flying out of the dealer's shelves. (Is this true?) Pretty arrogant, but I guess I should take his comments with a grain of salt… after all, he IS trying to pitch product; no need to be truthful or anything. 🙂 Comments? Miguel ——– AP, AP, and away!