#MacUser Loves Toaster?
13 messages in this thread
Has anyone read the article in the August issue of MacUser comparing Mac
video post production hardware? The REFERENCE standard was a Toaster and
Amiga! Although the general tone of the article was definately biased in
favor of the Mac user interface, quite a few times the Toaster received
praise when compared with the best Mac products. The entire article had a
liberal dose of phrases such as "…Toaster — a DTV product that easily
outperformed the best Mac card…", "[for broadcast quality] Mac DTV
quality simply isn't good enough", "For out-of-the-box broadcast quality
DTV production, however, you might consider a non-Mac product, the NewTek
Video Toaster…", "[Toaster] features good enough for video producers to
drool over — all at an unbeatable price", "[Mac] DTV is a mere crumb
compared with the Toaster."
I bet there are going to be a lot of heated letters to MacUser next month!
😉
Marcus Mullins 🙂
Dunno why there'd be lots of heated letters to MacUser… after all, a
peripheral is a peripheral, no matter what it contains.
And normal Amiga DTV is also "a mere crumb compared with the Toaster"
<grin>.
What amazes me, is the number of heated messages I've seen from people who
hate NewTek for taking off the Amiga label!
I have mixed emotions about NewTek distancing themselves from the Amiga. On
the one hand, companies are founded to create money and provide a
lively-hood to those that are associated with it (I don't know of too many
people who start companies because "wow, if the world only had a gas
powered super-widget, everybody would be happy", although the Amiga
development might very well fall into that catagory ;-). I certainly won't
fault NewTek for wanting to capitalize on a good shot at making it big in
the business world. On the other hand, I wonder what the future is for any
new computer that starts life as a home computer, if it is viewed by
developers as a stepping stone to bigger and better (?) platforms. I wonder
if NewTek would have been as successful had they started out developing for
the Mac or PC (who knows, as talented as those guys are, they would
probably be successful at just about anything that they do — provided they
have a little marketing savy; Commodore has shown us the need for that no
matter how good the product).
Well, I'll just get off my soap box now and go to bed 🙂
Marcus
Marcus,
I suspect NewTek prefers to downplay the Amiga portion of the
Toaster/Amiga synergy because of Commodore's abysmal image (largely
deserved, unfortunately) in the PC and Mac worlds. I don't blame them a
bit; if I were NewTek I sure wouldn't want C='s reputation interfering with
_my_ success.
-Dave-
Dave –
Nah… I think NewTek puts their own label on the system for the same
reason Commodore puts their own label on the monitors and other things they
sell.
If you're the company which sells and supports something, your name is the
one that goes on front… no matter what parts made by someone else are
inside. This kind of thing is done all the time.
kev
Kev,
Well, I guess that's part of it…. But I still stand by what I said.
I doubt NewTek would be covering up the Apple logo with a sticker if the
Toaster had been designed to plug into a Mac NuBus slot. If you're
associated with a company that has a good reputation, you probably want to
play-up your association rather than hide it.
-Dave
Hey, the end of my message got chopped off. I was gonna brag about my
quick response to Kev's message. I guess the Ego Censor got me. 8^)
Heh-heh. Gotta watch that Ego Censor 🙂
Look at this way then: if a Toaster-like device was created on an IBM clone
box, and sold to Mac owners… don't you think the company would still
cover up the clone label?
Okay, I partially agree about the Commodore name; but I think virtually
any label would've been covered… except perhaps if the external box was
an SG Iris or something <grin>.
Kev,
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I guess I'm still not quite used to
the fact that _Somebody_ (NewTek) is actually attempting to sell Amigas to
IBM & Mac owners. What an original idea! <g> From NewTek's perspective
it's probably more important for them to get the NewTek (or Toaster) label
on the machine than it is to cover up the Amiga one. Still, two birds with
one stone, and all that…. 😉
-Dave-
David:
And what if some Mac user who buys a 'Toaster Machine' finds out a few
weeks (or months) after he/she gets the machine that it's a fairly nice
machine for other stuff too, finds out it's an Amiga (not a hard thing to
do), and joins in on the Amiga Forums, will you tell them that they should
get a new label for their machine, and that as they bought a 'Toaster'
rather than an 'Amiga' that they're not really welcome here? Personally If
IBM decided that the Amiga would be a neat machine to market as their 68000
based machine (not very likely) and started selling Amiga's relabeled as
the 'IBM System 68000' I wouldn't care, as these types of things would
probably help the whole Amiga community, as ANYONE can market better than
C=!
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Mike,
Well, as I said in the first place, it doesn't bother me a bit that
NewTek is putting "Toaster" labels on the Amiga/Toasters they're selling.
Kev and I were just hashing out their reason(s) for doing so. It doesn't
matter to me what label people have on their machines; I know what's
inside. Besides, _everyone_ is welcome here regardless of what computer(s)
he or she may own. I regularly pop in on a number of IBM/Clone forums,
just to see what's going on there. I don't hide the fact that I own an
Amiga…of course, I don't brag about it either…wouldn't get me very far
over there anyway. 8^) Sometimes I get so angry at C= that I wish
somebody _would_ buy out the Amiga division and do something creative with
it. They could call the Amiga ANYTHING they liked as long as they at least
attempted to market it properly. <sigh>
-Dave-
I don't think that has anything to do with it. NewTek is OEM-ing the
Amiga, sticking it's own label on it, putting a Toaster in it, and selling
it for some big bucks (well, big bucks compared to what it would cost if
you did it all yourself). I don't blame them either….those "Toastersare
selling like hotcakes, and they're making a mint.
Steve
SP>> "Toasters are selling like hotcakes, and they're making a mint.
hehe, you should have been at SIGgraph here in Las Vegas, the Newtek booth
was fairly close to the Wavefront booth.
The Wave folks had a GREAT demo… popped together a quick animation and
was showing it 5 minutes after starting… looked fantastic! Then the guy
says "and now we'll take it out of PREVIEW mode and render the animation"!
A few minutes later, it was done and looked even better.
But Newtek was showing off their OEM Amiga/Toaster combo, with Lightwave
that does true Ray Tracing rather than Phong Shading (like the one you get
buying just the toaster). Took longer to render, but looked just as good.
And even with their OEM markup, at a mere fraction of the cost of the
Wavefront machine.