CompuServe Thread

Unfortunately your post was made the day I left for New York, and I just got back. A while back I FAXed a list of flyer related questiond to NewTek and received a phone reponse that was quite detailed and actually more than I expected. There were things in that reponse that would be good to revisit and include in your list. I know it may be too late, but in case you get back for follow up before the article is completed…: 1) The flyer doesn't "do time code" without outside help. If you are a SMPTE time code user you must connect your decks to an Horita box that translates VITC/LTC to SMPTE and connect it via a 9pin ribbon to an internal flyer header. 2) There are no EDL or clip-logging functions with the FLyer. NewTek will leave that (apparently) to 3rd party vendors. 3) Users of Y/C Plus and other format converters may need some harness changes. Howerver, Smith Audio Visual has not seen a flyer yet and does not know what changes are required. 4) Supposedly the Flyer will accept Y/C in, but since it relies on the Toaster for output, you only get composite out unless you have a decoder or converter. 5) There will only be two layers of compositing – essentially what the Toaster already supports. 6) If you are using the Flyer for insert editing (for example, doing a large program that can't all be put on your disk at once) you will need an external edit controller to get it on the tape at the right time code. There apparently is no current joint effort with controller developers to have that, clip logging and lo-res capture-EDL trim & polish-hi-res recapture capability available when the flyer ships. The bottom line for such tape based delivery is that you will have to loose a generation by spewint flyer stuff to tape then using a traditional linear editor to do the frame accurate insert to the progam master. (Note: perhaps my optimism and joy got the better of me, but I thought at NAB that I heard them say that this was a goal of the Toaster from day one and that this type of operation was envisoined… mayhaps the grey cells were fooled by all that EM pollution in the demo hall….) 7) The tie to Lightwave seems unclear at this point. Basically, does the Flyer have the capacity to accept and compact rendered LW images and then play them back in real-time negating the need for a single-frame controller for those of us who can't pass off PAR degraded output to a customer? At the time I asked this question, the answer had not been decided, it seems, but I got the impression that Lightwave rendered transitions and anims would have to be laid off to tape then recaptured by the flyer for editing purposes. So basically, don't sell the SFCs yet… 8) There is no way to make up for the two layer compositing by creating a clip from two composited sources in the machine, then doing another composition on that clip, then as many more iterations as required to get the "n level" composite required without going to tape. I was even dumb enough to ask if I could loop the Toaster output to the Flyer input in order to avoid the tape layoff (and generational loss) of an n>2 level composition. But (duh… I should have figured this out on my own) due to the nature of the disk drive/flyer interface you can only play back or capture at any given time – not both. This is not an unreasonable restriction if you look at the bandwidths involved. SO the only solution woud be to have two FLyers, but you will still get some generational loss on the Flyer A to Flyer B playback/record operation due to the d/a then a/d translations. (However, it would have been nice to know this restriction before the price increase….I might have ordered two Flyers…) I was planning the reconfiguration of my studio set-up for when the Toaster Flyer arrived. The bottom line was that my linear system will not be obsoleted for a while. Likewise for a good SFC. There are other 3rd party things required to use it in a frame-accurate professional situation, especially where I get a tape with "space reserved" for my contribution to the product. These 3rd party vendors have not received any product from NewTek which means either that the Flyer is seriously behind schedule, or that many Flyers will sit in their boxes on the floor until the support products required to integrate them into existing studios appear. In fact, some people who are under contract with NewTek to develop some software for the Flyer's releas have not yet seen a Flyer or received any development materials from NewTek. So I would be surpised to see dealer/demo units ship before December and the first "sold" production run hit the streets before March or April of '95. At the time I contacted NewTek they maintained that the Dealer/demo units were only a month down and that the units already on order would ship in September as promised. I just re-read this reply and someone will prbably interpret it as a flame. It really isn't. I still feel at this point that the value of the Flyer for its price is still there. Its just that "non-linear" is quite varied in its interpretation and implementation. (Just look at Avid, Media Suite, Abekas et al.) The Flyer brochures are motherhood with no real details and the shows are based on some NewTek and non-NewTek employees understanding of what the peoduct MIGHT be. So things get said that are the wishful thinking/assumptions of the demostrators and not actually on the prduct devlopment feature list. Hopefully your review will deal with the theme "how to use the Flyer in your existing set-up" with two flavors – one for animators and one for editors. This is where the largest black hole of hard information exists, IMHO, and one that has the largest potential to create disappointmen of unmet expctations. So hopefully NewTek will avail themselves of this opportunity to "use" you to get such information out. My experience is that they are not trying to hide it. Its just that add brochures and shows are not the ideal format to pass along such information in, and that some of these issues are not yet resolved anyhow. What might be nice is a good establishing article on these issues and a regular "Flight Watch" update column where Flyer progress in these areas and schedule changes could be reported.