====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional Newsletter) BACK FOR THE FUTURE || ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Gateway 2000, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 980403 !!SPECIAL: T R I N I T Y R E V I E W A 1 2 0 0 U S E R G R O U P S P E C I A L . . . . . . A N D N O V A S E C T O R T O O ! B U D G E T S I A M E S E R T G P A C K A G E A N N O U N C E A M I G A P Y R O M A N I A C L A S S I C S F I N N I S H " S A K U 9 8 " A S U C C E S S P R O M O T I O N A L P R I C I N G F R O M N E W T E K I A 9 8 D I N N E R / T O U R N A M E N T M A C T A K E O N P R E / B O X ? W O R L D N E W S 0 . 8 5 Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: "Amiga Update"'s alliance with "The Amiga Informer" has resulted in many useful and informative articles for our readers in "The Amiga Informer Annex" section of this publication. In this issue, we go one better and present a very timely special review for everyone involved with video. With the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) get-together coming on the sixth of this month, a great deal of hype about the new "Trinity" system can be expected. Our thanks to Fletcher Haug of "The Amiga Informer" for making this available to us so we can get you facts you may need, before the NAB show. We'll have the regular "Amiga Informer Annex" again next issue. We have more video news for you also. Check out the special prices from NewTek. Substantial savings are to be had. There's also the announcement of Pyromania Classics for the Amiga below. While we're at it, we have news of user group specials from both Amiga International and Nova Sector. That's a couple of good reasons for belonging to your nearest Amiga user group. Other product news is about news - "World News", that is. If you're in search of a UseNet news reader, you'll want to check out this announcement. We have two items on Amiga shows to bring your way. The folks in Canada have come up with a most interesting dinner to tempt those who attend International Amiga 98. Looks like a real fun knight out. And from Finland, a short but musical report on their successful recent show. Web surfers may want to check the Saku website - it contains a complete English transcript of the speech made there by Petro Tyschtschenko. In it he indicates Amiga OS 3.5 is now slated for November, a month or so later than originally indicated. He also hints that Netscape could be included - but no promises. We'll see once it actually gets here, but it's an interesting thought. Finally, and just for fun, we present what seems like a case of processor envy from the Mac crowd for your enjoyment. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- !!SPECIAL: T R I N I T Y R E V I E W C O U R T E S Y " T H E A M I G A I N F O R M E R " NOTE: This article was submitted to The Informer Magazine by one of our free-lance writers. Because Trinity has been billed as a "Video Toaster Killer" (and Play has stated in their ads "May the Amiga rest in peace") we thought it vital we present this review of the Trinity System to the Amiga public, just in case they considered leaving their Toaster/Flyer system for something hyped to be better. The author is a credible professional in the field and his review here is based on hands-on facts, not unfounded speculation. Reading this review will provide you with facts and information vital to forming your opinion before you buy any video editing system. Because of the author's current employment situation, he requested that his real name not be used. Please pass along this review to any and all you think will be interested. Holy Trinity? ============= By Soothsayer Because of the massive advertising campaign of the Trinity System by Play Inc. and the fact that dealers have finally started to receive demo units of Trinity, I thought it was high time I checked it out. I am a plug-in developer for video editing/graphics software/hardware and am constantly looking for new cutting edge tools for which to develop add-on products. In addition, I am a semi-professional videographer. Play Inc. claims the Trinity is the future of television. In their own words they insist they are the next Sony. If you take Play on their word the Trinity is the utopian video product that the entire world has been waiting for with baited breath. I had to find out the truth for myself. This article is based on many weeks and hours using the currently available Trinity system. This is an honest review of the product from the standpoint of a user and potential developer. I will compare what Play claims the Trinity is capable of to the true functionality of the Trinity units now available at your local dealer. Unlike many mainstream MAC & PC customers I've wanted to know about Trinity for a long time. At a 1991 trade show called AmiExpo, Digital Creations/Progressive Image promised to ship a new product in one years time that would be a Video Toaster killer. It was then called V-Machine, the predecessor to Trinity. Back then Digital Creations (DC) had a great track record. Electronic Arts contracted DC to port Deluxe Paint to the Atari ST. DC also created Deluxe Photolab for the Amiga before Photoshop was even a gleam in Adobe's eye. Another one of their products, DCTV and its included paint package, won them many accolades. It even did real-time animation in about four million colors before the Video Toaster had any real-time animation playback features. Unfortunately, Digital Creations & their Amiga products went away in a company merger. Play was born, as was their first PC product, the Snappy video snapshot. The Trinity system is a rather large square Borg-like cube that is much bigger than your computer. It connects to a host PC that must be running either Windows 95 or NT. Trinity dealers will tell you don't even think about using Trinity under Windows 95, NT is a must if you are serious. By my observations of how unstable the product is on Windows NT (I did not test it on Win95) I would have to agree with them. The Trinity "Borg" cube comes with a special PCI serial card that connects it to your computer. Play Inc. claims any standard Intel Pentium PC running Win95 or NT 4.0 with 32Mb RAM, CD-ROM and 1024X768 SVGA display is all you need to use the system. The dealer that wanted to sell me the system said a Pentium II 300Mhz with 64Mb RAM is a must. He suggested that better still would be 128Mb RAM and five monitors! Trinity consists of five major parts. The Switcher, TitleWave CG, PersonalFX, Panamation & Preditor. We will cover them all separately and in detail. The Warp Engine hardware is suppose to tie all these together in real-time. First lets discuss what I thought was going to be my favorite part of the Trinity system, PersonalFX. What is it? If you go by Play's description on page seven of their high glossy handout, PersonalFX is an essential tool that makes it easy to create any type of effect, including effects which combine live video surfaces with 3D shapes. All this without the need to learn time-consuming general purpose 3D software or the complex interfaces of traditional video gear. The Reality is this: I found PersonalFX to be a poor mans Lightwave that was prone to crash for no reason at a moments notice. In Trinity's own manual Play states, "Keep in mind there are still several outstanding problems with this software including some effect generation issues which can cause incorrect anti-aliasing, holes and spikes in some effects." So in effect you become an unpaid beta tester for this software even though Play has repeatedly claimed the long delay for Trinity's shipping was so they could get it right the first time and not subject new users to incomplete software. Presumably, that's why it took eight years to ship, or so we thought. But that is not the most shocking part about PersonalFX. Play has maintained that Trinity's most amazing feature compared to other systems is that it operates in Real-Time with no rendering. If that is true then tell me why on a dual Pentium II 300Mhz, PersonalFX requires rendering! That's right, it has to render the effect. But what about all those special custom chips in that huge cube? Never mind the fact that I tested it on the latest and greatest PC that effectively runs at 600Mhz. In Plays own words they state; "we're inventing many new technologies which are now incorporated into Trinity's 20 custom chips and over one million lines of software code". So what are those custom chips doing? Apparently nothing for PersonalFX, that's for sure. The program WipeStudio is much faster. Want to create custom effects with the Video Toaster? Use Lightwave, Aladdin 4D, Tornado 3D, ImageFX, Deluxe Paint 5 or even Plays own Brilliance 2.0 software for that matter. Making your effects in one of these packages then processing it though Wipe Studio running on an 68060 CPU is faster than PersonalFX. In addition, the dealer was unable to demonstrate Warping Video onto arbitrary 3D shapes and applying live procedural distortions­ including waves and ripples & morphing­ in real-time between different 3D shapes. However, play still claims it can be done (surf to "http://www.play.com/pages/trinity/3d.html" to see this claim). Warp engine: Play hypes; "Warp Engine can perform in real-time any 3D digital video effect you've seen on network television, such as flying video screens, spheres, cubes and page peels, all with the lighting, shadows and transparency that make these effects so dramatic." Reality: I have to admit that some of the Trinity's effects are impressive at first glance. But upon closer inspection you will notice slight banding and jaggies in some of the Real-Time effects. For example, on the famous rotating video cube in a floating reflection mapped water surface, look at the top of the cube and what do you see? Slight distortion and breakup of the video. I don't know why this is and maybe it will go away when the Trinity is no longer a composite device. That's right, the current shipping Trinity is COMPOSITE ONLY! Never mind all the hype about it working with Componite, S-VHS, Firewire etc. It comes with composite which costs extra! $695-795 per input and you need the Clip Grab card which costs another $995. The brochure says; "All Included for $4,995, but that statement is apparently a work of fiction. A Trinity system will cost you about $25,000 with a host PC, or $15,000 without a computer. But buying one to use on your own computer is not recommend unless you want to brave the possible horror of using Trinity untested PC motherboards, Graphics cards, chipsets, etc. Play should state clearly that your $4,995 does not include the Composite Preview card for $395, the Serial D1 Input module for $995, the Serial D1 Output Module for $995, and the Blackburst Generator for $295. And if you want any type of audio the base Audio Sub-System is $1,895. While we are on the subject of audio, if you buy the Audio sub-system add-on, you would think some nice audio effects would accompany the Real-Time Digital Video Effects (DVE). Sorry, unlike the Video Toaster, all of the Real-Time Effects happen in complete silence. The audio sub-system must be for some cool audio mixing software, and is currently unavailable. Lack of audio on the effects can be forgiven, but what about video effects that are corrupt? In Play's own words "We are fixing many of the digital video effects that have pop & glitch errors during playback." I witnessed this first hand and it does not look pretty. In addition, I noticed an annoying flickering video streak on every Framestore I grabbed. Play has shown off their Fire & Explosion Real-Time Effects for some time and explained it was only possible because of those 20 fantastic custom chips in Trinity. At Amiga98 in St. Louis I saw an add-on Effects CD-ROM for the Amiga called Pyromania that had many more and better Fire, Explosion & even Smoke Real-Time Effects for the Video Toaster 4000. No Trinity coprocessors or Borg cube required. Switcher: In Plays own words; "This powerful switcher is the heart of Trinity's live production capabilities. It mixes up to eight video sources, two still stores, and a matte generator together in real time at full D1 resolution. Trinity's exclusive capabilities . . . include soft edged organic wipes". Since when are soft edge organic wipes exclusive to Trinity? The Video Toaster did this in 1992 and the folks at Play should know this since they made the same claim when they worked at NewTek. In fact, the interface for Switcher seems like a 24-bit harder-to-use copy of the 1993 Video Toaster interface. It has more buttons to be sure, but it's not very stable. I experienced many crashes while using the Switcher or almost any part of the system for that matter. It did not bring down Windows NT completely but you had to reset and/or restart Trinity. Play insists you can mix eight live inputs at once but the dealer I worked with was unable to show that feature of the Switcher. The icons of the effects, or "picons" as the manual refers to them, are fantastically rendered in 24-bit. So if you like pretty icons look no further. Panamation: Plays words; "Panamation is an object-oriented paint, animation and compositing system with the real-time performance required for fast paced production environments. Panamation allows you to paint in real-time directly on live video with variable transparency and unlimited undo/redo of any stroke at any time. In fact, every stroke is actually an object which can have any of its attributes animated, including position, size, rotation, color, texture, transparency, shadow, velocity, acceleration, scatter value and more. [You can also ] paint directly on non-linear video clips." It's kind of hard to paint on non-linear clips when the Trinity has no shipping date for its Non-linear Effects (NLE), which will also cost you extra when it is available. In addition, Panamation has many Real-Time 24-bit brushes included in the package, but that's just what they are, Brushes. You can created, use and save 24-bit brushes in any modern painting program, but it's nice they did it for you. Panamation, unlike PersonalFX is Real-Time for almost all operations. I don't know if this is because I tested it on a dual 300Mhz Pentium II or because of the Trinity custom chips. I would hope it's the custom chips since they were allowed to relax while running PersonalFX. As an old time DCTV owner I was excited to see this part of the system. It is object-oriented with unlimited undos as they claim. The Digital Creations team that is now a part of Play has much experience in creating nice painting software and it shows. I am afraid they should have shipped Panamation long ago as a separate package. In 1995 when Play promoted Panamation as an advanced object-oriented paintbox nothing else like it was available. However, in 1998 the software industry has moved on. The program Illuminare Studio (created by some of the ex-Opalvision programmers) from Discreet Logic is available for both Mac & PC and gives everyone object-oriented painting with unlimited undo in software only. The fact is that Illuminare has much more depth and features than Panamation and does not require special hardware. For more info surf to http://www2.discreet.com/dlselector/go.html For the Amiga I was very impressed with Photogenics Ng at Amiga98. This brand new package brings painting to a whole new level with many new features not seen before in any software and it's Amiga only. It strives to support painting in Real-Time on Flyer Clips and Toaster Framestores. The user interface and advanced layering features of this painting software are inspiring. It is created by a talented artist/programmer, a mix that is rare in the software industry. Within six months the developer of this software plans to eclipse all of the features in Panamation. And that is not the only package available, ImageFX 3.0 directly hooks into The Video Toaster/Flyer and gives it a host of fantastic features similar to After Effects only much easy & faster. TitleWave CG: Plays words; "Trinity's advanced TitleWave hardware and software creates, animates, and superimposes high-resolution text onto live video. TitleWave features full support for anti-aliased text and graphic elements with multiple color gradients, 24-bit textures, transparency and a myriad of type treatments for text faces, outlines, borders and shadows." TitleWave was the most stable of the software included with Trinity. Unlike the other features TitleWave appeared to deliver all it claimed and it's a fast modern Character Generator (CG). I was unable to test how it integrates with the NLE however, and text did corrupt once during a project in the Preditor timeline. Play should have released the Trinity as a high end advanced CG/Paintbox (because TitleWave and Panamation are well implemented programs) and been more up front about the rest of the system not being finished. As it ships now, Trinity appears to be a rushed incomplete solution and may well be judged as such by the video industry. Play should correct this possible perception by the industry or things may come back to haunt them. Virtual Sets: Play's words; "Trinity Virtual SetsŪ allow the combination of live actors and 3D computer graphics to generate super realistic digital sets in real-time. Trinity synthesizes these photo-realistic scenes by using its sophisticated Virtual Set software and the combined power of the Warp Engine, Switcher and Chroma Keyer." Reality: Play gives you some 24-bit backdrop images that can be used to Genlock or Chroma Key yourself into. However, anyone with a camera can grab an image of a room with empty chairs or a vacant kitchen. Preditor: With a name right out of a Hollywood movie, the title sounds powerful. Play states; "Preditor is a next generation non-linear/linear video editor built for speed and ease of use. Using Trinity's powerful hardware, all operations happen in real-time, including compositing up to eight video clips and digital audio tracks simultaneously. You can drag through your timeline, and see every dissolve, wipe, digital video effect graphic, title, and still store instantly, all at full D1 resolution without rendering." Reality: Preditor only layers two tracks of video and two tracks of still store with audio. The dealer claimed this may never change or the whole interface to the software might be thrown out anytime. How comforting. The non-linear part of Preditor has no shipping date and costs extra even though Play says it's included in the $4,995. According to dealers and price quotes, this seems to not be the case, but that is a matter of course when it comes to the Trinity System. After the Trinity dealer carefully explained to me why non-linear editing is not that important for beginning Trinity buyers, he spent the next 45 minutes struggling to get Preditor to control two BetaCam SP decks. The VTR's were spinning hopelessly out of control as he attempted to create an edit with a simple dissolve in the timeline. Whatever commands Preditor was sending to the decks they spun helplessly back and forth not understanding what Trinity wanted them to do. This is inexcusable, an Avid Media Composer does this flawlessly as does Decision Maker or AV8TR+ for the Video Toaster. So ask yourself, why can't Trinity do it? And if Trinity has a hard time with just Linear editing, how will it do with non-linear/linear at the same time in the same project (like they claim)? And how about the bigger question. Why can't Play use Trinity to produce their own demo video which has been used on their website for over two years? If they, the designers and developers, can't make a video with it, how will you? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A 1 2 0 0 U S E R G R O U P S P E C I A L . . . March 23rd, 1998 Special A1200 Offer for Usergroups in North America Limited offer until April 30th, 1998! At the Amiga '98 show held in St.Louis on March 13th to 15th, Petro Tyschtschenko, AMIGA International, Inc., announced the appointment of COMPUQUICK Media Center of Columbus, Ohio, and National AMIGA of Canada, exclusive distributors for the sale of AMIGA 1200 and A1200-HDD for userclub members for the United States and Canada respectively. This scheme is available only until April 30th, 1998. Usergroups of US and Canada may directly approach these two distributors for pricing! Compuquick Fax 614-235-1180 Phone 614-235-3601 National AMIGA Fax 519-858-8762 Phone 519-858-8762 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . A N D N O V A S E C T O R T O O ! Nova Sector Engineering Announces User Group Distribution of Amiga Machines We would like to give the true supporters of Amiga a break for sticking to the Amiga though bad times. Any Amiga user group thoughout the world can purchase Nova Sector suped-up Amiga A4000Ts at distributor prices (typically at about a 15% to a 25% discount). Or, you can simply become a member of CUCUG, and get the same discounts for a $20 membership. For further information on how your user group can take advantage of these specials please contact Ryan Bertram at (888)855-9407 or ryan@novasector.com. Long Live the Amiga. Greetings, I'm Ryan Bertram, President of Nova Sector Engineering, Inc. We are a manufacture of Amiga A4000T with PowerPC boards. I have something here that you might be interested in. Starting immediately we are going to be distributing our products though the user groups. All user groups will be able to purchase our products at distributor prices, which includes the following: pre configured A4000T, Cables, printers, scanners, monitors, processor boards, processors, software, modems, memory, etc. If any member decides s/he wants to sell our products, what ever they make over the distributor prices is theirs to keep. At Nova Sector our objective is to run a successful business, and to bring back the Amiga into the computer market. What better way to bring the business part of Amiga back, then to have the very community be the spokesmen for it. Petro himself could not do it better. We can get a hold of just about any Amiga hardware, or software anyone could need on any computer system. Let us know, because this is a community effort to bring back the Amiga, and there needs to be an effort at every meeting to get a hold of companies in your area, and see what an Amiga can do for there business. The Amiga community can't wait until Petro at Amiga International does something, or Jeff at Amiga Inc. to develop new products. If the Amiga is going to be successful; its going to take a grass roots effort. Nova Sector can provide the resources, but only the Amiga community can put the Amiga on top. If any of the groups are interested please email me at ryan@novasector.com, and give me a contact phone number and a mailing address, and we will send catalogs, and support information. Best Regards Ryan Bertram President Nova Sector Engineering, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B U D G E T S I A M E S E R T G P A C K A G E 24th March 1998 Due to requests from many potential customers who want to see what the Siamese system v2.5 can do before parting with their money, Siamese Systems ltd have decided to launch the new "Siamese Remote Amiga v2.1" package for only ( UK 29.95 pounds, Germany 79.95dm, USA $49.95 ). This can be used as a full Serial based system in its own right, or evaluated and then part exchanged for the full "Siamese V2.5 Pro" package, by paying the diference. This software is based on the Siamese v2.5 software but without the TCP/IP ( Internet / Ethernet ) capabilities, and uses a normal null modem serial cable (not supplied) for connection. The software supports serial speeds up to 115,200 bps on a standard AGA Amiga serial connection. This version of the Siamese system also supports Cybergraphics screen modes but please remember when using 16bit graphics over a serial line it is not as quick as the Ethernet version which is up to 50 times faster. Main features of "Siamese Remote Amiga v2.1" CD-ROM. Supports all serial speeds available to both the Amiga and PC, standard maximum is 115200 bps. Supports third party Amiga and PC high speed serial cards. Remote control Amiga from PC, most RTG friendly Amiga screens appear in a Window on Win95/NT4. Single Keyboard and Mouse control for both Amiga and PC. Works on Intel and Alpha processors. ( Alpha needs FX32! ) PC drives are accessible from standard AGA Amiga with up to 13kbytes per second. Supports SCSI networking to speed up file transfer ( 1mb/sec ) with suitable controllers on the PC and Amiga. Emulates Cybergraphics screen modes, remember bitmaps will transfer at serial speed. Can be part exchanged for Siamese v2.5 Professional, (TCP/IP Ethernet version 99.95 pounds.) Special WinUAE set up files to transfer your WB3 to a WinUAE environment by using Sisys MountPC. Will create ideal "Real Amiga" and "WinUAE Amiga" giving the best of both worlds. Great for creating the Amiga floppy disk files for WinUAE Works with the "Amiga Forever" package or PD downloaded version. (not included on CD) Has videos on board to explain Siamese system v2.1, v2.5 and the new Siamese v4 PCI Amiga. Many utilities and PD programs that work over RTG and aid the integration. Available from Siamese Systems ltd or many dealers, www.siamese.co.uk/ordering.html Siamese v2.5 to Siamese v4 PCI Amiga Upgrade offer. Many people who have shown interest in the Siamese v4 PCI Amiga have asked if the deposit scheme could be made part of the Siamese v2.5 package. Therefore we have decided to offer the following special deal to people who want to pre order the Siamese v4 from us. Order Siamese v2.5 for 99.95 pounds sterling plus P&P direct from Siamese systems ltd before April 30th and we will put 50.00 pounds towards your deposit on the Siamese v4 system. With the 50.00 pounds discount this will mean that the Siamese v2.5 will actually work out free of charge. Yours sincerely Stephen Jones Managing Director Siamese Systems ltd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A N N O U N C E A M I G A P Y R O M A N I A C L A S S I C S 980322 VCE and Bill Panagouleas Announce Amiga Version of Pyromania Classics VCE, leading Hollywood visual effects company for 20 years & Bill Panagouleas developer bringing many popular PC & Mac applications to the Amiga is proud to release PYROMANIA CLASSICS! Amiga/Video Toaster 4000 version. PYROMANIA CLASSICS brings your productions all the firepower of the top gun visual effects companies. PYROMANIA CLASSICS contains over 30 Explosive Visual Effects Sequences including explosions, fire, smoke, Zero-G explosions and depth shockewaves. Individual files in sequence are provided for maximum usage in a variety of programs such as ImageFX, Photogenics or Toasterpaint. All files are photographed in 35mm motion picture film, scanned at 2k resolution and down sampled to full overscan video resolution. In addition, the Amiga/Toaster version includes Sequences in native FlyerClip format and Real-time Color Toaster Effects/Wipes. Toaster Effects may be used Real-time in your project and FlyerClips can be used for advanced compositing in Lightwave 3D & Toasterpaint. Call 1-800-242-9627 for more information, dealer inquires welcome. or on the web go to http://www.vce.com/. AGA Amiga or Graphics card required. Video Toaster 4000 with A4000 or higher spec Amiga required for Real-time Effects. Video Toaster Flyer or Lightwave 5.5 required for FlyerClips. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F I N N I S H " S A K U 9 8 " A S U C C E S S FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Petro Tyschtschenko Unveiled The New Amiga Hymn In Finland ESPOO, FINLAND - March 29, 1998 - Saku 98, organized by the Finnish Amiga Users Group on March 28th in Vantaa, was the biggest Amiga only event in Finland in years. Estimated total of 500 people visited the exhibition during the day and almost 250 were listening Petro Tyschtschenko's speech. Amiga International's Petro Tyschtschenko launched his new Amiga hymn at Saku 98. There were five different versions of this promotional song, ranging from classical to pop. The techno version, which Mr. Tyschtschenko played after his speech, featured the lyrics "Back for the future" and "Amiga". Another highlight of Mr. Tyschtschenko's speech was the promise of cheaper A1200 computers for the members of the Finnish Amiga Users Group. The exhibition was attended by the leading Finnish Amiga retailers Amigator, Broadline Oy, Gentle Eye Ky and Tsunami Trading, and the hardware manufacturer Petsoff Limited Partnership (of Delfina fame). New products, such as the Phase 5 Blizzard PPC, were on display and a lot of Amiga software and hardware was being sold. Mr. Tyschtschenko was present the whole day and handed out Amiga stickers and lighters. For further information, visit Finnish Amiga Users Group's Web Site at http://batman.jytol.fi/~saku/ or http://tzimmola.tky.hut.fi/saku/. E-mail inquiries may be sent to Janne Siren (siren@mikrobitti.fi). About Finnish Amiga Users Group Finnish Amiga Users Group is a non-profit organization for promoting Amiga computing and helping Amiga users in Finland. Also known as Saku, after its disk magazine, the group is trying to accomplish its goals by organizing meetings and by publishing a disk magazine. Since 1993 the Finnish Amiga Users Group and its predecessors have released 24 issues of the disk magazine and held five gatherings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P R O M O T I O N A L P R I C I N G F R O M N E W T E K Save Up to Five Thousand Dollars on Production Systems SAN ANTONIO, April 1 -- NewTek, manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video production products, announced today a complete line of specially priced Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer Promo Packs designed to save video production professionals thousands of dollars. The Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer promo packs are a combination of hardware and software that provide all the tools necessary to produce broadcast-quality video with one convenient desktop video production system. Since the inception of these products, NewTek has offered the Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer at an extremely competitive price, these new discounted prices make the system even more affordable to home users and professional video producers who need to maximize production quality within fixed budgets. "The Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer products have always been flagship products for NewTek," said Don Smith, vice president of Sales for NewTek. "Our bundles are designed to put this powerful system in the hands of as many video producers, animators, and broadcast professionals as possible." The NewTek Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer Promo Packs are available through authorized dealers throughout the United States and Canada and direct* from NewTek inside sales. Dealer locations are available from NewTek at 800-862-7837. In addition to these special prices, NewTek will offer directly an extended warranty and replacement IC cards at tremendous savings. Package: Includes: Suggested Customer MSRP: Saves: Promo Pack A * Video Toaster 4000 $3495.00 $3895.00 * Video Toaster Flyer 4000 * VT 3.5 + 4.2 Software * LightWave 3D Software Promo Pack B * Video Toaster 4000 $4995.00 $5044.00 * Video Toaster Flyer 4000 * VT 3.5 + 4.2 Software * LightWave 3D Software * Amiga 4000 Tower Computer Flyer Special * Video Toaster Flyer 4000 $2795.00 $2200.00 * 4.2 Software Promo Pack C * Video Toaster 4000 $3495.00 $1549.00 * VT 3.5 + 4.1 Software * LightWave 3D Software * Amiga 4000 Tower Computer Toaster Special * Video Toaster 4000 $995.00 $1400.00 * VT 3.5 + 4.1 Software * LightWave 3D Software * Plus shipping charges Video Toaster The Video Toaster offers the broadest range of video production tools available in a single product, including video switching, character generation, and 2D and 3D graphics tools. Its signature ability is that it lets users overlay animated video transitions across the screen in real time. No other product offers this capability in the price range of the Video Toaster. Video Toaster Flyer The Video Toaster Flyer is a broadcast-quality, tapeless, nonlinear editing system that lets users edit video and audio without the complexity of an analog videotape-based system. The Video Toaster Flyer encompasses both hardware and software tools to record video and audio segments as clips that can be arranged using a simple drag-and-drop interface. LightWave 3D LightWave 3D is one of the industry's most powerful photorealistic 3D animation systems for personal computers and workstations, enabling users to create stunning images and animations. About NewTek With headquarters in San Antonio, NewTek is the leader in providing full-featured video editing and special-effects tools that allow anyone to produce professional video and graphics. The company's products are used worldwide on projects from home video to feature film, including some of the most widely anticipated recent blockbusters, such as Men In Black, Titanic, The 5th Element and The Jackal. Contact NewTek at 8200 IH-10 West, Suite 900, San Antonio, TX 78230. Phone 210-370-8000. FAX 210-370-8001. http://www.newtek.com. NOTE: LightWave 3D, Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer are trademarks of NewTek Inc. All other brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I A 9 8 D I N N E R / T O U R N A M E N T April 2, 1998 International Amiga 98 now offers more than your average Amiga Show fare and lets you take in more of Toronto while your here. Join us for the Friday night party at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament - party with your friends and cheer for your favourite Knight (the one with the red and white flag?) That's in addition to all the new products from developers and manufactures from all over the world! For more information, visit the IA98 Website at http://www.randomize.com/ia98.html P.S. remember that coming to Canada is a great deal because of the Canadian Dollar! -- Thom Mills Randomize Computer Distribution (RCD) R.R. #2, Tottenham, Ont. L0G 1W0 Phone: 905-939-8371 Fax: 905-939-8745 email: thom@randomize.com WWW: http://www.randomize.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M A C T A K E O N P R E / B O X ? 22 Mar 1998 {The following item was spotted recently in various Amiga locations on the Internet. It supposedly originated on a Mac web site at http://www.macosrumors.com. Unfortunately, by the time we checked it out for ourselves, we were unable to locate the original posting so we present one of the copies we found on the net as a rumor. We think most Amigans will get a smile from this. Brad} Mind-blowing AmigaOS machine sports quad G3 processors It's difficult to believe, but by overcoming the hardware multiprocessing limitations of the G3 via software, Phase 5 Digital Products has developed a number of multiprocessing PowerPC systems which run AmigaOS 3.1 -- including a quad G3 system, with 4 300Mhz PowerPC 750 processors, each with its own 1MB backside cache. This dream machine also sports a 100Mhz main bus, 66Mhz PCI, an 8mb graphics system, a special slot for a Voodoo2 3D acceleration system, UltraII SCSI, a 100mbit ethernet card, and other features -- at a $4495 price point. Unforunately, while a reliable source confirms that these machines are very real and that several European Amiga users are already testing prototypes, they will almost certainly never run the Mac OS or Rhapsody because of special limitations in the ability to use low-level software which allows the G3 to multiprocess; limitations that are only known to be overcome by the AmigaOS and a few UNIXes. That won't stop us from dreaming, however. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- W O R L D N E W S 0 . 8 5 26 Mar 1998 19985553.Amiga@mail.cadvision.com> body Hi All, New version of World News 0.85 can be download at http://www.toysoft-dev.com and its free. V0.85 features ------------ - Post/Reply/Read articles - User defined groups - Filters - Folders - Batch articles into folders - View pictures, play sound, mpeg etc. using helper files - Sort - Built-in Mailer - Integrated with Air Mail Pro. You can file articles directly in Air Mail Pro's InBox and read it later. - Off line reading - Complete address or use Air Mail Pro's address book - Search for articles within a news group. - and many more regards, Danny -- TOYSOFT DEVELOPMENT INC. E-Mail: danny@toysoft-dev.com Website: http://www.toysoft-dev.com Calgary, Alberta Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: some issues available at: http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ (in html format) Australian Mirror Site: http://www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html All back issues available (in ASCII text) at: http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU/index.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1998 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || ======================================================================