Video Toaster - First Generation Systems

First Generation Systems

The Video Toaster was designed by NewTek founder Tim Jenison in Topeka, Kansas. Engineer Brad Carvey (brother of American actor/comedian Dana Carvey) built the first wire wrap prototype, and Steve Kell wrote the software for the prototype. Many other people worked on the Toaster as it developed. The first Toaster training tape was produced and copyrighted by George Lee. It was called The Toaster Microwave. His tape and the Toaster made it as far as Japan. George now resides in Pasadena, CA working in the television industry.

The Toaster was released as a commercial product in December 1990 for the Commodore Amiga 2000 computer system, taking advantage of the video-friendly aspects of that system's hardware to deliver the product at an unusually low cost 2399 USD. The Amiga was unique among personal computers in that its system clock at 7.16 MHz was precisely double that of the NTSC color carrier frequency, 3.579 MHz, allowing for simple synchronization of the video signal. The hardware component was a full-sized card which went into the Amiga 2000's unique single video expansion slot rather than the standard bus slots, and therefore could not be used with the A500 and A1000 models. The card had several BNC connectors in the rear, which accepted four video input sources and provided two outputs (preview and program). This initial generation system was essentially a real-time four-channel video switcher.

One feature of the Video Toaster was the inclusion of LightWave 3D, a 3D modeling, rendering, and animation program. This program became so popular and useful in its own right that in 1994 it was made available as standalone product separate from the Toaster systems.

Aside from simple fades and cuts, it had a large variety of character generation, overlays, and complex animated switching effects. These effects were in large part performed with the help of the native Amiga graphics chipset which were synchronized to the NTSC video signals; the result being that while the Toaster was rendering a switching animation the computer desktop display would not be visible. While these effects were unique and inventive, they could not be modified. Soon Toaster effects were seen everywhere, advertising the brand of switcher a particular production company was using.

The Toaster hardware required very stable input signals, and therefore was often used along with a separate video sync time base corrector to stabilize the video sources. Third-party low-cost time base correctors (TBCs) specifically designed to work with the Toaster quickly came to market, most of which were designed as standard ISA bus cards, taking advantage of the typically unused Bridgeboard slots (although they only used the bus to draw power and nothing more).

Like all video switchers that use a frame buffer to create DVEs (Digital Video Effects), the video path through the Toaster hardware introduced delays in the signals when the signal was in 'digital' mode. Depending on the video setup of the user, this delay could be quite noticeable when viewed along with the corresponding audio, and so some users installed audio delay circuits which would match the Toaster's video delay lag, as is common practice in video switching studios.

A user still needed three VTRs and a controller to perform A/B roll linear video editing (LE), as the Toaster would serve merely as a switcher (which could be triggered through General Purpose Input/Output (GPI) to switch on cue in such a configuration) but the Toaster itself had no edit controlling capabilities. The frame delays passing through the Toaster and other low cost video switchers would make precise editing a frustrating endeavor. Internal cards and software from other manufacturers were available to control VTRs, the most common systems went through the serial port to provide single frame control of a VTR as a capture device for Lightwave animations. A Non-linear editing system (NLE) product would be added later, with the invention of the Video Toaster Flyer, though the product never really worked to professional standards because it could not consistently play video without jitters. As a result, the Flyer never caught on as a viable product.

Although initially offered as just an add-on to an Amiga, it was soon available as a complete turn-key system which included the Toaster, Amiga, and sync generator. These Toaster systems became very popular, primarily because at a cost of around $5,000 US, they could do much of what a $100,000 professional video switcher (such as an Evans and Sutherland) could do at that time. The Toaster was also the first such video device designed around a general purpose personal computer that was capable of delivering NTSC broadcast quality signals.

As such, during the early 1990s the Toaster was used quite widely by many Amiga, desktop video enthusiasts and local television studios and was even used during The Tonight Show regularly to produce special effects for comedy skits. It was often easy to detect a studio that used the Toaster by the unique and recognizable special switching effects. The NBC television network also used the Video Toaster with Lightwave for its promotional campaigns, beginning with the 1990-1991 broadcast season ("NBC: The Place To Be!"). Also all of the external submarine shots in the TV series seaQuest DSV were created using Lightwave 3D, as were the outer space scenes in the TV series Babylon 5 (although Amiga hardware was only used for the first season). Interestingly, due to the heavy use of dark blues and greens (where the NTSC television standard is weak), the external submarine shots in seaQuest DSV could not have made it to air without the use of the ASDG Abekas driver (written by Aaron Avery at ASDG - later Elastic Reality, Inc.), written specifically to solve this problem.

An updated version called Video Toaster 4000 was later released, using the Amiga 4000's video slot. The 4000 was co-developed by actor Wil Wheaton, who worked on product testing and quality control. He later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product.