NewTek Video Toaster General Overview Demo on Commodore Amiga 

Nice, love it! Worked with Lightwave since 1.0. I used LW while working on Sea Quest(at Amblin) and later Voyager (at Foundation Imaging). The Toasters served me well in those years. I retired my own A4000 with Toaster/Flyer combo in late 1996.

My father built his video production empire on the Toaster 4K and the Toaster Flyer. He shot and edited video depositions for lawyers who wanted to show off in court, and that work bought our house back in the 90's. It all dried up when DVD replaced VHS and LaserDisc, but for a few brief years, the NewTek Video Toaster system was the best in the world. Good times! Great video, very informative- many thanks for helping keep the working knowledge, and thereby the magic of these great old things alive. Rock on!

I worked in tv production right when the toaster took over the control room....what a giant leap for tech

I owe my entire career/livelihood to the VT. I learned Lightwave 1.0 from the horrendous manual at a nasty home 'studio' in a bad part of Detroit. Took years to learn it back then because of the speed of the machine and the lack of reference, but from there moved in to CG and FX since. Thank you Newtek

Prior to this video, i didnt even know what a video toaster was, let alone what it looked like. Thanks so much for producing this and filling me in.

I'm from Rio de Janeiro. I had an Amiga 500 in 1992 and another Amiga T-4000 with Video Toaster in 1996. I created transitions and effects in real time. There was also a program called Scene Generator, which created scenarios. You could also create your own moves. Editing system far ahead of its time. TV broadcasters used the Amiga with the Video Toaster. I gave it all as a gift to an enthusiastic friend in Amiga about 7 years ago. I still have the AG-DS540 and 550 videos. The player (540) is working perfectly. The rec needs to change capacitors. But it's whole too.

Wow. I wanted a Video Toaster for YEARS and now realize I had no idea what it really was. Still, it did so much! Amiga was so ahead of the game in so many ways...

Great stuff, Bill! The Toaster is such a wonderful product. I was thinking the other day about the transitions we use in modern editors - and the fact we have to render and wait for them. Then I think about what transitions the Toaster can do in a fraction of a second on tech that is 35 years old and I am amazed all over again.

Fantastic!! That was so much fun to watch! I just spotted a dislike; must be an Atari ST fan ;)

Very interesting! Always only heard stories about the toaster. Never actually saw it in action.

Bill, Nothing on RU-vid gives me more pleasure than watching you having fun with an Amiga, Great!

Wow, this brings back memories! I was 20 years old when we bought a Toaster for our family business. I was working on traditional video switchers with an old Kyron character generator. When we got the Toaster it completely changed our business and allowed us to be so much more creative. Now we're an Adobe house but we probably wouldn't be here today if it weren't for the VIdeo Toaster.

Bill, I loved this video for several reasons. It sounded very much like a documentary style video than the couple of amiga friends discussing the good old days. I got started with the A500, went to the A2000 then A3000 before being blessed with a Toaster 4000 in college that I had to myself. I used Lightwave and edited college videos. I never got into video as I was warned away from it. But I never lost my appreciation for the Amiga. My five year old wanted to watch airplanes today. I connected my FS UAE mac to the TV through air play and brought up FA/18 Interceptor, then I saw your video juts an hour ago. I started my own channel about five months ago. For man of those earlier videos, I wore an Amiga sweater. I don't wear it so much now as my wife forced me to wear better cloths for the videos... ;) Always appreciate your videos. The only complaint I have to your channel is that there are not enough videos. All the best my friend from across the lake!

We had a Video Toaster at our little public access tv station back in the mid-90s. We were putting out graphics that rivaled the local broadcast company. I think there's a market today for something similar to use in podcasts and other live streaming events.

That was a fantastically fun vid, love the toaster!

Wow - this is so so so on point Bill! Thanks for making this video :-) I love that Newtek are still making waves.... NDI, Tricaster, etc

Dope!!!! Looking forward for next episodes!!!

The book "The history of Motion graphics" brought me to your channel. Love the detailed demo. Some serious effort went into setting this up. Great Video!!!

Best News Flash...I’ve heard in a very long time.

Too bad NTSC only! Thanks for CLEAR exponation of Flyer and sofrware!

I was introduced to an A1000 in '87 and got my first A500 in '88. At the time it rocked my world. These days I have about 15 A500s, a CDTV32 and a few HDDs sitting in the cupboard out in the garage but since the advent of WinUAE and all of its excellent emulation abilities, I haven't needed to fire up a REAL Amiga in years. I look at those lumpy old graphics now and think 'How the hell did they ever pull off things like SeaQuest and Bab5 on THAT?' Ahhh... the good ol' days. Thanks for the Toaster demo!

So much fun - thanks for showing this. Finally a complete overview over what I thought was science fiction as a kid.

I paid $5,000 with everything!!!,,,and it still works!!! AMIGA Forever!

Those Amiga days where the best days ! I remember Newtek Video Toaster coming out, very clearly. I had nearly all the models of Amiga A500, A1500, A1200, A4000/040. Yep in that order. Loved that computer. Great video, always happy see anything with regards to the Amiga.

At last a video about the iconic Video Toaster. thanks.

This was such a joyfull watch, thanks!

Finally I see how it works. Those days it was absolutely stunning.

I always wanted to have it but unfortunately a PAL version was never made, and at the time no one in Italy sold it in the shop. Thanks for showing it to me in action

I always wondered what a video toaster did. Looks fun to mess around with. Great video. Yes please do something in more depth. I remember the awesome pictures people produced in Lightwave.

Always loved the Toaster, enjoy it Bill , and do more videos with that amazing piece of hardware.

So many memories, this is amazing, thanks

Great vid! Nice to see what the Toaster is like- ofcourse the Amiga is what got me into video art and editing... we used an A4000 back in High School but before that it was vhs editing in class. Much love for NLE tho... so stoked with today’s tech tho... wish Amiga was still involved... I believe the future is ARM.

awsome video! it's been 30 years since I've seen one in action! takes me back to the 90s in community college...was in awe then and still am today of thier power-price point compared to pro broadcast broadcast equipment, quantel ,chyron paintbox, ,SGI,etc.

And the Video Toaster still gives me goosebumps! :-D :-D

Brings back memories. Thank you for a wonderful video.

This was so joyful to watch, thanks!

Hoping you keep this channel rolling forever. I loved my Amiga 500 system. And I still believe that, even with its flaws, it was the best computer ever made. We just need a modern version of that hardware, the operating system, and the software you could buy for it. And not just some crappy substitute, which is (at best) what we have today. The Amiga experience generated an amazing vibe that has never been matched.

Excellent Video Bill much less waffling than me, I hope to do my A3000/Toaster video soon with my A2000 Macro System video editing setup :-)

I am fascinated by early post production hardware. Awesome video!!

As always, your enthusiasm is catching, great job.

This was great! I never knew how any of this stuff worked, I appreciate you showing all of this. Sub'd.

THAT was awesome! Never seen the Toaster in action. Thanks a lot!

Super cool overview!

Always well made and very entertaining. You and 8-bit guy....i can't get enough. Please, please do MORE!

This was so cool! Great job Bill!

Great video. Just shared with my colleagues at NewTek!

awesome :d ... and so much fun to see you have fun :D ... i just repaired an a1k, got a genlock and scanner et all... such fun.

Congrats with the toaster !!!

More Video Toaster please !!! We need more fun with this hot stuff !!! Thanks

Wow this video ruled. Randomly stumbled on it. Good work, dude! If I had one of these as a kid... holy crap...

I love the enthusiasm! Let's see the rendered animation.

Great video, I've always wondered what the Video Toaster was! Great explanation, thank you

I have a friend that I worked with in the early 90's by Pete Benson from Philadelphia, Pa. He was a video geek and Newtek user. He introduced me to video and the flyer back then. Always wanted to get into it but was more involved with Pc's and early NLE's at the time. Haven't been able to locate the guy since.

Thank you for the great video!

I did special even video back when this was THE HOT THING used them for close to 12 years OMG I so loved the WHOLE system.

Thanks. Great work

Beautiful thing, huge possibilities for those days! :)

Can't wait to get my A4000 back from repairs! It's got a Video Toaster 4000. Now I just need some good NTSC cameras, some VTRs, and a timebase corrector.

When I was a little kid I wanted this so bad...

Hahaha... totally loved this video. You definitely need to do more videos like this. I had a 3000 tower with my toaster

Bill, I'm a Steadicam operator based in NYC, and I love vintage computing, as well! Had no idea you were a DP here!

Great vid. I can’t believe you never had a toaster before. Look forward to more in-depth vids. Maybe one on how the hardware actually worked?

More Video Toaster videos!!!!!!!! Great Video Bill!!!!!

I love the music in the back ^^

I miss the Amiga! Great video

Great ! Thank you

A love Amgia Bill! You are awesome dude!

i remember seeing an A1200 at the Indiana Jones stunt show at Disney back in the day. I had the toaster demo vhs tape and watched it over and over lol

Broadcast ready!

I was friends with the guy that made some very good aircraft models (I think there was a 707 included with Lightwave that he did) for Lightwave. He didn't like the modeling software, so he would draw out every polygon on large format graph paper, and then HAND KEY every single vertex. I remember him telling me that he did renders to slide format (as in, film slides) so they were ridiculous resolution for those days-- like 3000x3000 and he used those for presentations. For some of his animations, a single frame could take 6-12 hours, and he was feeding them, one at a time, to a single-frame-capable Super VHS VCR. He had a ridiculous setup.

Always wanted a toaster, but 1) It was expensive for a home user and 2) NTSC only. I remember that it was a converter card from NTSC to PAL, as well as 3'rd party cards to controll VCR's so you could edit video with it (non-digital). I remember that there was a magazine for it called Video Toaster User, i used to visit an international magazine chain that sold it and was amazed with all the stuff you could do with it, especially the Flyer that was ahead of it's time, but in the later 90s Adobe Premiere came out an suddenly i could edit digital video on my PC. Newtech really pushed the Amigas capabilities.

That Video Toaster gives you the capabilities of the QUANTEL PAINTBOX without the price and without having to purchase licence keys to enable certain features.

So many memories... :)

This looks pretty cool actually. I might try one if I have the chance.

Bill you're giving me all kinds of FEELS seeing you working in LW. However I also appreciate the STACKS of floppies off to your right. Yes folks. Want to install the Toaster on your Amiga? It's a million floppies. Best hope they all work! ;)

Great video !! Very entertaining. Funny stuff there with the Amiga LOVE and the Atari SUCKS bit !! Love the demo also.

I always thought the Toaster was a video editor. Good to know I was wrong.

Amazing how much things have advanced since then, especially when it comes to 3D modeling capability. Nowadays, those animation frames would render in realtime with full effects even on the crappiest video card. Still, I totally WANTED to get one of these back in the day but just couldn't afford it. :( Good times!

Nice to see a Toaster again. I still have one buried in the pile around here somewhere. :) One thing to mention, the camera sources if using more than one, must be genlockable for the switcher to work. Same with VCRs. Most consumer or prosumer VCRs needed a Time Base Corrector to work with the toaster. Fortunately, the demand for cheap TBCs drover the market to produce them. They plugged into the PC style expansion slots, but just got power from them. They were controlled by the Amiga over the serial bus. Fun Times. :)

Absolutely stunning Bill!! Video Toaster is still impressive today! Why Commodore didn't bring the Toaster to PAL countries is still a mistery to me..

Thank you so much ! Quite unbelievable to see a VT demo in 2020 ! Cannot but wonder how many of actual HW & SW will still work ok in 20+ years ! The ST fans are now two, according to the dislike... Lamers ;-) !

Awesome video Bill......... Video Toaster was an amazing board in the 90s and NewTek killed the video solution. I guess it was hard to put all the stuff that you can do with Toaster in just 16 mins video but you did a great job here. Congrats !!!. Lightwaveeeeeeeee is the next one :) Lets do it.

I was in video production starting in the eighties through the analog to digital transition, so I love this stuff (I had a Toaster 2000). The funny thing about the Toaster Flyer is that although it was an NLE, it didn't use a timeline interface for editing. It still used the A/B, preview/program metaphor of the "big iron" days. Your system's hard drives were even set up that way - drives 1 and 2 were your A and B sources, and drive C was your audio. You would set up a sort of storyboard sequence, with each element called a "Crouton" (because Toaster, get it?). That basic timeline you showed was an add-on developed and sold by a third party. You can follow the development of the interface in the issues of Video Toaster User they have on archive.org. And for the kids out there: when you rendered CGI in that era, you didn't simply create a video file and email it to your client. You'd have a honking big video deck hooked up to your computer via serial cable. Every time an interlaced frame finished rendering, the deck would wake up, move the tape to the timecode of the new frame, rewind a bit, go into record mode and record that single frame, and then go back to sleep until the next frame was ready. It took freaking forever, and was murder on the innards of the recorder. They were built like tanks, and cost as much.

gee whiz, i had taken a Video Toaster class at Washburn University at Topeka, Ks. using donated Spielberg Amiga computers 🥳great stuff & too pricey for me 🤑 thanks a lot ☕🥧

aMAZING

When you consider the size of the global television market, how much bespoke digital systems like Quantel cost (see Retro Man Cave's video on Quantel Paintbox to get some idea of how expensive those systems were) and that out of all the countries in the world, only three used NTSC (everywhere else was PAL, except France and Russia, which were SECAM), it is amazing to me that Commodore didn't pay Newtek to deliver a PAL version of the Video Toaster. I realise the US TV market is huge by itself, but my god - they would have had that market sewn up. If Commodore had any sense (as we know, it didn't) they would have bought Newtek, and fully integrated the Video Toaster into the Amiga's design, making that the focus of their production. They would have revolutionised video production and the costs therein - years before things like Premiere and iMovie. NewTek are still around. Amiga barely is. Commodore is a memory. I know we in Amiga fandom like to speculate about how our beloved Amiga could have ascended to the top with competent leadership and management, but that really does seem no-brainer. The two companies were so dependant on each other that it would have made sense to combine.

Nice lookin

I actually edited video with Amilink long before the Flyer came out - and before that we used regular edit controllers.

I was dreaming the same back in the late 80s, early 90s.

Awesome video showcasing the Toaster! I was wondering where I could find a place to listen to or buy that end credits song, maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing but I can't find it anywhere

To think that now we have real time Ray tracing and rendering at 4K resolution. We've come so far in 30 years.

I always wondered if I was the only one who still wished to have a video toaster.

It's cool!

Nostalgia!!!

5:34 Where is that mustache? If I ever get one of these, I will say goodbye to after fx for good... Excellent vid babe.

I've always wanted to try out a Video Toaster and re-create those early CG idents and animations like you'd see on TV in the 90's. I'm guessing it's easier to do it with today's 3D software like Autodesk and Blender, or there's a digital version of Video Toaster out there.

Always wanted to get one the Tees like the one in the first Wayne's World movie. Hard to find in the UK. I used to work on Amiga Format back in the day and it was, unsurprisingly, my favourite thing in the office. I also started my 3D adventures in Imagine and it's a shame to see Lightwave slowly disappearing from the scene. Cinema 4D is still going strong, although it's a little more expensive...

The video toaster is OBS from the 90's. I never knew that.

awsome video bill, I watched the stream as well! By the way, what TBC are you using in your set up when you switch cameras? My VIDEO TOASTER 4000 came with a Kitchen Sync Board but mine is missing its video input dongle so I can't feed any video into it :( I'm looking to get something to complete my setup.

Thanks Bill, you look like a kid in the candy store with that toaster!