The Video Toaster was designed by NewTek founder
Tim Jenison in
Topeka, Kansas. Engineer
Brad 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 Toaster was announced at the
World of Commodore expo in 1987 and 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 of $2,399. Aside from simple fades,
dissolves, and cuts, the Video Toaster has a large variety of character generation, overlays and complex animated switching effects. These effects are in large part performed with the help of the native Amiga
graphics chipset, which is synchronized to the NTSC video signals. As a result, while the Toaster was rendering a switching animation, the computer desktop display is not visible. While these effects are unique and inventive, they cannot be modified. Soon Toaster effects were seen everywhere, advertising the device as the brand of switcher those particular production companies were using. The Toaster hardware requires very stable input signals, and therefore is 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. The cards do not use the Bridgeboard to communicate, but simply as a convenient power supply and physical location. As with 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, so some users installed audio delay circuits to match the Toaster's video-delay lag, as is common practice in video-switching studios. A user still needs at least three
video tape recorders (VTR) and a controller to perform
A/B roll linear video editing (LE), as the Toaster serves merely as a switcher, which can be triggered through
general-purpose input/output (GPIO) to switch on cue in such a configuration, as the Toaster has no edit-controlling capabilities. The frame delays passing through the Toaster and other low-cost video switchers make precise editing a frustrating endeavor. Internal cards and software from other manufacturers are available to control VTRs; the most common systems go 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 was added later, with the invention of the Video Toaster Flyer. Although initially offered as just an add-on to an Amiga, the Video Toaster was soon available as a complete turn-key system that included the Toaster, Amiga, and
sync generator. These Toaster systems became very popular, primarily because at a cost of around US$5,000, they could do much of what a $100,000 fully professional video switcher (such as a
Grass Valley switcher) could do at that time. The Toaster was also the first such video device designed around a general-purpose personal computer that is capable of delivering
broadcast quality NTSC signals. As such, during the early 1990s the Toaster was widely used by consumer
Amiga owners,
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!"). 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 three seasons).
Video Toaster 4000 An updated version called Video Toaster 4000 was later released, using the
Amiga 4000's video slot. Many high-quality special effects were added and it could be used standalone (as an Amiga system) or from a
Windows or a
Mac system connected to an Amiga with the Video Toaster card using dedicated software. He later used his public profile to serve as a
technology evangelist for the product. Tony Hawk later used the Toaster for editing a promotional video for the
TurboDuo game
Lords of Thunder in 1993. The Video Toaster 4000 won the best video hardware of the year 1993 award of the
Compute! magazine. The Amiga Video Toaster 4000
source code was released in 2004 by NewTek & DiscreetFX. == Video Toaster Flyer ==