Some time ago I remember seeing a (long) infomercial-like commercial for a really old-school video editing program. Like, something from the 1980s maybe, a system that was probably hellishly expensive. Everything was all 80s’d-out, with those krazy 80s colors, and the commercial showed a demonstration of how on-screen effects could be created, text manipulated, colors changed, etc. I think one of the images displayed may have been a sailboat on the ocean. I guess the video was on YouTube or somewhere else online.
Despite being insanely anachronistic, the commercial actually succeeded in making the video editing system seem pretty cool and alluring.
I may very well have been linked to this from a discussion on this board. (Or maybe not.) But does anyone know what I’m talking about?
When I was in college I worked as an AV tech for the languages department, and we had a video toaster demo tape that I always used when I needed to test a VCR. I haven’t seen that clip in 12-13 years, but I remembered every bit when I watched it just now.
Nah, I don’t think it was that. It was something even more rudimentary looking than that. The thing I loved was that it made the editing process look SO easy!
I can’t remember the name, but I recall a consumer oriented video editing system advertised in that way. I was doing S-VHS editing at the time, with Amigas and eventually a Video Toaster. They asked me to check it out, and it was astonishingly convoluted and inaccurate - pretty much what you would expect with a product intended to work without the ability to digitize video intended to work with VCRs that lacked time code or a flying erase head. It used Sony’s LANC style control system.
It’s name began with a “C”, but I can’t remember it because I worked with a Convergence system before the Amiga and it’s name has conflated with the other in my head.
In the commercial, there was either a voiceover or an actual guy going through all the steps and explaining in great detail how everything works and how supposedly easy it is to use. It was really more of an infomercial than a commercial, or maybe some corporate publicity video that was made as a demonstration to potential clients or something. It was so 80s’d-out, it was unbearable.
Again, I clearly remember watching this, and 99% sure it was linked off a thread here at the SDMB, but I have no idea what the thread was about, so I don’t even know where to begin to look.
I actually don’t think this was a computer, at least not in the sense that we think of as being a computer. I think it was a separate device with very little user interface.
If we’re thinking of the same thing, it was a charcoal gray box. It was an example of a good idea that exceeded the available technology and/or needs of the time, like the Frox system or the Unity Motion HD satellite channels. I really wish I could remember, but I’m afraid those memories got shifted to long term storage boxes then accidentally thrown away as trash.
At one point I was an expert on a particular 3D animation system. I wrote tutorials on it, contributed to an article in Computer Graphics World about it and traveled to train people on it. And now I can no longer remember a damn thing about it. I check Google Groups for my old posts about it, and I’m amazed at the shit I’ve forgotten.
