jcupp
04-22-2005, 02:49 AM
Wow!
Today was the last day of NAB and after hanging around the NewTek booth and doing a couple of stints demoing VT[4] I thought I'd post an eye-witness account.
The TriCaster is a monster and it is going to sell a lot of VT[4]s. The NewTek booth was full of NEW customers. In past years the booth was crowded with old Amiga users and other faithful making the yearly haj to the Video Toaster Mecca but it was different this year. TriCaster has generated such incredible buzz that people who have never heard of NewTek or the Video Toaster were showing up to see this TriCaster thing that they had heard about. And because of that many saw the VT[4] for the first time and the scales fell from their eyes.
I demoed VT[4] to dozens of people who had no clue that such a device existed, network affiliate engineers went home with visions of VT[4] dancing in their brains. Bean counters swooned at the thought of 8 input componant switchers that could be run by one person and that cost less then 10 grand. "Perfect for producing those hourly news updates, did I mention that it only takes one guy to run - you don't need a director and a TD and a tape operator and a chyron jocky". Cha-Ching!
"It has Storyboard and timeline editing and is easy to use. Now watch me do realtime slo-mo flip the video over a few times, key that over a background, lay a title over it and click play- see how fast it is? Here, sit down and take deep breaths." Cha Ching!
I was asked so many times when NewTek was supposed to ship the VT that it started to get funny.
TriCaster was working magic, I had to explain over and over that, yes, that little box really could do all that. People are going to buy the thing just because it's so cool. I talked to guys that are going to buy it just for the editor and CG, "it's so easy to use". With the awards and all the buzz the show generated NewTek is getting some real PR traction, it is as Paul Lara put it "like the days of old".
Today was the last day of NAB and after hanging around the NewTek booth and doing a couple of stints demoing VT[4] I thought I'd post an eye-witness account.
The TriCaster is a monster and it is going to sell a lot of VT[4]s. The NewTek booth was full of NEW customers. In past years the booth was crowded with old Amiga users and other faithful making the yearly haj to the Video Toaster Mecca but it was different this year. TriCaster has generated such incredible buzz that people who have never heard of NewTek or the Video Toaster were showing up to see this TriCaster thing that they had heard about. And because of that many saw the VT[4] for the first time and the scales fell from their eyes.
I demoed VT[4] to dozens of people who had no clue that such a device existed, network affiliate engineers went home with visions of VT[4] dancing in their brains. Bean counters swooned at the thought of 8 input componant switchers that could be run by one person and that cost less then 10 grand. "Perfect for producing those hourly news updates, did I mention that it only takes one guy to run - you don't need a director and a TD and a tape operator and a chyron jocky". Cha-Ching!
"It has Storyboard and timeline editing and is easy to use. Now watch me do realtime slo-mo flip the video over a few times, key that over a background, lay a title over it and click play- see how fast it is? Here, sit down and take deep breaths." Cha Ching!
I was asked so many times when NewTek was supposed to ship the VT that it started to get funny.
TriCaster was working magic, I had to explain over and over that, yes, that little box really could do all that. People are going to buy the thing just because it's so cool. I talked to guys that are going to buy it just for the editor and CG, "it's so easy to use". With the awards and all the buzz the show generated NewTek is getting some real PR traction, it is as Paul Lara put it "like the days of old".