Kiki to show major new product at NAB
SHartford
Inc.
on the eve of NAB. The product is Trinity, and it's a revolutionary
desktop
video solution for Windows PCs.
If you know who Play is, then you know how this product came to exist. If
you
don't know...
In February 1994, Vice President of NewTek Paul Montgomery (now President
of
Play) left with six others because of a significant difference of opinion
about the future of desktop video. Those who left include Kiki Stockhammer
(Toaster spokesperson), Mark Randall (former head of marketing, and
responsible for all of NewTek's videotapes), Robert Blackwell (NewTek's
first
employee and manager of product documentation), Alcatraz members Ken
Turcotte
(co-author of the switcher / effects systems), Daniel Kaye (user interface
designer for all of the Toaster's software, Toaster effects designer, and
Hollywood Lightwave evangelist), and myself (author of ToasterCG, much of
the
Flyer software, and former head of software at NewTek).
After we left NewTek, we decided to band together and form a new company.
We
moved to California, where most of us were originally from. (For those who
don't know, NewTek is based in Topeka, Kansas.) Soon after moving, we
merged
with two other companies, Digital Creations and Progressive Image
Technologies. We decided to call the new company Play Incorporated.
Digital
Creations, led by Play CEO John Botteri, was a major player in the Amiga
market for ten years. They created many successful products, including
DCTV,
SuperGen, and the Brilliance paint system. Progressive Image Technologies
was
a hardware engineering and manufacturing company led by Play Chairman and
CTO
Mike Moore. Progressive included ex-Grass Valley Group talent, and
developed
pioneering video hardware for 15 years, including major products for Apple
and IBM, as well as hardware for Digital Creation's Amiga products.
Since the merger, we've been joined by Stephan Bouchard (NewTek's former
head
of sales), Christina Knighton (former marketer and Toaster evangelist),
and
Laura Longfellow (NewTek's first sales manager, a.k.a. "Maxine Headroom"
from
NewTek's first demo reels). Just recently, Steve Kell (NewTek's first
programmer and head of software development for the last year) left NewTek
to
join Play. With the addition of Steve, we've now re-assembled the
original
Video Toaster Alcatraz software team. Play's R&D department now has 21
people, including 11 Windows programmers and six hardware engineers.
We began shipping our first PC product, the Snappy Video Snapshot, two
weeks
ago. Snappy is a high-resolution video frame grabber which plugs into a
parallel port and grabs stills at resolutions up to 1500x1125 in 24-bit
color
for $199. Snappy's been getting rave reviews, and looks like it's going to
be
a very successful product.
However, the primary focus of R&D has been on a product which I'm excited
to
acknowledge here publicly for the first time, Trinity.
Trinity is a next generation, fully D1 component digital, open
architecture
Windows-based desktop video system. The base system lists for $5995. and
includes:
- 10 Input Video Switcher
- Timeline Editor with Machine Control
- Two Channels of Real-Time Digital Video Effects
- 10 ns Character Generator
- Paint, Compositing, and Animation
- Dual Channel Still Store
- Chroma Keyer with Transparent Shadows
- Automated Audio Mixer
- Color Effects Processor
- Two Time Base Correctors with Color Correctors
Play will also be announcing two optional add-ons to Trinity; a D1
dual-channel online non-linear editing system, and an advanced 3D digital
warping engine (similar to Sony's System G and Quantel's Mirage). We will
be
inviting independent hardware and software companies to develop products
for
Trinity. As part of our developer program, we'll be publishing Trinity's
high
- speed bus specifications and video software APIs.
There are exciting opportunities for users of Lightwave and other 3D
packages
to create many things with Trinity, including effects and something we'll
be
showing at our event called synthetic sets. This is one of the coolest
abilities of the Trinity hardware, and I think people are going to love
it.
Play President Paul Montgomery was quoted last year in Wired magazine as
saying "Being from the Amiga market is like being from the future." With
Windows 95, pre-emptive multitasking, photo-realistic graphics, stereo
sound,
and cool games, PCs have caught up to the Amiga. Now with Trinity, all of
our
experience creating desktop video products on the Amiga comes to the PC.
We've been working with desktop video users for ten years, and Trinity is
everything people have asked us for and more.
I'm excited to invite all of you to come to our world premiere event
unveiling Trinity in Las Vegas on the eve of NAB, Sunday, April 9th at
7:00
pm at Caesars Palace Coliseum VI and VII. Play will be in the main hall at
NAB, booth #19926. We'll be disclosing more details about Trinity and
giving
an in-depth product demonstration. I look forward to seeing you there! The
revolution continues...
Steve Hartford
Trinity Software Team Leader
Play, Inc.
Stranahan
_____________________________________________
Lee Stranahan
Area 51 Visual Effects
"Too late to stop now.."
davh...@delphi.com
RME 3D
hor...@delphi.com
...and so you exclude the Amiga from Play's future.
What is right is not always popular - and what is popular is not always right.