Just Push Play
The tape decks you have around your home or production facility are quite limited. If it’s a VHS tape, it won’t play back S-VHS tape, and that Betacam deck won’t play one second of that D-9 footage, which is one reason we end up with so many decks tucked away. Now Video Toaster [2] can’t change the need to print to tape for delivery to your client, but a lot is changing once the Toaster is in your possession. Multi-format in one machine comes to you with Video Toaster’s Digital Disk Recorder, or DDR. Toaster DDR lets you drop in Toaster clips of nearly any flavor you have, and just press play. That uncompressed graphics page you create will play right alongside that MPEG-2 file you were given, without worries.

You can Still Store your images here
It used to be such a tedious process to make images compatible for Stillstore use; you have to first scale the image to just the right size, double-check aspect ratio, and then convert the image into the “proper” format for your Stillstore. Stop doing that! Video Toaster’s DDR is a rather intelligent sequencer, and any image you have on your PC is probably ready to go. Any common format, whether TGA, TIFF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF or many others become stills in DDR. Better yet, the image is automatically scaled to full-screen D1 playback, whether it is larger or smaller than D1 pixel size. When creating large photo montages, think how much time that will save you.

Tell me the Time
Speaking of time, You have several options on the DDR display for displaying time code. You can display either elapsed time for the clip or the project, or count down the time remaining of the clip or project, making it easier than ever to know when to begin your transition to the next source.

…and CUE the DDR!

Toaster DDR has a friendly CUE feature that allows you to set up a lengthy clip, or sequence of clips for playback, and with just three clicks of the mouse, your deck now becomes aware of its status on the Switcher rows! All you do is:

1. Set DDR to Switcher Preview row
2. Click Pause on DDR
3. Click Cue button next to pause. DONE!

Now, your DDR acts as its own Video Tape Operator, and will patiently remain paused until you command the switcher to either take, dissolve or use a DVE to transition it to Program out. Once that happens, Toaster’s Pro Switcher sends a GO command to the DDR, and it begins rolling. As soon as you switch to another source, the DDR waits until it is free of Program Out view, and then patiently pauses once more. Cue mode can play either the selected clip, or have the DDR play the entire project.

TWO tools in One
As an example of why skins technology is so useful to Video Toaster [2], the DDR is ToasterEdit dressed in another skin! This means you have flexibility to adjust clip IN and OUT points on the fly. This also means that the same Cue function found on the DDR is available to you in ToasterEdit. Like professional decks found in the studio, Fast Forward, Rewind, Play Stop, Record, Pause, and Shuttle/Jog controls let you scan the contents of the file or quickly navigate a list of videos. Something not found in a real-world deck is Toaster DDR’s ability to add transitions, such as wipes, pushes and DVE’s between clips. You don’t have to pay extra for additional power, since Video Toaster [2] allows you to open a second (or third, or fourth) DDR for your production flexibility. [See Dual DDR’s on screen here.] NewTek is determined to make video production fun for professionals and easy for those new to the business, and the Video Toaster [2] DDR is just one example of that.