Gone are the days when you need a stack of expensive, heavy videocassette recorders to edit professional video. While there is still a valid use for tape-to-tape editing, all of that can be accomplished within the VT’s Integrated Production Suite using as many Digital Disk Recorders, or DDR’s, as you require. Stills, animations, or entire projects can easily be stacked in DDR and cued for playback. Just a few of the features include:

• Multi format on-screen tape deck
• Compressed & uncompressed playback
• Play single clip or list of clips
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  Batch Capture DDR lists
• Supports import of Grass Valley, CMX, Sony or text EDL’s
• Cue clips with Switcher
• Insert Transitions between clips
• Display clip length or time remaining

The tape decks in your 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 D-9 footage, which is one reason so many decks stack up in edit suites. Real-time multi-format is now a reality, as VT-DDR will drop in clips of nearly any type. That uncompressed graphics page you create will play right alongside that AVI file you were given, without a second thought.

VT’s DDR is an intelligent sequencer, and any image you have on your PC is ready to go. Any common format, whether TGA, TIFF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF or many others are useable as stills in DDR. Better yet, the image is automatically scaled to full-screen D1 playback, whether its larger or smaller than D1 pixel size.

VT-DDR includes a smart CUE feature to set up a clip, or sequence for playback, making your deck aware of its status with the Switcher Now, your DDR acts as its own Video Tape Operator, patiently paused until you command the switcher to Take or Auto transition to Program out. Then, the Switcher sends a GO command to the DDR, and it begins rolling.

You don’t have to pay extra for additional power, since VT[3] allows you to open a second (or third, or fourth) DDR for your production flexibility. NewTek is determined to make video production fun for professionals and easy for those new to the business, and the VT[3] DDR is just one example of that.