OpalVision Roaster DVE (CU Amiga June 1995)

For good measure, a 24 bit frame grabber is thrown in too, producing some very nice results immediately.

Two types of keying can also be done with the upgrade – both luma (or intensity) and chroma (or colour). Keying is jargonese for replacing some of one picture with part of another, and the part to be replaced is decided by using a keying component; for OpalVision either Luminance or Chroma. Luma keying means that everything above or below a certain intensity level is changed to a different picture, and chroma is the same with colour replacing the intensity as the keying component. As well as keying, stencilling can be done with an alpha channel too – the upshot of which means that three “levels” of video can be used: a foreground, middle and background. Very clever.

On the subject of inputs, the upgrade only has one moving video source which is a definite drawback. It means that only wipes between a still and live video can be done, but this can be got around by making use of the Video Suite rackmounted switcher, giving 9 live inputs and 5 stereo audio channels to play with.

As it stands, the Opalvision upgrade is outrageously good producing excellent signals. When a couple of bug-ettes are ironed out and it is on general release, this will be a big boon for the Amiga. Quantities are expected “soon”, where soon could be anything from a couple of weeks to a year or so… The message is if you’ve got an Opalvision, hold onto it because these things do exist and are well worth having!