What is DraCo? DraCo is the most affordable video-graphics workstation ever designed. DraCo's three proprietary 32-bit expansion slots are capable of handling up to uncompressed video in real-time! This is the amazing breakthrough that DraCo brings to life. Like all computers, it has a processor, memory, I/O ports, graphics, expansion slots, a keyboard, and a mouse. But DraCo is significantly different from any other computer. DraCo is a turnkey system designed for affordable broadcast quality digital editing of animation and video. Philosophically, it's a completely different concept to build a computer specifically for non- linear editing and graphics. This is an important distinction: DraCo is a computer built for non- linear editing and is the key to affordable on- line/broadcast quality desktop video and audio. DraCo is manufactured in Germany by MacroSystem, an award-winning company known for its cutting edge video and graphics computer products. NoahJi's is proud to distribute DraCo. Why manufacture DraCo ... aren't there enough PC's and Macs already available? This question goes right to the heart of the matter as DraCo is the essence of our dreams. MacroSystem decided to manufacture DraCo because anything else would have been a huge compromise. We considered manufacturing for PC's or Macs, but what we saw were slow and inefficient operating systems, mostly single-tasking machines with slow bus systems, slow hard disk systems and weak graphics. Developers for other computer platforms are trying to "put a square peg into a round hole" by attempting to shoehorn video hardware into what are essentially office computers. Office computers can be upgraded, but they remain office computers built for word processing, spreadsheets, data base management and the like. Adapting video hardware to these office computers is a limiting and frustrating process. This is also why we chose to use the Amiga OS. It's the most powerful operating system available for video and graphics, it's a true multi-tasking OS, and it's perfect for multimedia and video. DraCo is a video computer, built for broadcasters, professionals, animators, and prosumers intent on the highest digital quality possible. In what configuration is DraCo available? DraCo is a tower based around Motorola's 50MHz 68060. It's also compatible with the 66MHz version which should be available in the fall. DraCo comes in two configurations. The base system is a full size tower with lots of space for various kinds of media. Standard in the base model are a quad speed 650MB CD ROM, the Retina graphics card with 4MB of RAM on its own 32-bit DraCo direct bus, and 4MB of system RAM. The RAM on any DraCo is expandable up to 128MB, and virtually unlimited hard disk space is available. You can also add tape streamers, CD ROM writers, and optical systems (MOD) to DraCo's embedded SCSI II/SCSI III controller. A mouse and keyboard are also included. You'll need to add hard drives and possibly more memory. The base system costs $4950. The Pro system contains all of the above, along with the Award Winning DraCo VLab Motion and Toccata. These two cards deliver the highest quality video and audio. The DraCo VLab Motion is on a DraCo direct 32-bit bus which yields transfer rates of up to 30MB/second. This is how DraCo delivers perfect quality digital video. MovieShop software is also included. This powerful and intuitive editing package written specifically for VLab Motion is a most exciting piece of software. You'll need to add hard drives, and more memory. The DraCo Pro costs $7950. The prices quoted above do not include hard drives, as the prices for hard drives are falling so rapidly. These devices are getting faster and cheaper almost by the day. And you may possibly have fast SCSI II drives already. It may be a novel concept, but we don't want to make you buy anything you may not need. The same goes for the RAM. You may already have RAM on hand, and your needs will dictate how much RAM you'll require. 16MB is recommended for DraCo Pro. Every DraCo will include a copy of Elastic Reality's image processing packages - ADPro and Morph Plus - as well as the Conversion Pack on CD ROM. The Conversion package includes loaders and savers which allow you to trade data with PC's, Suns, SGI's, and Macs. TIFF, BMP, SUNRASTER, JPEG, and other file formats are supported. Scanner drivers are also included for HP, Sharp, and Cannon. DraCo is both PAL and NTSC compatible. Steven L. Kelsey of CompuWise Technologies, designer of the CSA Magnum and the Warp Engine boards, has worked with us on the CPU core of DraCo. He designed both the SCSI controller interface and DRAM controller, implementing the fastest technology in this important area of DraCo. What's the physical structure of DraCo? The DraCo computer is a tower with significant room for expansion. There is ample room and power to add hard drives, additional expansion cards, and memory. There are three primary boards within DraCo - the motherboard, the Retina graphics board, and the processor board. ¥ The motherboard is mainly passive with space for add-ons. There are 10 of the 100 pin expansion slots included. 5 of the slots are Zorro II slots, 3 are 32-bit DraCo direct slots, and 2 are processor slots. ¥ The DraCo Retina graphics board resides in the first DraCo Direct slot. The Retina is standard in every DraCo, giving amazing graphics speed. With enhanced RAM interface, this Retina is capable of over 180MB/second at 110 MHz - 120 MHz. ¥ The processor board contains the 50MHz Motorola 68060, RAM controller, SCSI chips, serial and parallel ports, Zorro II slots, and the logic control for the DraCo direct slots. Serial, parallel, mouse and keyboard ports are standard. The Retina board has a 15 pin VGA RGB output, as well as an option for Y/C and Composite outputs. On the VLab Motion board there are composite and S-Video inputs and outputs. The Toccata allows for SMPTE and has 3 stereo inputs, 1 microphone input, and 1 stereo output. The optional video mouse allows VITC input and output. Zorro III slots would have required the custom chipset. What you'll need for significant computing power is already included in the basic design, so the added slots give room for true expandability. What other options are available for DraCo? One of the most exciting options involves the third DraCo direct 32-bit bus. It's for the DEC Alpha RISC processor. Adding a DEC Alpha chip will mean the digital effects of MovieShop render in real time. This option won't be available immediately, and we don't yet have a price for this board. Other options currently planned are: a video mouse with jog-shuttle control and timecode in and out, additional software options for MovieShop, and a genlock board for the DraCo Retina. We are currently in discussion with other software and hardware manufacturers for an exciting variety of optional products. Floppy drives are also an option as the software for DraCo will be available on CD ROMs. Not to worry, though, there are four viable options for the transfer of data. Data can be transferred from your hard drive (SCSI); via ethernet network; with a standard 25 to 25 pin standard parallel cable from an Amiga; or using a standard PC 1.44 or 2.88 floppy drive. What software and hardware products will work on DraCo? All Amiga system compliant hardware and software which works on graphics cards should work on DraCo. The other stipulation is that the hardware and software needs to be 68060 compatible. Many major hardware and software manufacturers have already approached us, and their revisions, if necessary, should be quite modest. A complete list will be published after we've completed our tests. There are Mac, PC, and UNIX emulators on the market. We're in contact with these companies and believe they'll bring their products to DraCo. This is an area out of our control But if these emulators are made available as expected, you'll be able to use Mac, PC, and UNIX applications on DraCo in the future. We want to be careful what we promise, though. We've developed DraCo specifically to allow VLab Motion to perform to its highest capabilities. As a turnkey system for NLE, DraCo takes the reins off of VLab Motion, allowing unbridled speed and power. What can you tell me about VLab Motion and MovieShop software? VLab Motion is a real-time motion JPEG digitizer for video editing, special effects, and animation recording. In concert with the Toccata 16 bit audio card, you can simultaneously record full motion video and CD quality audio from any source, store it on your hard drive, edit it, enhance it with digital effects, play it back in real time, and record your final production to tape. VLab Motion was originally created for the Amiga computer. It's a highly acclaimed hardware/software combination. VLab Motion garnered two Product of the Year awards, a perfect 10 score, and a 94% score in its 4 most recent reviews. Critics and users of this product are astounded at what MacroSystem has created. The DraCo VLab Motion is a special version built specifically for direct integration into the motherboard. For the first time in the digital video realm, there are no limits to the quality of your output. With over 30MB/second throughput available, uncompressed video work is possible. Currently, hard drive technology is not yet able to store these data rates, but may be available sooner than expected. DraCo VLab Motion will give you the highest quality digital output possible. Totally loss-free digital video is the heart of DraCo, and represents the amazing breakthrough of this exciting new computer platform. MovieShop is the software controller of the VLab Motion and the Toccata boards. This package digitizes a full 60 fields/30 frames per second (50/25 in PAL) of video along with DAT quality audio. MovieShop is both a timeline based editor and a hierarchical editing system that can work with any video inputs, animations, single frames, or sequences. MovieShop stores the audio and video in a hierarchical tree structure, like the file directory of a computer. Stored clips can be grouped into scenes, and new scenes can be made by combining other scenes. Playback order is easily changed simply by rearranging the structure of the hierarchy. In addition to providing cut-copy-paste editing, MovieShop gives you two timeline editing modes - simple and complex (RPN). The simple mode is for single effects and simpler transitions while the complex mode allows you to produce unlimited digital effects using the provided operators. By placing your hierarchically grouped scenes in the timeline, you define the transitions and special effects you so desire. Both hierarchical and timeline editing are non-destructive processes, so you can make many trial edits and still easily revert to your original data. How long will it take to render the digital effects within MovieShop? DraCo is a fast computer. Rendering video effects is probably faster than on any other machine available today. A simple fade or wipe between two scenes will render at around 5 - 10 frames per second. A more complex scene with 8 picture-in- pictures, each scaled and spinning in a different direction would take at least a couple of seconds per frame. For those of you who want to do complicated, multilayered effects, the optional DEC Alpha AXP board will significantly decrease rendering times. With the DEC Alpha board video effects can be rendered in real-time or near real-time. In the future we plan to have the Alpha chip available to all of DraCo's software. Tell me more about the audio features of the Toccata. With crystal clear 16-bit CD quality stereo, 48 KHz input and output with disk-direct operation, the Toccata is state of the art. It plugs into a Zorro II slot. The Toccata has a mic pre-amp embedded on board so it's able to digitize microphone audio. It features studio quality .25 inch connectors and a software-controllable mixer. MovieShop has almost unlimited audio capabilities. By working in the timeline any number of special audio effects can be created. Up to 256 (that's right, 256!) different audio tracks can be placed on the timeline. Every track and any segment of audio can range in volume from 1% to 100%, or can be muted. Envelope curves are completely user definable. And the audio can easily be stripped from the video and used elsewhere in the timeline. Audio tracks can also be imported from other sources and overlaid on your video. Reverb and other audio effects can be created by simply placing multiple copies on the timeline. Can I work with other image processors? Using MovieShop's image format converter, data can be moved to and from the video partition of your hard drive, and into and out of various bitmap image formats. This allows cooperation with other available software. Third party developers have created a number of powerful image processing packages for color correction, special effects, and digital video effects. The video images from VLab Motion can be loaded into such packages, altered, and sent back to MovieShop software for editing and playback. How large of a hard disk do you recommend for DraCo? Two hard drives are recommended. The first one - say a 500MB drive - is partitioned for your system software and an audio partition. The audio partition should be approximately one tenth the size of your video partition. The second hard drive should be a dedicated video drive. DraCo supports drives up to 16GB in size, and you can attach multiple drives. Because of the nature of Motion JPEG, there are no hard and fast tables we can provide. There are too many variables at play. As a very rough guideline, video editing at S-VHS quality will use between 1 and 2MB per second. This works out to anywhere from 17 to 8.5 minutes per GB. At broadcast quality, expect to require at least 4MB per second of hard drive. This would yield around 4 minutes per GB. A 9GB drive would yield from 2.5 hours to 76 minutes of S-VHS quality video, and around 38 minutes of broadcast quality video. If you plan to use DraCo for simpler tasks like rendering, 24 bit painting, word processing and the like, a 500MB drive may work well. Remember you'll have a 650MB CD ROM standard in every DraCo. Who are MacroSystem and NoahJi's? We are two most exciting companies in terms of providing affordable and superior video and graphics tools. Both companies are financially sound and are growing dynamically. For the last 8 years MacroSystem has been designing, manufacturing, and distributing a wide array of award winning video products for the Amiga computer. They are a leader in their circle of competence - affordable video and graphics hardware. NoahJi's is a division of Micro Reps, Inc. - an 11 year old and well established distributor of computer peripherals. We pride ourselves on our outstanding support and our reputation for reliability. What future plans do you have for DraCo? Our main focus is the video, animation, and broadcast world. We intend to establish DraCo as the computer of choice for a broad segment of the broadcast, industrial video, and graphics community. We will continue to support the latest hardware and software technology, and we will make these advances available to both existing and future DraCo owners. We may also come out with a cheaper, less specialized DraCo for the Amiga market. We like this platform too much to let it die. This version would be a desktop model, less expensive, but still amazingly fast. Of course, this would only occur if no other company purchases the Amiga technology. We are also working on OEM deals with interested companies. At some time in the near future you may find yourself working with a DraCo without knowing it. The Amiga OS and DraCo are perfect for a broad number of embedded situations like kiosks, various medical applications, and multimedia solutions. A number of manufacturers from different industries have approached us with proposals. We're interested, capable, and are easy to work with. Call if you have a serious OEM project in mind. And finally ... This brochure was produced just after the first prototype units were completed. The response to the announcement of DraCo has been overwhelming, so we put this information together in March. The above listed specifications and technical aspects of DraCo are subject to change. We're committed to providing accurate and reliable information, and we'll update this brochure as required. We are on schedule to ship in the summer of 1995. Two caveats: all product names are trademarks of their respective companies; and this device has not been approved by the FCC. This device is not, and may not be offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased until the approval of the FCC has been obtained. Thanks for your interest in DraCo, and we hope to soon count you among our growing family of satisfied customers.