I used to use the VideoToaster...brought to you by Amiga/Newtek

"Speed Razor"?

Video Cube (but I guess it is not Windows based).

From the way-back days I remember the CMX 600, EMC and VideoCube. There was another lo-res early NLE that I can't remember for the life of me.

Did Convergence have a short-lived NLE?

I wrote one for the Apple//gs back around 1992 that could handle 80x50 resolution 4 bit color 15fps for a maximum of 800 frames. It didn't have color correction, but it did have 3D mapping and compositing!

Now that i think of it, the Rotating Cat Head Video logo was rendered with it, and it's still the same one i use today, albeit converted into GIF.

I have an original copy of Pinnacle Studio DC10 Plus dated 1998 which, according to Wikipedia, "was a consumer-level counterpart to Pinnacle's former professional-level software, Liquid Edition"

I don't know of any Windows based NLE's prior to that as I was using Amiga based software.

I used a few in the early days between 1994(5) and beyond.

I used one that was a timeline NLE but it was connected to BetaSP VTP machines. I think I was using it around 1994 or 1995. Can't think of the name right off hand.

**EDIT: Thank goodness for Google. Found the name: Fast Video Machine from 1994. http://www.mynahmedia.com/2012/06/editors-wake-fast-video-machine/

Second one was personal use and it was Corel's Lumiere that came out Jan 1997.

Third was Ulead's MedaiStudio Pro 4 or 5 but not sure when that came out. Earliest would have been around beginning of 2000 maybe.

I remember using Ulead's MediaStudio 3 somewhere around 1998ish.

I had Ulead Media Studio Pro 5 which came bundled with a Canopus DV-Raptor card which I used to capture D8 footage from my Sony camera via 1394. I got it in beginning of 1999 and I used it until Version 8 and that was the end of it; CorelDraw took it over. It was a great software and could do a lot of things including Chromakeying. I think there was even a Boris FX plugin for it.

I think anyone who used Media Studio Pro up to version 6 remembers it as the best NLE ever. But version 7 was really unstable, and a lot of us switched - often to Vegas. I can see history repeating itself.

So far no-one has mentioned one that says 'Yep, that's it'.

I can recall it came out of the US and you needed a fairly high spec Windows machine to run it. We used to have 500 MB drives in removable caddies that were loaded with dailies in the main machine room, then the drives were physically taken a couple of doors down the street to a cottage where there were 3 of these machines.

At the conclusion, the EDLs came back to be conformed on a CMX340. I can definitely say it was prior to Media Studio, as I had that at home, and it was some time after. I actually really liked Media Studio, it was a very nice editor.

I don't think they were a big company that made this system, and I have a vague feeling there was a prominent 'D' in the name.... but I may be wrong about that.

Was it a EMC2 editor by Editing Machines Corp?

wow , thanks for that jdw, it brought back a lot of memories...

Ushere,

Oops. I see that you listed it as a reply to his question earlier in the thread. Sorry about that ;-)

Jim

Okay. One more try ;-)

How about D/Vision created by TouchVision Systems?

Here is some information on early NLEs from a book I have on non-linear editing dated 1993:

Video tape based:
- BHP TouchVision (1986)
- Editflex I and II (1984 / 1992)
- Montage I and II (1984 / 1987)

Laserdisc based:
- CMX 6000 (1986)
- EditDroid I and II (1984 / 1989)
- Epix (1989)
- Laser Edit (1985)

Digital Based:
- Avid Media Composer (1989)
- D/Vision I and II (1991 / 1992)
- EMC2 (1988)
- Lightworks (1991)
- Montage III (1991)

(info source: [I]Digital Nonlinear Editing: New Approaches to Editing Film and Video, by Thomas A. Ohanian, 1993[/I])

Montage was the one I couldn't think of. Also remembered Ediflex.

Edit: jdw beat me to it.

D/Vision is ringing a bell (curse this old brain).

In Australia we had a number of locally produced linear editing systems based on the S-100 computer buss architecture, and they were very good and very affordable.

I was one of the first to train on the CMX300 system at AAV Australia, and we had an in-house programmer who added quite a few features to the CMX software.

Later I demonstrated the Sony BVE5000 editing system when the first one came to Australia, and also installed and operated the first CMX340 attached to Sony BVH1100 one inch machines. CMX had to develop the I2 interfaces especially for the Sony machines because no-one had ordered them up to that point.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Anybody ever use the FAST system?

http://www.mynahmedia.com/2012/06/editors-wake-fast-video-machine/

@geebax - did you ever use the bve3000 - glorified bve800 with extra deck control?

Such an informative and entertaining thread!

skeeter123, yes I used the Fast system in 1994 to 1995. It was connected to 2 BetaSP video players and 1 BetaSP recorder. So, basically, what you would do is watch your source material via the 2 players and edit by timecode and on the timeline put in your edits (start/stop). Then, when you were finished and wanted to record, the players would rewind and play to your start/stop edits and record on the recorder machine. Fast would stop and prompt you to insert another tape if your source material was on multiple tapes. I think you had to enter in tape/reel names for each tape. But, the timeline was very similiar to today's NLE timelines where you could add transitions, text, trim your in/out points on the timeline, etc.

I have a prosumer Sony made edit console board that was designed to edit between source and output to record - much like the concept of the FAST system and I believe was engineered at nearly that timeframe of mid 1990's.
I still use it for assembling segments of video printed to tape by VegasPro to assemble a tape compilation.