Many aspects of FAST silver. are described in other parts of this website. Our comments here are based entirely on our experience with EDIT2's silver. system (although we have successfully used previous FAST products in our other suite) for more details about FAST products in general, visit the FAST website or contact your regional FAST distributor.

FAST products are distributed in Denmark by Video-Graphic.dk - whose key staff have supported FAST products for many years.

The FAST silver. system used in EDIT2 comprises the following components -

• FAST silver. codec PCI card
• FAST.connect - video/audio connection box 19" rack mountable
• FAST.component - component (YUV/YC) connection box 19" rack mountable
• FAST Studio XL - editing software (XL enabled with hardware-dongle)
• FAST.control RS422  control panel 

(remote control of VTR's and FAST studio XL)

Few production facilities have made, or will make, the move to digital production in a single step. For some users, there is a clear advantage in a 100% digital production chain; whilst for others, the benefits of digital technology lie primarily on one stage of the production process. For Channel 6 Television, digital technology is primarily attractive in the post production process - ease of editing and versioning, ease of integrating computer generated graphics and sound effects, retrieveability and repeatability and lower maintenance costs being prime arguments for a digital editing process.

Whilst specifying and building a workstation platform and storage system for an NLE bundle is not without problems, it is also the right approach - the platform technology will most likely age faster than the editing technology - that has been the case for the last 5 years at least. An open system, which runs on a third-party workstation enables the quality conscious production house to update the platform and storage, without having to buy new editing hardware and software. It also gives the user access to the platform - and platform provider of his or her choice.

For an experience television editor, FAST studio XL is simple to understand, intuitive to work with, and very quick to learn. Like all computer software, it has its shortcomings, but so far, FAST Multimedia has proven its ability and commitment to supporting its product with regular upgrades and improvements to operation and performance.

FAST studio XL's GUI is a winner amongst editors, most functions are immediately available as a button on the screen, with very few multi-level windows menus to search for that command which you know you have seen, but can't remember where... Every user can configure almost every menu and button to suit his or her preferences, and save these settings as a user set-up for future use.

No NLE manufacturer can get everything right with the first release - in our opinion, FAST took the right approach - first developing a technology for handling audio and video streaming effectively, with a unique instant save function that means never losing project data because of crashes and power-outages. Editing functionality has been excellent since the earliest versions. It took me two days to learn to edit on silver.!

So far, our major reservations about FAST silver. and FAST Studio XL have been the lack of comprehensive media management tools - the ability to move, re-parent, delete and generally manage data, without necessarily erasing an entire project. Until version 2.55 FAST studio XL uses hexadecimal long filenames, which makes management of data in the Windows domain difficult - especially for the beginner. We understand that the new version 4.00 software, due for release in the last quarter of 2001, will remedy many of these problems, at the same time as bringing the software into compliance with Windows 2000 and enabling the use of the extended Pentium 4 command set. We await this release with interest!