Matrox

Matrox RT.X2 Editorial Coverage

Matrox RT.X2 in the Real World
(Digital Content Producer – Jan Ozer, August 2007)

“Overall, I’m very impressed with the RT.X2. It’s the most cost-effective HD monitoring solution that I’ve seen, and the effects I tested were at least as effective as those of Premiere Pro, if not better. Though most of my multicamera projects these days use a common format, the preview capabilities and rendering time improvements afforded by the RT.X2 will definitely help me to stretch my creative wings.”

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Matrox RT.X2 in the Real World: Part 1
Matrox RT.X2 in the Real World: Part 2

Matrox RT.X2 - 4 out of 5 diamonds
(DV Magazine – John Jackman, April 2007)

“HDV editors have long faced difficulties in obtaining full-resolution preview from the timeline. The RT.X2 solves this neatly by offering a variety of display options. You can preview SD video in component, Y/C, or composite, and you can output HD in component or display it directly on an HDMI-compatible monitor via a DVI connector. In addition to previews from the Premiere Pro timeline, the RT.X2 includes plug-ins for real-time previews from Photoshop and After Effects. If you do a lot of HD work in After Effects, real-time previews may be worth the entire price of the RT.X2. The ability to see a full-resolution, pixel-for-pixel display from the After Effects composition timeline is stupendous, especially for critical applications such as bluescreen compositing or color correction. The preview output is easily switchable between HD and SD and 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios. The live display to an HDMI monitor, an intriguing option, provides pixel-for-pixel display of full 1080 video for a relatively low price.”

“The RT.X2 ships with a good assortment of hardware-accelerated effects and transitions.”

“All in all, the Matrox RT.X2 functions as a top-notch, semipro display and preview device for both SD and HD projects.”

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Matrox RT.X2
HDV editing with more horsepower – "Overall rating: SWEET"
(Studio Monthly Magazine – Bruce A. Johnson, April 2007)

“The RT.X2 proved invaluable in creating real-time color correction, even making it possible to transfer the look from the best-looking camera to the other shots. (I added the fifth camera as a second video track after the first four were cut.) One thing I noticed when making MPEG-2 files for DVD was the faster-than-real time encoding performance the RT.X2 provided. Another plus is the incredible functionality of WYSIWYG monitor output for not only Premiere Pro, but most of the rest of the dobe Production Studio programs, including After Effects, Encore and Photoshop. No more guessing what that menu would look like on the DVD—I just checked it out on the monitor.”

“Chromakeying was a pure joy with the RT.X2, and pulling remarkably clean keys was a trivial affair. One of our subjects was a female physics professor at the University of Wisconsin, with shoulder-length hair. Amazingly, every strand of hair keyed perfectly with little muss or fuss. Another effect created a double chromakey, placing an iPod Nano over a synthetic background, then keying Soth into the iPod display - a stunt that was achieved without rendering.”

“Matrox includes a function that every edit system should have: a software switch that limits black video to the NTSC-standard 7.5 percent black level and clamps whites at 100 percent. That alone makes the quality control engineer's life a lot easier.”

“Overall rating: SWEET”

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Pick a Card: Road Testing the Matrox RT.X2
(Videography Magazine – Oliver Peters, March 2007)

“Of course, a big plus to its architecture is that RT.X2 is scalable, so as more powerful computers come onto the market, you will benefit from the increased performance that becomes available to the card. When the quad-core processors hit the market, just plug RT.X2 into that bad boy and get almost double the performance!”

“I decided to check out the real-world limits of the card's performance. The claim is for real-time performance on Matrox Flex CPU effects like color correction, speed changes and chroma/luma keying, plus real-time and accelerated Matrox Flex GPU effects such as 2D/3D DVE, blur/glow/soft focus and shine. This is all true and not much of an issue with timelines consisting of a few video tracks. But how far will it go? For me, this was based on the number of streams you are trying to process. I find that 2D DVE effects without shadows or other modifiers are pretty easy, and you can generally get high layer counts on just about any modern system. Then, the minute you make one layer a 3D DVE or you add a soft drop shadow, the whole system chokes. Not the case here.”

“In either case--SD or HD--RT.X2 fits a market segment dominated by corporate, event and DV producers. It gives them a cost-effective option for professional I/O combined with powerful real-time effects, and it is the first and only card designed specifically for their needs.”

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Matrox RT.X2 - Realtime HD Video Editing
(trustedreviews.com - By James Morris, July 2006)

TrustedReviews.com Recommended - Overall rating of 9/10

"The component capabilities [of Matrox RT.X2] beat any card in its class, as you can capture from high-definition (HD) as well as standard-definition (SD) sources."

"Another killer feature is the DVI connection on the card itself, which broadens the options for a video monitor greatly, particularly as the RT.X2 can down-convert HD on the fly. Whatever source you're editing, you can preview the results on a regular TV, via component output, or through DVI. The latter can be used with a DVI-based consumer HDTV (or an HDMI-based one using a converter), or you can hook up a regular PC monitor."

"What you do get are a host of professionally oriented CPU and GPU effects. As well as primary and secondary colour correction, there's very intuitive chroma and luma keying, and the Premiere Pro clip speed controls operate in real time. Again, the range of transitions is more pedestrian than the RT.X100, but many of Adobe Premiere Pro's options are rendered in real time in SD and accelerated in HD. Matrox has supplied its own motion control filter, too, which brings the third dimension and borders to the mix.

You can add blur, glow and soft focus. There's a lens flare - an old favourite on the RT.X100 - and various mask effects, plus pan and scan. Perhaps the most whacky options are crystallise, surface finish, and old movie. The first of these makes your footage look like it's made of crystal glass, whilst surface finish lets you emboss it with various materials such as bricks, wood, or metal. The old movie effect offers the ability to add noise, dust, scratches, jitter, flicker, and a number of other blemishes. In fact, it has about as much control as the equivalent effect in Boris Continuum Complete - one of the best software filters around. But we felt it could have done with a few presets to get you started.

You're also encouraged to try out as much as you like, as the RT.X2 provides about the best real-time editing performance we've seen."

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