Aja or Matrox: which is best choice for PPro CS3?

[Eric Jurgenson]

Matrox will give you more tracks of real time playback (including native HDV and XDCAM HD in addition to all the DVCPRO formats); real time effects (Matrox adds a large number of useful effects to the stock Premiere effects, and they work in After Effects too); and accelerated export and rendering. Axio HD supports 10-bit uncompressed; Axio LE supports 8-bit uncompressed. Both Axio systems have comprehensive analog and digital I/O.

Matrox RTX2 doesn’t do uncompressed (It uses MPEG2 I-frame compression for rendering), but plays multi-stream HDV and DVCPRO formats natively in real time like Axio. There is no SDI I/O on the RTX2 (although there is a handy DVI monitor output), and Max H resolution for the RTX2 is 1440 compared to 1920 on Axio; otherwise performance on Axio and RTX2 is quite similar. The software features are virtually identical. System prices for RTX2 are typically less than half of Axio; one big reason is less stringent storage requirements for compressed video.

The Matrox systems are very stable (on CS2), and between the real time playback and accelerated rendering and export, will save you a lot of time in the editing process. Performance scales up with SD projects, with more RT tracks and simultaneous effects available.

The AJA cards are a great product, but don’t offer the feature set of the Matrox cards.

[Mike Cohen]

in researching an HD edit system based upon Premiere, it seems you spend about the same $10,000 – $15,000 whether you go with Axio or AJA or Blackmagic solutions – you need the best processor, high end video cards and RAID storage.

If editing HDV only you can save a lot of money, but it seems to make sense to have one system that can edit anything.

[Harm Millaard]

Knowing Matrox and their track record, if you upgrade to CS3, you probably need to wait for Matrox to come out with the RT.X3, since likely they don’t upgrade drivers for the RT.X2 and CS3 combo.

[Eric Jurgenson]

Harm is trying to be sarcastic here. Despite his opinion, Axio and the RTX2 are great products – nothing really comes close at this price point. Matrox has already announced their new CS3 drivers for Axio and RTX2. Harm may be referring to no CS3 support for the old RTX100 card. This card is discontinued, so of course there will be no new software updates, as painful as that might be for some folks.

[Hhv_pro]

AJA does NOT support DVCPRO 50/HD or P2 natively since PPro is not supporting it. You will need to capture it in either one of the uncompressed format bebore you will be able to edit it.
On other hand Matrox does support it.
Be sure to look into this and other specific needs for you before buying either.

[Jim Wilkinson-ray]

Thanks, Everyone! Appreciate your thoughts.
Does seem that Matrox offers a bigger sweet spot for the CS2/3 solution. Now I hope I can adapt to PPRO from, believe it or not, Media 100! 😉
Althought the price point seems to bump up a lot for relatively small differences, I plan to go with Axio LE to get the added CODEC and format support. Otherwise, RTX2 is a no brainer.

[Tim Wilson]

It’s easy to forget that one of the most popular early M100 configurations was a Media 100 board with Premiere software! This was the Media 100qx.

You’ll be able to find your way around Premiere Pro easily enough. As with changing to any NLE, you’ll find some difficulties along the way. But there are many unique features in PPro that will make the trip worth it. You’ll find many of them discussed on these boards.

This is especially true with PPro in CS3. You’ll dig it.

Best,
Tim

[Jim Wilkinson-ray]

Tim,
Thanks for that bit of M100 history…I never realized that Premier ran on M100. I do see many workflow improvements (esp. early and late workflow steps)that seem possible with PPRO CS3, so, I’m hopeful. I will miss some of M100’s strong traits – wonderful media management, good, flexible CODEC and stable responsive edit platform. I wish the very best for M100 and hope to edit on them again someday.
Jim

[Ron Shook]

JD,

[jdwilkin] “Althought the price point seems to bump up a lot for relatively small differences, I plan to go with Axio LE to get the added CODEC and format support. Otherwise, RTX2 is a no brainer.”

Very good choice, IMO. If you were to get an RT.X2 and eventually run up against MXF codecs like P2 and XDCAM which it can’t handle, you’d regret not going Axio LE.

You do have another choice that you may or may not be aware of which could roll down the initial cost of the LE system. Most LE systems are quoted with Raid arrays capable of handling multiple tracks of totally uncompressed 8 bit HD. The Matrox MPEG I frame codecs are excellent and using them at 200 mb/s or above (max is 300 mb/s) is virtually indistinquishable from full uncompressed. If you don’t have anyone demanding an uncompressed HD edit, then you don’t need the throughput of a Raid capable of uncompressed and the Raid subsystem need not be nearly as as beefy or expensive.

Discuss this with your vendor. As far as Matrox is concerned this is a perfectly legitimate discussion, and you can go this route as long as you understand from the git-go that the Raid you purchase with the system is not capable of typical Axio LE real time performance with uncompressed HD, but is capable of that real-time performance using the Matrox codecs. If the Raid is capable of giving you real-time HD editing using the Matrox Codecs, it is also capable of editing fully uncompressed HD but you’ll have to do hardware assisted rendering on transitions and compositing involving more than one uncompressed HD video stream, i.e., you can still edit uncompressed if the need comes up unexpectedly (a client demands it), but you’ll be a little slower getting the job done. (But still faster than with an AJA board. (g))

I hope I haven’t wasted my wind on something you already knew. (g)

Good Luck,

Ron Shook

[Jim Wilkinson-ray]

Ron,
Thanks for your post – it is helpful to understand the rendering issues. Interestingly, I came accross a Matrox PDF on their site last night that announces that the upcoming 3.0 release of RT.X2 (not SD model) will include support for P2 and Sony HDV CODECs. (details and a link below) As far as the Sony support, it seems limited to 1440×1080 and specifically they only mention the HVR-V1 cameras. On the P2 side, it is a little more hazy. They mention the HVX-200 but also comment on support for “Panasonic P2 cameras”, so, maybe all P2 models will be supported.

* of course, who knows when this version will be available….certainly wouldn’t expect it before CS3 is shipped.

So, in light of this, do you still feel that the price difference (Axio LE vs RT.X2) is worth it? I guess there is still some hardware assist in the Axio and of course, the XLR and SDI in/outs are very helpful.

https://www.matrox.com/video/products/pdf/what's_planned_rtx2_3.0.pdf

The RT.X2 3.0 release provides native editing of Panasonic P2 MXF 720p files and Panasonic VariCam 24p and 25p workflows with the Panasonic HVX200 camera via MXF
file transfers.

This allows RT.X2 users to use MXF files created by their Panasonic P2 cameras directly in these applications without having to convert the
files to the traditional AVI file format.

The RT.X2 3.0 release provides seamless realtime native editing in all the HDV resolutions of the Sony HVR-V1 cameras. The RT.X2 3.0 release provides realtime native editing of m2t files that are captured on the hard drive unit. (HVR-DR60)