Anyone here using the Matrox MXO2 Mini?

[Mark Wilson]

Mac or PC?

[Sebastian Alvarez]

PC

Sebastian R. Alvarez

[Gary Bettan]

Matrox has excellent integration with Adobe CS5. By far the best of the 3 main hardware I/O vendors (Black Magic/ AJA/ Matrox)

The MXO2 family of products deliver rock solid I/O with CS5. If you opt for the MAX option you get additional real-time performance with Premiere Pro CS5 running Win7.

Check out our MXO2 FAQ for more info. We have added a detialed section on CS5.
https://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+FAQ+Matrox+MXO2+Family+of+Products/0xed2e1ac833665213dad05e751614837f.aspx

Gary

https://www.videoguys.com 800 323-2325 | We are the video editing and production experts!

[Sebastian Alvarez]

[Gary Bettan] “The MXO2 family of products deliver rock solid I/O with CS5. If you opt for the MAX option you get additional real-time performance with Premiere Pro CS5 running Win7.”

So what you’re saying is that if I don’t get the Max version I wouldn’t get real time performance? Currently I get real time with AVCHD footage in Premiere CS5 thanks to the help of a Nvidia GTX465. I get real time even after applying rotation, zoom and 3 way color corrector. So if I get real time playback through the Intensity Pro, which as far as I know doesn’t have any playback acceleration hardware, then I should still get realtime playback using the Matrox MX02 Mini without the Max option, correct?

Sebastian R. Alvarez

[Gary Bettan]

You will still get the great Mercury playback from your CUDA based GPU with the standard MXO2 Mini.

The MAX hardware will give you faster then real-time H.264 encoding. I don’t think you’ll see much additional real-time performance.

Gary

https://www.videoguys.com 800 323-2325 | We are the video editing and production experts!

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Thanks, Gary. I have a follow up question to help me decide on whether I should return the Blackmagic Intensity Pro and get the Matrox, because returning the Int. Pro would mean stop editing in Vegas, which the Matrox MX02 doesn’t support.

I noticed that if I edit AVCHD footage using the sequence preset that comes with Premiere, everything on the timeline, whether it has effects or not, has the yellow line on top, which I think means that it will play realtime thanks to the CUDA processing. So editing with that preset is problem-free, but I can’t have external preview because for that I need to use the AVCHD preset that is in the Blackmagic group of presets.

When I start a sequence using the AVCHD preset within the Blackmagic group, I don’t get the yellow line, unless I apply an effect or a transition, even if it’s the ones that have CUDA acceleration. Now comes the problem. I’m playing a section of the timeline, and when the cursor gets to a simple crossfade transition (CUDA accelerated, displaying the yellow line on top), playback stops midway through the transition. I can only play it straight if I select a work area that includes that transition, and I fully render it. Also, if I apply a CUDA effect like 3-way color corrector to a clip, sometimes when the cursor gets to the beginning of that clip, it also stops. If I press play again it will keep on playing in real time, but at first it stopped. Sometimes it also stops at the end of that clip, before it goes into another clip that doesn’t have any effect applied.

Obviously this is annoying as hell, given that selecting a work area in Premiere is not as fast as in Vegas, and besides, that’s why I spent $200 in a CUDA card, for real time performance. Now I’m trying to determine if this is a bug in Premiere, or in the Blackmagic plugins for Premiere. I would bet it’s Blackmagic’s fault since it crashes Premiere a lot with the player plugin it loads, but I would hate to return the Intensity, stop editing in Vegas and then getting the Matrox MX02 and have the same problem in Premiere.

Can anyone with the MX02 Mini (not MAX) please test this for me? The footage I use is from a Panasonic HMC40 if that makes any difference.

Thanks,

Sebastian

[Henri Pigmans]

I think it is not due to you BM card but due to the fact that Premiere makes a temporary render in uncompressed full frame HD.
I noticed the same problem when I go to After effects with a clip add any effect and return to Premiere. The timeline will play un-edited clips flawless but when it arrives at the aftereffects clip it plays a couple of frames and then stops.
I have no solution yet maybe someone else does ?

[Tombabauta]

Unfortunately, this is a BMD problem. I’m having the same problem as well with the Decklink HD line of cards. PPro CS5 works flawlessly when using non-BMD presets, but once you use a BMD preset to get external monitoring, everything becomes unusable. And it becomes especially screwy when using the hardware assisted CUDA engine. Based on my experience and testing, BMD cards work well for CS5 only if you are working with BMD avi files.

Which is why I am also looking at the MXO2 to solve this problem. Anyone care to share their real-world experience with CS5 and MXO2?

[Steve Kallevik]

I have had the complete opposite results with a BM Extreme 3D and a Mini. I pulled one of the BM 3D cards from our server to test in my workstation and I didn’t come across any problems. However, I have had major issues with the Mini since I bought it a year ago although their drivers have been improved. The Mini still requires Matrox presets, and I found that using a PPro project with a Matrox sequence within it on another computer without Matrox software installed caused PPro to crash. I also learned that the Matrox MPEG2 codec cannot be played or edited without the Matrox software installed. And AE would crash unless the Mini was connected and powered on. If you saw how Matrox and Premiere interacted a year ago, you would wonder how a company could release such horrible drivers for ‘pro’ hardware.

However, I prefer Aja over all others whether it be converters or I/O cards. There is a reason why Kona cards are the industry standard.