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Axio HD,LE vs AJA vs Blackmagic?? Advice?
After another week at NAB, I am only sure of one thing: despite the Apple folks always putting on a terrific show, Adobe’s CS3 is awesome. But now I ask: which hardware to buy? As a loyal discreet ed*tor for the last eight years (6.5 with Targa 3000), I have decided that PP is the closest thing to edit in terms of being a fast and intuitive program for both short and long form pieces, and the integration between programs in the CS is amazing. So I am looking for input from you PP users on the Matrox, AJA (Xena) and Blackmagic (Multibridge) options.
I am looking to move to DVCProHD/P2 as my acquisition format, and often need to deliver edits quickly to clients, on DVD. Since I have tons of existing BetaSP footage, I spent lots of time looking at AXIO LE (analog component input, but only compressed HD. right?). Am I better off with some kind of upconverter for that? I also heard that Matrox offers more in real-time effects than the 10-bit Xena card. I don’t know much about effects and Blackmagic. I heard lots about the good support offered by both Matrox and AJA. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Diane -
4 Replies
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Hi Diane!
One answer – Matrox Axio. Start with the SD and buy the HD breakout later when you need full strength HD.
Premiere will be a bit frustrating after your years with edit. (I still cuss at discrete for killing edit every time I fire up the old 6.5 box. Still a joy to work with – particularly after wrestling with Premiere) But with Axio you can get some nice work done in a hurry.
Dave
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Thanks Dave – I know your name from the Ed*t forum. I had thought I’d get that answer. I continue to marvel at the AVID, Apple and Adobe presentations during NAB shows- how they offer ‘new’ features we ed*tors have been used to for five years.
Thanks,
Diane -
Diane,
[Diane Wilkins] “I spent lots of time looking at AXIO LE (analog component input, but only compressed HD. right?).”
If you’re worried about the quality of Matrox’s MPEG2 I-frame codec on the LE, don’t. It is extremely good. A friend’s friend who’s a top flight engineer spent a lot of time testing the codec up one side and down other. His conclusion was that at 200 mbps or over (LE takes the codec up to 300 mbps) the codec was indistiguishable from uncompressed both visually and technically. The codec might show wear over multiple generations, but compositing now-a-days is so sophisticated that it seldom demands more than one pass.
However, (and I don’t think that this was available initially), the LE now can do uncompressed HD as well but it’s limited to 8 bit bit depth. The bit depth is the key differentiator in the Axio product line at this point. The AxioLE is limited to 8 bit all around, the AxioSD can do 10 bit SD, but only 8 bit HD, and the AxioHD can do 10 bit in both SD and HD. Unless you’re doing network level compositing, both uncompressed and 10 bit HD are rather overkill.
So unless you have or expect to have clients who demand 10 bit HD your final product won’t suffer and your investment in Axio from puchasing the LE over the HD will be considerably less with more diverse I/O.
Ron Shook
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I hope it isn’t too late to chime in here:
After a few years of terrible support, faulty hardware, poor drivers, constant crashing, etc, I can wholeheartedly say use ANYTHING but Axio’s. I worked in a shop with 8 of them, each and every one of them causing more delays than they solved.
Tracy Peterson
http://www.onetwomany.com
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