Best harware I/O for CS4

[Eric Jurgenson]

I would say the major deciding factor is whether you are willing to pay a bit more money for a faster system. The Axio’s main advantage over the I/O cards are extended multi-track real time playback capabilities, it’s excellent real time effects package (which work in After Effects as well), and accelerated rendering & export.

The Matrox real time chroma key is easy to use, gets great results, and is miles beyond the stock Premiere chroma key. If you do a lot of chroma keying, the Axio is a no-brainer for this feature alone.

Also, the Matrox unified external monitor support for After Effects, Bridge, and Photoshop, Autodesk Combustion and 3ds Max, eyeon Fusion, NewTek LightWave 3D, and Windows Media Player is very useful. I’m not sure if all (or any of) the I/O cards support this feature to the extent that Matrox does.

Other nice features are support for video in the capture window when capturing HDV, and realtime playback of 32-bit compressed and uncompressed AVI with alpha (both HD and SD).

[Tony Vivian]

Hey Fredrik, we are in the same boat. I am currently researching the next move from our Avid Chromes and Editions. So far, our criteria are very similar – HDV decks, SDI from BetaSX decks, analog component, and we want HDMI output for HD plasma monitors. My research has led me to the Blackmagic multibridge Pro product. However, I will take the time and compare to the Axio as mentioned in a reply to your post. Good luck and let me know what you find if you don’t mind.

[Mike Cohen]

I read a while ago that Axio had some aliasing problems with its real time effects – I assume this is old news.

[Tony Vivian]

Interesting. I did research the axio today and it is not yet certified for CS4. Also, the price jump is considerable when compared to the blackmagic and aja products. However, the axio does claim to do much more than the above mentioned products.

[Eric Jurgenson]

The Axio CS4 drivers are supposed to be out by January. It is my understanding that they were held up a bit by a technical issue in the CS4 initial release that Adobe will address with a point update sometime in the Nov.-Dec. timeframe.

Another nice feature Axio offers: audio input metering.

[Dave Friend]

Greetings Fredrik. It is great to run into you again.

I have found the Axio card to be a pretty good solution. You will appreciate the real time capabilities.

There is a problem with the Matrox Move & Scale functions. As someone mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it has serious aliasing problems. Matrox has been working on this for quite long while. They added a stop-gap fix in a recent software update. When – or if, a real fix is coming is unknown. It is possible to use the Adobe move & scale (not real time though) and get acceptable results.

We also have a couple Final Cut systems with Kona cards. I prefer the Axio output. Given the same footage is looks better coming out of the Axio. Especially when down converting HD footage to SD the Axio does a much better job.

Regards,
Dave

[Fredrik Brofalk]

Hi!
We are now leaning towards the Matrox solution but no decisions made yet. Many thanks for your input.
Dave! Nice to see some ex Edit* users here as well. Third time to change our NLE. Edit* -> Liquid Edition (that AVID bought and later eol´d) -> Adobe CS. As we are a PC campus we belive that CS4 will bring us the right tools. But i´m for shure is missing edit* as a editor. But thats is now history.
As axio has no HDMI output (needed for one monitor) i wonder if there is a problem with using a SDI to HDMI convertor. Delay, quality etc.
regards
Fredrik B

Fredrik Brofalk
Mediacenter
University of Kristianstad
Sk

[Eric Jurgenson]

I use the AJA HI-5 HDSDI-HDMI converter. A bit expensive, but it works great. With this setup, I can simultaneously view HD and SD on different monitors – very important because of the typically poor quality of SD on an HD flat screen monitor (I’m using my old Sony CRT pro monitor for SD). If there is any delay, it is not evident. The quality is noticeably better than the analog component output.