Matrox MXO & Apple Cinema VS Sony LMD-2050WHD

[Winston A. cely]

There’s a great article (not just a thread, but an actual article) about this somewhere on the cow. Take a quick search and I’m sure it’ll pop up. Happy Hunting!

Cheers!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Paul Escandon]

Shane Ross did a great review here on the COW about the MXO and the Cinema Display. I am currently a Matrox MXO user and have it hooked up to a 23″ Apple Cinema Display. The results are great – this setup gives you a broadcast accurately display and the price is right.

One thing to note though – it won’t work with an Apple 30″ Cinema display. You need 23″. The box is designed for the 23″ and won’t drive the 30″ because of it’s need to have a dual link DVI port.

* * *
Paul Escandon – Lead Editor @ Outdoor Channel
Producer | Director – Oremus Productions
http://www.oremusproductions.com
Apple Certified Trainer – Final Cut Pro
– –
Adjunct Professor of Media
John Paul the Great Catholic University

[Jimmy Brunger]

The Cinema Display won’t display fields though and your blacks won’t be quite as they should. Colours are displayed pretty well though.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3 / Mocha v1.0.1 / Elastic Reality
————————————-
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB/80GB/600GB RAID-0

[Paul Escandon]

Yeah – the cinema display when hooked up to a Matrox MXO WILL indeed display fields – I know because I use this at home. It looks just like it does on my $5,000 Sony Broadcast HD monitor at the office… you can see the field flicker when parking on an interlaced frame and everything.

* * *
Paul Escandon – Lead Editor @ Outdoor Channel
Producer | Director – Oremus Productions
http://www.oremusproductions.com
Apple Certified Trainer – Final Cut Pro
– –
Adjunct Professor of Media
John Paul the Great Catholic University

[Jimmy Brunger]

My apologies…I didn’t realise that. Sounds definitely worth a look…I’m speccing up an FCP system at the moment and saving on a

[Paul Escandon]

Yeah I’m pretty sure the Blackmagic won’t display fields in the same way that the MXO does. And also from an engineering standpoint, I think the MXO is the only device currently on the market that’s going to give you broadcast accurate display from a DVI port.

* * *
Paul Escandon – Lead Editor @ Outdoor Channel
Producer | Director – Oremus Productions
http://www.oremusproductions.com
Apple Certified Trainer – Final Cut Pro
– –
Adjunct Professor of Media
John Paul the Great Catholic University

[Jimmy Brunger]

Will the MXO give the same results with a 24″ Dell Ultrasharp, rather than the ACD 23″? I use 20″ Dell for my GUI and they are excellent…I hear the Dells have the same screen in them as the ACDs?

Will the MXO be able to be used instead of a Decklink or AJA I/O card, or is this an add-on?

Thanks for any advice. It seems we were upgrading to HD on a ‘tight budget’ at the moment, so I’m trying to save wherever possible (it’s for an AE/Shake/PShop VFX station, with option to playout/capture via Premiere/FCP – no intensive editing/fininshing would be done from this station.)

The main FCP HD suite would probably use a TV Logic b/cast monitor and be attached to a CalDigit HD Pro and networked with the VFX stations..which I was hoping we could run on an internal RAID 5 via 4 x internal drives…would this be sufficient? (I presume you can still use the spare optical drive bay for your system drive in the new MacPro?)

Sorry for all the questions, it’s just that budgets/plans have changed rather suddenly and I need to find some solutions ASAP!

Thanks.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3 / Mocha v1.0.1 / Elastic Reality
————————————-
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB/80GB/600GB RAID-0

[Jerry Hofmann]

Keep in mind that the MXO will not work with a 30″ LCD.

It does a fine job of displaying interlaced video on a a 23 or 24″ computer LCD however.

I think the blacks aren’t all that black with it, but that’s not it’s fault, it’s the limitations of the LCD…

JVC’s Broadcast LCD’s do a better job, but at a cost of course…

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Gary Alan]

Will the MXO work on the second output of my ATI X1900, Mac Pro 3GHZ Dual Duo using an ACD 23″ attached to it even though I have a 30″ already attached to the system as the main monitor?

Gary

Mac Pro 3Ghz Intel Dual Duo, 6GB RAM, 30″ ACD
MacBook Pro 17″
Sony XDCAM EX with a Sachtler Tripod System

[Paul Escandon]

Yes, it will work attached to the second DVI port of your X1900 XT. This is how I have my system set up – except for the fact that my main monitor is 20″ not a 30″ ACD.

* * *
Paul Escandon – Lead Editor @ Outdoor Channel
Producer | Director – Oremus Productions
http://www.oremusproductions.com
Apple Certified Trainer – Final Cut Pro
Adjunct Professor of Media – JPCU
—
MacPro Quad-core XEON
8Gb ram, ATI Radeon X1900 XT, 2TB internal RAID
2 20″ Dell UltraSharps + Matrox MXO & 23″ ACD