S-Video w/ Matrox MXO2 Mini Max Question

[David Roth weiss]

Realtime hardware up/down/cross conversion
for capture, monitoring, and output

Matrox MXO2 products and Mojito MAX let you deliver in any format your clients demand. The 10-bit hardware scaling provides high-quality mastering.

HD to SD downscaling

Realtime HD to SD downscaling is performed with proper conversion of the HD color space to the SD color space. Proper aspect ratio conversion to anamorphic and letterbox are supported on Mac and PC. Center-cut is supported on the Mac. You can monitor or record an SD master of your HD project in real time.

SD to HD upscaling

Realtime SD to HD upscaling is perfomed with proper conversion of the SD color space to the HD color space. Footage with a 4:3 aspect ration will be “pillarboxed”, 16:9 SD footage will be scaled to full screen.

Cross conversion

Realtime cross conversion from 720 to 1080 and 1080 to 720 is supported. Realtime frame rate conversion is also supported with 2:3:2:3 and 2:3:3:2 cadences. This feature is useful if, for example, your source material is recorded at a different frame rate or resolution than the delivery format your client requires. It also facilitates monitoring when, for example, you need to work with 23.98 fps footage but your monitor does not support that frame rate. You can use the realtime frame rate conversion feature to view your project at 29.97 fps. Conversion from 23.98 fps to 25 fps is handled by your editing application and the host.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Shane Ross]

That’s not what he asked, David. He wanted to know if the cable that shipped with the MXO2 was just a basic cable, like the one he linked to.

I have this unit…I’ll see what the cable looks like tonight…

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Ken,

The Hosa cable should be just fine, nothing proprietary going on.

Regarding capture, you must be on a Mac then? I only have experience with the PC side, and can say that ProRes capture is not possible on PC. On PC, I have been able to capture SD as 1080i using hardware upscale, using Matrox AVI codec.

It’s been a couple of years since I tried the upscale, can test again tonight to renew my findings.

What’s the purpose of the upscale? If you have SD material that needs to be mixed into an HD project for HD delivery, then the upscale may be necessary. Otherwise, if all material is SD, you are often better off to master as SD and make the best quality DVD you can and let the DVD player do the upscale – they can do quite a nice job.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[David Roth weiss]

[Shane Ross] “That’s not what he asked, David. He wanted to know if the cable that shipped with the MXO2 was just a basic cable, like the one he linked to.”

Hey Shane! In fact, the original poster did also ask about using the MXO2 Mini to upscale his material… Here’s his 2nd question: [Ken Klipps] “Also, will using this device even work for bringing in the analog signal from the S-VHS and hardware scaling it to 1080p to prevent digital pixilation?”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Shane Ross]

Ah…yes, I see. Upscaling will make the analog pixels bigger…but it does a pretty decent upscale. Third best I’ve seen. Terranex is #1, AJA Kona 3 is #2…

And yes, that cable is pretty much like the one that comes with the MXO2.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def