[Jim Sprague]

Hey Shane,

I left a comment on your blog page, but I’ll leave one here as well. I’m really PI55ED OFF at Avid and Matrox for being so misleading with their advertising. This is from Matrox’s site about the MX02 on Avid on PC.

Avid’s support of Matrox MXO2 Mini was the talk of NAB and IBC 2010, giving Media Composer users a very inexpensive HD monitoring solution. But that’s not the only benefit Matrox products offer Avid users. Matrox MXO2 Mini with the built-in MAX H.264 encoding accelerator option lets you deliver H.264 files for the web, mobile devices, and Blu-ray at speeds up to five times faster than software alone, without sacrificing quality.

here’s the page to look at. Only when you get to the chart at the bottom do you see that it doesn’t work on PC.

https://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/pc/mxo2_family/mxo2_mini/for_avid/

So for anybody that’s considering one of these, be aware that it doesn’t work on your Avid PC

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[Jim Sprague]

Thanks Shane, I’m talking to Matrox support. Would you recommend 5.5?

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[Jim Sprague]

When I open the “Matrox HDMI Calibration Utility”, I get a very simple window with 4 sliders and 6 buttons- “OK/Cancel”, “Save as Default/Load Default”, “Load Factory Default”, “Load Graphic”, and a “blue only” check box. There is no way that I can see of saving or loading a configuration other than as a default. In the video output window there should be a “RGB Calibrated” option in the YUV/RGB dropdown. I don’t have that either.

As for the send to h.264, whether I select “Export” or “Send to QT Movie”, I still end up at the “Export Settings” window. When I click “Format Options”, MAX h.264 is not in the list.

also, when I looked for information on the Avid website, I found this in the MX02 Mini FAQ

“What is the difference between the Matrox MXO2 Mini and the Matrox MXO2 Mini with the MAX option?

The Matrox MXO2 Mini which is approved for use with the Avid Media Composer or Avid NewsCutter systems is a video/audio monitoring device for content creators. When used with Avid editing systems, the Matrox MXO2 Mini is approved strictly as a monitoring device. The Matrox MXO2 Mini with the MAX option accelerates H.264 encoding with Adobe Media Encoder on the Windows and Apple Compressor and Telestream Episode on the Mac.”

This would seem to mean that the MX02 Mini Max won’t do h.264 with Avid MC 5.0.3 Are you sure you’re not running 5.5?

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[Jim Sprague]

this will appeal to all the hacks out there that think all it takes to be an editor is a computer and software. They usually work in their basement for cash, charge $15-$20/hour. I spend a lot of time cleaning up their shite for broadcast, and when the client complains we give them the old line “you think professionals are expensive? Try hiring an amateur>”

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[Jim Sprague]

I work in a broadcast station as a production editor and former news editor, so I’ve seen a bit of both.

In house A/V depts. have always had the ability to edit their own stuff and a lot of them already do. FCPX just means their stuff will look better. We used to do a lot of this work, but it’s gotten pretty rare in the last 10 years with the advent of Premier Elements and other consumer edit programs.

We have 3 reporters on staff that write, shoot and cut their own stuff and I think they would tell you that it’s a pretty tough grind. for the basic v/o stories it’s okay, but for more involved features they usually try and book an editor. You can start with a whole newsroom full of one man bands, but eventually they tend to gravitate to what they do best. The good shooters tend to become shooters, the good writers… So that hasn’t become an issue for us, we still have full time editors.

We’ve tried combining jobs to save on manpower and it never really seems to work out, so I’m not too worried about it.

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[Jim Sprague]

I may be wrong, but I think MC will edit ProRes via AMA. You should be able to edit the footage as soon as you mount the drive. Plus Avid has terrific Multicam, plus it’s only $995 for FCS users.

[Jim Sprague]

avid media composer is still my favourite. ive been cutting on avid since ’94, only got into fcp in ’08, so maybe i’m biased. Avid is infintely customizable and flexible. it takes a while to learn, but it’s very fast once you catch on. i hope avid uses this chance to win back some of the users it lost to fcp. Kona support would be a good start, are you listening Avid?

btw, they recently had a great crossgrade promotion for fcp users; mc5.5 for $995

btw btw our first system was around $140k, ran on Apple Quadro, we still have it somewhere.

[Jim Sprague]

avid media composer is still my favourite. ive been cutting on avid since ’94, only got into fcp in ’08, so maybe i’m biased. Avid is infintely customizable and flexible. it takes a while to learn, but it’s very fast once you catch on. i hope avid uses this chance to win back some of the users it lost to fcp. Kona support would be a good start, are you listening Avid?

[Jim Sprague]

it’s worrisome that they’ve stopped supporting 7 for sure, but what’s really scary is the thought that they make do something to break 7. I’m really hesitant to install Lion now. Am i just being paranoid?

[Jim Sprague]

i have 5.0.3 and it’s on there. i’m not at work right now, but i remember turning that option on just a few days ago. i’m pretty sure it’s in Media Creation. F1?