| Real time DV-out and lots more featured in revision of RT2500 |
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Matrox unleashed a groundbreaking successor to its RT2500 DV hardware this week, a new and greatly improved DV editor called the RT.X100. Retailing at $1099 and expected to sell on the street for around $1000, the new card brings with it a host of enhancements and improvements that make this the most significant upgrade of the RT series yet. Set to ship on July 15th, 2002, the RT.X100 represents a somewhat new direction for Matrox, with the card not only taking advantage of hardware-accelerated effects, but also harnessing the power of the CPU to assist in creation of lots of new real-time filters and effects.
In our Great DV Shootout 2002 from last January, we were impressed with the "Flex3D" effects filtering of Matrox's RT2500, and with its low price and customizability of effects. With this new release, Matrox has built on these strengths, and fired a shot right into the broadside of Canopus DV Storm and Pinnacle's Pro-ONE with its software-based real time effects. While RT2500's formidable hardware was creating all those high-quality 3D effects, the processor wasn’t doing much to help out.
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| Matrox RT.X100 card |
The way these new tricks are accomplished is that the RT.X100 no longer uses the C-Cube chip on board the card for playback like its older brother the RT2500. The playback of the video and its DV codec is now processed by the CPU, and if you have a fast one, then you'll be able to process more in real time. Another advantage of not using that C-Cube chip for playback is the elimination of that annoying one-second pause every time you hit the Space bar for a playback. Now the wait is only about a quarter of a second, and the system feels much more lively and responsive as a result.
So what does that mean in the edit suite? For example, using a single 2.4Ghz P4 with 512MB of RAM, I was able to play a clip back in fast motion, and that used only 22% of CPU. Then I added another video clip playing at the same time, with the processor then only using 44% of its capacity. After adding a graphic overlay, it was at 54% of capacity. So, as you can see, with a powerful processor, the thing doesn't even have to work very hard at all to play back multiple layers of video. Then, you're able to add hardware-based transitions like a page curl on top of that. And those hardware effects are as clean as ever, thanks to Matrox's unique filtering routine, which I think gives you the best-looking real time 3D effects in this class of hardware. Added to that is the fact that you can now create four real time dissolves at a time, using a transition and the transparency controls in Premiere.
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