Realtime editing with Premiere
Pro 2.0
When Matrox
first announced the RT.X2
we were very excited about an affordable realtime editing card
for Adobe
Premiere Pro 2. While Matrox did go to some effort to make
the RT.X100
work with Adobe's latest version of Premiere, some of the features
are missing and HDV editing is not supported. And, let's face
it, most of us are interested in the RT.X2 because of it's HD
editing capabilities.
The RT.X2 is built on the Matrox
Axio technology and the hardware cards look very similar. It is
most like the Axio
LE with some very important key differences. The Axio is designed
to edit uncompressed video, both SD and HD, while the RT.X2 was
made to edit only compressed formats. The Axio also includes SDI,
AES, and XLR I/O, while the RT.X2 does not.
RT.X2 Analog & Digital I/O
The RT.X2 I/O consists of the breakout box/cable (BOB) and a DVI
cable on the back of the card. The RT.X2's BOB is a great improvement
over the earlier RTX versions. It is solidly built and has a nice
rectangular shape with all the I/O on the front and the connection
cables to the computer on the back. On the front of the BOB you'll
see component video and audio inputs on the left and outputs on
the right. 
You won't find any s-video ports on the BOB, but Matrox
does supply converter Y-cables for Y/C I/O. Separating the analog
I/O is a 6-pin 1394 port. Unlike the earlier RTX cards, the RT.X2
does not have its own 1394 port and must rely on the systems onboard
1394 port or an add-in card like the ADS
Pyro. Similar to the earlier RTX cards, the RT.X2 does not
have it's own audio I/O and relies on your system's sound card.
The RCA audio connections on the RT.X2's BOB are simply pass through
from the sound card.
As far as format goes, the analog
connections on the BOB can be used for standard definition (s-video,
composite, and component) and high definition (component). HD
video can be monitored with the analog component outputs, but
also digitally via the DVI port on the back of the RT.X2. The
DVI monitoring output is a very neat feature of the RT.X2 and
is not found on the higher-end Axio cards. Matrox included the
DVI port as a low cost way for editors to monitor HD using an
LCD monitor instead of an expensive HD broadcast monitor. The
output of the DVI port is fixed at 1920x1200 though and will not
work with monitors that can't support that resolution. While I've
heard some criticism that 1920x1200 is not an actual HD resolution
(it should be 1920x1080), I think the quality looks fantastic.
According to Matrox: "In fact, RT.X2 provides better HD
video definition, with pixel-to-pixel mapping on a flat panel
(1920 x 1200), than you will get on a more expensive professional
HD monitor which is typically limited to approximately 800 lines
of resolution." Note: To be clear, the pixel mapping actually maps the 1920x1080 pixels on the display for an actual 16:9 aspect ratio with black bars on the top and bottom of the display.
As I mentioned above, the RT.X2
does not have it's own 1394/FireWire port, but the RT.X2 does
work with 1394-captured DV or HDV video formats. Capturing to
these formats is done through the 1394 port on your machine and
is ingested through the Matrox capture module in Premiere and
works natively.
System Requirements
You'll notice that the system requirements for the RT.X2 are fairly
steep. Although the RT.X2 card has it's own built in RISC processor,
it relies on much of your workstation's hardware.
Much complaining has been made
via e-mails and on the Matrox forums about the lack of hardware
that has been validated for the RT.X2. While this normally has
not been an issue in the past, with users typically being willing
to experiment with different components, Matrox has scared a lot
of the potential build-your-system guys away by enforcing a stringent
registration policy allowing only those with validated components
full product support. Matrox has recently loosened the validation
requirements somewhat and is allowing some system integrators
(like Guy Graphics) to pass certification testing on built machines
which allows the end-user to register and get support. UPDATE: As of 10/30/06, Matrox has changed their support policy and all registered owners are now eligible for complimentary 6-month support regardless of their configuration. For more details see here.
CPU/Motherboard - You'll want a minimum of a dual-core
CPU and you'll need two if you'll be editing HDV regularly. For
Dual CPUs Matrox has only currently validated the dual Opteron-based
workstations. If you'll be doing mainly HDV editing then go for
the 285 Opterons. It really does make a difference. If you are
not as concerned about Matrox Validation, or are having a certified
builder make your system, then you might want to consider the
newer, faster dual-core Woodcrest Xeons. Of course, CPU advances
happen so rapidly that it's hard to always stay up to date. For
the latest hardware that we recommend visit our Matrox
workstation page.
RAM - One important thing to remember here is that
for best performance you'll want to go with two sticks of RAM
for each CPU in most cases so that the system will operate in
dual-channel mode.
Video Card - You'll also need a beefy video card.
After much testing with different video cards I recommend that
you go with the ATI
Radeon X1900XT(X) 512MB for best editing performance with
the RT.X2. While Matrox does have the more expensive Quadro
4500 listed as a supported card, it does not perform as well
as the ATI card with the RT.X2. This is mainly because Matrox
utilizes DirectX instead of OpenGL, and the ATI is a better DirectX
performer. Update: The RT.X2 does not have an onboard GPU (FLEX3D) like the other RTX cards, it relies soley on your video card's GPU for 3D processing. For this reason you need a fast video card with 512MB of RAM.
Hard Drives - Since the RT.X2 is designed to edit
compressed video the hard drive requirements are not too stringent.
I would still recommend a striped
RAID for best editing performance. The biggest hard drive load using the Matrox I-Frame codec can put you at about 25-50GB/hour of video,
so you can figure out how much storage you need and just go for
a two or four-drive RAID. Note: You can check Matrox's official storage requirements here.
Editing in Premiere
Adobe Premiere is one
of the most popular PC-based video editing applications around.
Adobe has done a good job of bundling Premiere with different
capture cards for years and has earned a loyal user base that
has upgraded with every new version. Matrox themselves have also
been bundling Adobe Premiere with their capture cards since the
RT2000. The RT.X2
is available with Premiere Pro 2.0 as standard, but can also
be purchased with the Adobe
Production Studio Standard or Adobe
Production Studio Premium. Much to the chagrin of many loyal
editors, Matrox does not sell the RT.X2 as a hardware only version
yet. Although this seems inevitable, just as was the case with
the RT.X100 which is now available as a hardware
only package. There is a customer
loyalty program for owners of previous Matrox cards that saves
you $200.
Whether you decide to set the
RT.X2 up with just Premiere Pro 2.0, or you decide to go for the
whole Adobe bundle, you will be impressed at how well the Matrox
card works with the Adobe software. Matrox has adopted the standard
Adobe-style effects interface in lieu of the flashier FX controls
used by the other RTX cards. This makes learning and using Premiere
a much more pleasant experience.
Digital Capture - If you are capturing from DV or HDV
you will use the 1394 port as described above and Premiere will
capture the native digital stream to disk. When you capture via
the FireWire port you can have device control and can also use
the scene detect feature to automatically separate your clips
into distinct AVI files in the Bin. When capturing digitally you
can only record to the native DV or HDV format and cannot capture
to the Matrox I-Frame format. Audio is captured together with
the video through the 1394 signal.
Analog Capture - If you are capturing analog video
you can use any of the Component, S-video, or composite options
from the BOB. With analog you do not get device control unless
you are controlling the deck via 1394 or have an additional RS-422
cable connected. Since Premiere's scene detect uses the embedded
timecode information in the 1394 signal, you cannot use this feature
when capturing from an analog source. When capturing from analog
the Matrox I-Frame codec is used. Analog is passed through the
sound card's line-in port and digitized by the sound card. This
gives you some more control over audio volume as you can adjust
it using the Windows Volume Control and moving the Line-In slider.
SD Editing
Most editors will still be working with Standard Definition formats
for quite some time to come. You'll be pleased to know that Premiere
Pro has never had so many realtime capabilities as it does when
working with the RT.X2. Whether using the native DV format or
component-captured I-Frame video we have been able to stack clips
and combine them with effects in almost limitless ways all in
realtime, without any rendering.
HD Editing
Editing the Native HDV video stream is a tough challenge even
for today's fastest workstations. The Matrox RT.X2 performs very
well with native HDV. If you have been editing DV in realtime
for a while you are used to a certain level of performance. I
would say that Native HDV editing performance is equivalent to
the performance of the RT2000 on machines of the day. Typically
you can expect to get 2-3 layers of HDV with a PIP effect and
color correction. Combining too many layers or effects will require
rendering. Fortunately, the RT.X2 accelerates rendering like nobody's
business and it's hardly an inconvenience. If you'll be doing
Extreme HD editing with many layers and effects you'll want to
tweak as much performance as you can out of the RT.X2. We've discovered
with the help of our customers that you get much better editing
performance in HD if you use the Matrox I-Frame codec. In this
context the I-Frame codec works like an intermediate codec which
is much easier on the CPUs and RT.X2 hardware. This is similar
to how Canopus
uses their HQ codec with EDIUS.
The catch here is that the only way to capture HD to the I-Frame
codec is via the analog component ports. Hopefully Matrox will
allow a direct-to-I-Frame from HDV process in an upcoming version
of their drivers.
Exporting
One of the biggest benefits that Matrox has given to Premiere
is it's Media Export module. In staying with their tight integration
of Premiere, the Matrox exporter appears to have exactly the same
interface as the native Adobe version. The main difference here
is that everything is much faster using the Matrox version. It
doesn't seem to matter if you are going to MPEG for DVD or a HD
streaming format, every setting I have tried is consistently faster
using the Matrox encoder than the Adobe version.
Special Considerations
There are some things
to pay special attention to if you plan on building your own RT.X2
machine. If you are upgrading from an RT.X100 you will most likely
need to get a new machine.
Chassis
Be aware that the RT.X2
is a full-length card. It will not fit into a standard midsize
case. Most cases that can accommodate an EATX motherboard will
be fine. I'm not sure why Matrox went with the long card design,
but we've had more than one customer get the card and then figure
out it wasn't going to fit in their existing case.
Power Supply
I recommend a minimum
650W power supply. The RT.X2 needs it's own power cable and the
ATI or Quadro cards suck a lot of juice. You'll also need to make
sure that your power supply has enough power for the motherboard
CPU(s) and any hard drives you are going to connect it to.
PCI-express Slot
This may seem obvious,
but it keeps coming up--make sure that your motherboard has an
available PCI-e slot. Most newer motherboards have at least two,
but you will need one of those for your video card.
Heat
If you'll look at the picture above you'll notice that the big chip on the RT.X2 (ie the magic) does not have a heatsink or fan on it. It gets very hot and requires adequate airflow to stay cool. If you have any other cards next to it you will need to provide additional airflow by means of adding a fan to the side of the case or using a Zalman type fan bracket to position a fan directly over the card. Matrox has provided a utility that indicates the temperature of the card and tells you when it is too hot. A heatsink would have been nice too.
Conclusion
I have been very happy with the RT.X2 as have been all of our
customers so far. Provided that you have setup your machine properly
or have purchased a certified/validated turnkey you should be
very happy. My only criticisms with the RT.X2 are that there is
currently no way to capture directly to the higher-performance
I-Frame format directly from a digital source, and that Matrox
has not made the RT.X2 available without Adobe Premiere for all
the editors that already have the software. These are both things
that can resolved in time by Matrox. Matrox has a good history
of listening to their users and providing free updates with more
capabilities and features. The first
service pack was recently made available and version
2.0 has already been announced for November with several new
features being added.
Ashley Guy
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