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In a perfect world, a new product would satisfy all the needs of potential buyers when it is brought to market. Since we don't live in paradise, it's not surprising that the RT2000 and RT2500 from Matrox weren't perfect.
However, we can all rejoice when a company listens to feedback and then brings to market a product that truly meets our needs. With the RT.X100, Matrox has done just that. The X100 provides real realtime that enables you to record directly from the timeline without rendering or compiling a movie, 2D and 3D transitions and video filters, 18-parameter color correction, a keyframe interface that is truly easy to use, and a complete set of export functions.
The X100 employs the Matrox Flex3D effects chip, LSI Logic's MX-25 DV/MPEG-2 codec chip, and a 1394 interface chip - all from the RT2500. To these, Matrox added a software-based codec and a software-based effects generator. Simply put, the X100 combines the best of the RT2500 with the best of the Canopus DVStorm. Of course, Matrox would prefer I said that a significant amount of DigiSuite DTV MAX (MSRP of $7,995) capability has been brought to market for only $1,099 MSRP. (See my DTV MAX review in the June issue of Video Systems.)
Here's a brief description of how all these hardware and software technologies work together. The X100 board accepts analog video (composite and S-Video) and audio (RCA jacks), which can be compressed to DV or IBP-frame MPEG-2 in realtime by the MX25 chip. Unlike the RT2500, the X100 does not support I-frame MPEG-2 compression, which, unfortunately, prevents highly compressed MPEG-2 material from being used as a draft mode. I'd really like draft support added in a future release, because it is vital for long-form productions.
DV and DVCAM (but not DVCPRO25 because Microsoft's 1394 driver doesn't support DVCPRO) can be captured to disk via the X100's 1394 (FireWire) interface chip. The 1394 interface chip is also used to output back to DV and DVCAM via FireWire.
Once DV compressed material is on disk, the X100 software apportions tasks to the computer's CPU(s) and the Flex3D chip. While the RT2500 uses the MX25 chip to decompress one or two DV streams, the X100 uses the computer's processor(s)....