The Film & Video Institute
Matrox RT.X100 becomes Xtreme
Introduction
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The Film & Video Institute |
Matrox RT.X100 becomes Xtreme Introduction |
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 Back in 1989 an American company introduced the Avid 1 non-linear edit
suite. Images were digitized into a computer and the edit compiled using the
Avid software package. The machine was aimed at the professional market. For the
first time editors and directors could go back and re-edit earlier sequences
without affecting the overall product. The machine was "off line" quality and
was only to produce an EDL (edit decision list) on a floppy disc. This disc was
then loaded into an expensive linear suite with several bolt-on goodies to
produce the finished production.
Matrox entered the non-linear age with their Digisuite in early 1996. Although considerably cheaper than an "On Line" Avid, Matrox's Digisuite was too expensive for all except the professional. During the next few years, several companies introduced more affordable systems. Most of the early systems used M JPEG - a good codec but expensive on memory. These newer systems used the the new DV codec. Now it was possible to film in DV, edit on a computer in DV and record back to DV without loosing any quality. It was nearly four years ago that Matrox introduced the RT2000. With its powerful video card and software it bought a new dimension to affordable computer editing suites. It offered real time editing - not just the odd effect but loads of 2D and 3D ones - no more waiting for the transitions to render. A little later they updated it to the RT2500 - actually the main hardware remained the same. Shortly after came Premiere 6 and an updated version of Matrox video tools. Generally the system was superb. There were a few niggles but these were few and everything worked well. Then just over a year ago Matrox introduced the RT.X100. With the earlier systems the majority of the real time number crunching was done on Matrox's video card - CPUs were simply not fast enough. With the introduction of 2 plus Gigahertz processors, it was now possible to let to CPU do many of the editing operations. Basically, the RTX 100 combines the power of the processor with its video card to extend the real time performance. Or as Matrox describe it, "The Power of X"
“The Power of X – that's
what we call the ability of the new generation of Matrox products to leverage
the scalable power of your CPU with the explosive performance of dedicated
hardware for the ultimate real-time video editing experience.”
Page updated on 21 March 2008 Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers Free JavaScripts provided
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This is what
Matrox say about it:-