Creative Cow: NAB 2012 Matrox Video Systems

Creative COW by Debra Kaufman

Matrox brought some interesting new products and made some welcomed announcements at NAB 2012. First, the company announced support for Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium and Adobe Mercury Transmit with the Matrox MXO2 family of I/O devices and the Matrox Mojito MAX I/O card, which provide broadcast-quality video and audio input, output, and monitoring. The full range of Matrox I/O products, available through a worldwide network of authorized dealers, starts at $449 U.S.

Matrox also announced support for Apple's Final Cut Pro X 10.0.4 update by releasing a software update for all Matrox MXO2 I/O devices and the Matrox Mojito MAX card, thus completing broadcast monitoring support. Apple's update allows video and audio output to a variety of external monitors and other gear using the SDI, HDMI, or analog video outputs from Matrox products. Matrox I/O solutions for Final Cut Pro X also include 10-bit hardware scaling, inexpensive HD monitoring with the Matrox HDMI Calibration Utility, and 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound monitoring using professional connections.

Matrox unveiled the Matrox MicroQuad (see image at end of article), a four-channel SDI-to-MDMI multi-viewer priced at $995. The MicroQuad is intended for OB vans, on-set productions, and live events and allows users monitor up to four SDI inputs on a single HDMI display in quadrant view, or toggle to a full-screen view at the touch of a button. Matrox MicroQuad is scheduled to ship this July.

The company also announced support for the Mac with HD-SDI scan converters. Matrox Convert DVI and Matrox Convert DVI Plus HD-SDI scan converters are now available to Mac users with all the features available previously only on PC. Matrox Convert DVI scan converters allow broadcasters to incorporate content from a computer, iPad, or iPhone into news programs, with ease and cost effectively. The scan converters can also create broadcast video from Skype, YouTube, Google Earth, FaceTime, media players, presentation software, and web browsers. Matrox Convert DVI is priced at $995 and Matrox Convert DVI Plus is priced at $1,495. read more...