Dallas Mavericks Video Production Department Appreciates the Versatility of Matrox MXO2 LE and MAX

When it comes to the Dallas Mavericks, everything moves fast and the in-house video production department needs to keep the pace. From commercial promotions for the marketing and corporate sales departments to broadcast features and in-arena entertainment, Tom Ward, Director of Production, and his team provide the pictures to tell the Mavericks story. "Our job is to give the rowdy, proud, and loud Mavs fans what they want to see—entertainment and access to team information. We're the one-stop shop for everything Mavericks."

In an interview, Tom Ward, described his typical production workflows and detailed the many advantages of using Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX.

Typical Workflow

"A fair portion of our footage acquisition comes from each NBA live event. We record highlight melts and the live broadcasts to Sony XDCAM HD from their original 1080 or 720 ingest via EVS XT2 servers. We also shoot interviews, press conferences, and production elements on a variety of cameras including Panasonic Varicam, JVC HD250, and Canon HD MiniCams. Our production rig is a MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro 7, the Adobe CS4 suite, and 3D Studio Max. A typical project would include importing XDCAM HD highlights from the previous game, editing in Final Cut Pro and compositing graphics in After Effects and Photoshop. We send a rough cut to Compressor and upload the Matrox MAX encoded H.264 QuickTime file to the producer or client for approval. We mix audio and color correct after getting the green light and export to XDCAM HD or print-to-tape via HD SDI using Matrox MXO2 LE.

We deal with a large variety of footage formats and playback/recording devices and Matrox MXO2 LE always gives us a way to interface with whatever the project requires; whether it's capturing old analog highlights from 3/4" tape or HDMI output to a monitor for a background in an interview. Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX has been a solid addition to our production toolkit. Our work is broadcast on the Mavericks Network Partners TXA21-HD and Fox Sports Southwest, in the American Airlines Center Arena, and on the Dallas Mavericks website."

Conveniently Portable I/O

"The Dallas Mavericks have two full HD production facilities which are fantastic assets, but we need a portable option to cover any last minute changes and the added flexibility of going into production anytime, anywhere. Our Matrox MXO2 LE is always on the go like we are, its small portable design allows us to take it with us wherever the job requires. The Matrox MAX technology provides us with a quick and easy way to ingest raw footage and then encode files for sharing. We've never had to send files to another machine for encoding or check if the network batch process crashed overnight. read more...