Matrox MXO2 HD: HD, SD, I/O For Mac

DMN by Heath McKnight

Matrox delivers another hardware solution for Mac video users, the portable MXO2 HD (high definition), SD (standard definition) I/O box. No need for a full I/O capture card and/or breakout box, and if you're on a laptop you can finally use an I/O solution without shelling out a few thousand dollars.

If you're using a suite of Mac Pros, you only need one MXO2 box instead of an I/O capture card for each system. I love saving money, and I know several of my colleagues do, as well. If you have two to four Mac Pros and you need a capture card for each one, you're looking at spending anywhere from $600 to $1,500 per system, per card!

Working with the MXO2
I used a late 2008 MacBook Pro 17-inch model for my review. I plugged in the MXO2, then hooked up the PCIe ExpressCard/34 adapter, then plugged in an RS-422 from a BetaCam SP deck to the MXO2, installed the software (download latest versions at www.matrox.com), and fired up Final Cut Pro 6.0.x (FCP).

I captured in Apple's codec, ProRes 422 HQ (you'll need, minimum, an Intel Core2 Duo processor running at 2.4Ghz for real-time capture), because I wanted the quality of uncompressed SD video but without the size of the video clips clogging up my FireWire drives. You can capture in uncompressed 8- or 10-bit, but you'll need a RAID. read more...