Montreal, Canada – July 9, 2010 — Matrox® Video Products Group today announced the immediate availability of support for Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium software with Matrox MXO2 I/O devices for Windows. The key features of this new release include: full-resolution, full-frame-rate, multi-layer, realtime video editing via Matrox RT™ technology; lightning fast H.264 hardware encoding for Blu-ray, the Web, and mobile devices via Matrox MAX technology; and professional audio and video input and output with 10-bit hardware up/down/cross conversion.

"The Matrox MXO2 devices deliver much more than just I/O for Adobe CS5 Production Premium," said Alberto Cieri, senior director of sales and marketing at Matrox. "Users love the built-in color calibration tool for inexpensive HDMI monitoring and now the MAX versions give them even more added advantages. They benefit from lightning fast high definition H.264 file creation as well as Matrox RT technology that enhances the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine to save time and boost editing productivity."

Key features of the Matrox MXO2 family for PC

• Convenient form factors for use in studio, on set, in the field, and in OB vans
• Works with Windows 7 and Windows Vista (64-bit) laptops and desktops
• Broadcast quality HD/SD video and audio input/output
• Flexible support for leading codecs, file formats, cameras, and workflows
• Captures to HD and SD codecs – 8- and 10-bit uncompressed and highly efficient Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame
• Extensive application support including Adobe Premiere Pro, Encore, Photoshop, and After Effects
• 10-bit HDMI input, output and monitoring with calibration controls including blue-only
• 10-bit realtime hardware up/down/cross conversion on capture and output
• Matrox A/V Tools application for fast capture/playback of audio, video, and still frames
• Three-year hardware warranty and complimentary telephone support

Additional features with Matrox MAX

• Lightning fast H.264 encoding with Adobe Media Encoder, Premiere Pro and Encore
• Matrox RT technology that enhances the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine to provide full-resolution, full-frame-rate, multi-layer, realtime video editing and advanced realtime Matrox Flex CPU effects

Price and availability

Adobe CS5 support for the Matrox MXO2 devices for Windows (Mtx.utils 3.0) is available to registered users as a free download from the Matrox website. Matrox RT features and H.264 encoding acceleration can be added to systems using versions of the MXO2 family without MAX by adding a Matrox CompressHD card.

Matrox Mtx.utils 3.0 provides the following new features:

Matrox RT technology for Adobe Premiere Pro

The Matrox MXO2 platforms with MAX feature Matrox RT technology that enhances the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine to provide full-resolution, full-frame-rate, multi-layer, realtime video editing.

Matrox RT technology is designed for use with or without the presence of GPU acceleration. It provides many of the benefits of GPU acceleration but works with any system, even laptops. It optimizes your system to output to professional monitors at full-resolution and full-frame-rate.

In addition, Matrox RT provides advanced realtime Matrox Flex CPU effects such as primary and secondary color correction, smooth speed changes, and many more; along with a high-quality, highly-efficient MPEG-2 I-frame intermediate codec that streamlines working with CPU-taxing footage such as AVCHD and XDCAM.

Realtime Matrox Flex CPU effects with Adobe Premiere Pro

The Matrox MXO2 platforms with MAX work in conjunction with the power of your CPU to perform a variety of advanced realtime effects including:

• Realtime primary color correction
• Realtime secondary color correction
• Realtime chroma and luma keying
• Realtime speed changes
• Realtime transitions
• Realtime move & scale
• Realtime SD clip upscaling in an HD timeline
• Realtime HD clip downscaling in an SD timeline
• Native Adobe Premiere Pro effects and transitions
• Realtime timecode

The Matrox Flex CPU effects are also available in Adobe After Effects. If you have a timeline in Premiere Pro with any of the Matrox Flex CPU effects and you copy/paste the timeline into After Effects, the Matrox effects will remain intact. This is a huge time saver, given that these effects are realtime in Premiere Pro.

Matrox Flex CPU effects are also available for use with versions of the MXO2 devices without MAX, however, the effects may not perform in real time.

Realtime primary color correction

Primary color correction is a critically important effect for all productions, whether to achieve continuity when cutting between shots, ensure broadcast safe levels, or establish and emphasize a “look”. The primary color corrector provides basic proc amp control; three-way color correction complete with master, shadows, midtones and highlights control; input/output level control; and RGB curves control.

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Realtime proc amp controls

The Matrox MXO2 devices let you easily adjust four proc amp controls - hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast. Hue adjusts the tint of the colors in the image, saturation adjusts the vividness, contrast adjusts the difference in luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of the image, and brightness adjusts the level of black. You can also use these controls to create special effects, such as black and white, in real time.

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Realtime color match and color balance

Colors can be corrected using nine parameters related to the black (shadow), midtone, and white (highlight) levels of your clips. You can easily match colors or balance blacks, whites, and grays against a reference shot in one simple step.

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Reference

Match

Corrected

Realtime input/output level control

Using the histogram display and level controls, luminance levels can be remapped to maximize the dynamic range of a clip. For example, bright areas can be made brighter and dark areas can be made darker. Five parameters are available - black, white, and gamma levels on the input; and black and white levels on the output. Auto white and auto black controls are also provided.

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Realtime RGB curves control

RGB curves control offers a fast, natural way to fine-tune the colors in your video. If, for example, you want to remove a blue tint from your video, you simply drag the blue curve down. With RGB curves you can also achieve wild color effects and other looks that are otherwise impossible.

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Realtime secondary color correction

The secondary color corrector is an advanced tool used for fine-tuning or dramatic effects creation. It offers all the controls found in the primary color correction filter with the added capability of limiting the effect to a specific range of pixels. Pixel selection can be done using color and/or brightness. Using the simple garbage matte tool, you can also limit the effect to a specific region. The pixel selection can also be inverted.

The secondary color corrector lets you achieve effects such as color pass and color replace. It can be used, for example, to change the color of a dress, deepen the background sky color, or to achieve an effect similar to the film Schindler’s List where only one object or person remains in color while the rest of the image becomes black and white.

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Realtime chroma and luma keying

The Matrox MXO2 devices provide one of the finest realtime chroma keyers in the industry. Clean blue- and green-screen keys are easy to achieve, even with HDV and AVCHD material shot in less than optimal lighting conditions. Your video is upsampled to 4:4:4:4 resolution and advanced noise reduction algorithms are used to ensure superior results. The auto key button intelligently adjusts the key with soft edges, spill removal, and shadow preservation. If needed, you can further refine the key with manual controls. You can key on any color, not just blue and green. You can also invert the selection and display the matte being generated to fine tune the key.

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The realtime luma keyer gives you low clip, low gain, high clip, high gain, and transparency controls.

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Realtime speed changes

You can use speed changes to emphasize special moments, extend the duration of shots to match voiceover timing, or enhance the feeling of dramatic shots. You can apply smooth slow and fast motion with field or frame blending.

Realtime transitions

The Matrox MXO2 devices support standard dissolves, SMPTE wipes, and organic wipes with soft edges and color borders.

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Realtime move & scale

This effect lets you apply multiple 2D DVEs simultaneously in real time to easily set up picture-in-picture effects. You can also use the move & scale effect to animate multiple titles in real time.

Realtime SD clip upscaling in an HD timeline

This effect is enabled by right-clicking on an SD clip in an HD timeline and selecting "scale to frame size". It provides realtime playback of SD clips upscaled to HD to let you mix NTSC material into a 1080i at 29.97 fps timeline or PAL material into a 1080i at 25 fps timeline. It also provides realtime playback of 576p or 486p SD clips upscaled to HD to mix into a 1080p timeline.

Realtime HD clip downscaling in an SD timeline

This effect is enabled by right-clicking on an HD clip in an SD timeline and selecting “scale to frame size”. It provides realtime playback of HD clips downscaled to SD to let you mix 1080i at 29.97 fps material into an NTSC timeline or 1080i at 25 fps material into a PAL timeline.

Native Adobe Premiere Pro effects and transitions

Some of Adobe Premiere Pro’s most popular native effects and transitions such as Opacity, Crop, Dip to Black, Black and White, Dissolve, and Additive Dissolve can be used in real time in SD. The Matrox MXO2 devices accelerate these effects and transitions in HD.

Realtime timecode

The MXO2 devices overwrite the Adobe Premiere Pro timecode filter so that it becomes realtime. The realtime time code effect lets you generate and overlay a time code counter on a video production. You can use it to make a dub of source tapes with time code “burn-in” then use these tapes to log scenes, create edit decision lists, or get client feedback on your finished production.

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Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame intermediate codec with Adobe Premiere Pro

The Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame intermediate codec is a high-quality, highly-efficient 8-bit 4:2:2 video codec used mainly as a less processor-intensive way of working with long-GOP footage such as HDV, AVCHD, and XDCAM HD. The bit rate of the codec can be set between 50 and 300 Mbps, giving you the flexibly on each clip to make your own tradeoffs between video quality and storage considerations.

It can be used with Adobe Premiere Pro in four ways:

1. as a full-raster capture codec when capturing from SDI or analog;
2. as an intermediate editing format when working with CPU-taxing formats such as AVCHD to maximize quality as well as editability;
3. as a rendering codec to ensure that “flattened” files maintain high quality when exporting or printing to tape; and
4. as an effective archiving codec for material that may be used in future projects.