Video Production Advice: Matrox MX02 Mini MAX and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Vancouver Video Production Blog by Shawn Lam

Today’s question comes from a French Videographer who now lives in Bangkok, Thailand, who asks for advice about the Matrox MX02 Mini MAX and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

Hi Shawn,

Hi Shawn, thanks for this detailed writeup, it’s always fun to have a shiny new PC, isn’t it? (except for the teething problems of course)

I have a question which I hope you can answer, I have an older setup which I use for video editing, similar to your previous 2600K-based one. But, I have a non-CUDA video card. So, I am also looking into the Matrox MX02 Max line of hardware accelerators, as I am doing more and more 1080p H.264 encoding. Do you think it would be more worthwhile to go for a high-spec GeForce video card, or the MX02 Mini Max? And, if I were able to get both, would they both work together to further accelerate the encoding?

Thanks!

Video Production Response

Hi Thomas,
Great question. I was wondering when someone would ask about the pros and cons of using the Matrox MX02 Mini MAX with and without CUDA GPU acceleration. Starting with Premiere Pro CS6, Adobe now allows CUDA GPU acceleration to be passed on to 3rd party I/O devices from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Bluefish444, Matrox, and MOTU. Adobe only talks about the benefits of real-time monitoring on HDMI or HDSDI monitors but I too have been curious if you can benefit from both GPU acceleration and Matrox MAX acceleration at the same time. In previous Premiere Pro versions I tested this and the answer was no, you could not use both CUDA and Max at the same time. I chose to stick with CUDA GPU because it provides both real-time effects and accelerated renders while Max only accelerates renders. My gut feeling is that you still can’t combine both export acceleration options at the same time. read more...

Check out these items featured in this post and available now at Videoguys.com.
	Matrox MXO2 Mini MAX Desktop Kit $599.00			Matrox MXO2 Mini Thunderbolt Kit with MAX and MXO2Thunderbolt Adapter $699.00			Matrox MXO2 LE Desktop Kit with MAX Technology $1,395.00