Matrox MXO2 Mini and CS6 Windows?

[Sebasvideo]

I got a Blackmagic Intensity Pro card to monitor the Premiere CS6 timeline, which turned out to have very mediocre performance since half the times I press play the audio lags one second behind the video. So I'm going to return it and get something else, and the next logical choice by price would be the Matrox MXO2 Mini, and there's a promotion running until the end of July to get the Max model $200 off, so I have two questions for those of you who have this kit.

Does it perform as it should with CS6.0.1? Meaning, no A/V sync issues, no lockups, proper video timings sent to the TV set or broadcast monitor, etc.

And, what about the h.264 encoding quality? I keep trying to find anything on it but all I get are results that talk about its features, like it has super fast encoding, but I can't find any reviews on the actual quality of the encoding, and speed means nothing to me if quality can't be as good as encoding with x264 in at least the normal setting.

Thanks,

Sebastian

[Sebasvideo]

srukweza wrote:

I noticed that I used the warp stabilizer in one of my small project in a few clips and the project file is around 340mb. Since I started using this software I haven't seen such large prproj. Is it the warp stabilizer causing such large projects.

Yes, apparently the warp stabilizer causes projects to grow to huge file sizes and they become sluggish to save. If it's available for CS6, I will try to get Mercalli Pro, which gave me good results in Edius.

[Alan_Craven]

It is definitely the Warp stabiliser that generates huge project files with their associated problems.  When I got CS6, I deliberately created a project to test out the Warp and rapidly built up a project file of over 500 MB.  I then tried replacing the warped clips with digital intermediates by exporting each in turn.  The project file shrank back to a normal size as I did so.

It also takes several seconds delay when you seek to cut a clip with the warp affect applied.

Mercalli 2 is definitely available and working as normal with CS6 - you just need the latest service update.  It has one new behaviour - when you apply it to a clip, instead of the dialogue box opening up, you get the overlay telling you that the clip needs re-analysing that you used to get when you trimmed a clip after analysing it.  It is far quicker than warp stabiliser to analyse and stabilise, and on my fast system the clip plays without rendering.

[Sebasvideo]

Harm Millaard wrote:

I suggest you learn the UI a little better. It is clear you do not understand it. Try Maximize and see for yourself. The stuttering is caused by lacking hardware or the serious performance degradation caused by Matrox. Matrox causes degradation by 300% or more on several aspects of editing. Interlaced material on a progressive monitor, that's your problem. Matrox can not solve that.

It seems to me that you are the one that doesn't understand the GUI, if you work in a way that you need to press that key combo instead of just choosing the second monitor preview from the preferences, and you extend the GUI over two monitors and when playing back full screen you cover half of the GUI. And you still don't get smooth playback, and you still don't get preview of interlaced footage the way it's supposed to look.

My hardware may not be the best you can get nowadays but a AMD CPU with 6 3.2 Ghz cores and 16 GB of RAM is more than capable of handling video editing without skipping a frame. Even with the card I had before the Nvidia, a Radeon 4850HD, played back AVCHD in Edius without skipping a frame, both on the window in the Edius GUI and the output to the TV set through the HD Spark card, and also plays the video in After Effects smooothly after rendering to RAM. It's clear that Premiere has a big design flaw when it comes to playback inside the GUI. It's been like that at least since CS4 and they haven't fixed it. Sure, you can preview at half size and that will make it smoother, but sacrificing picture quality.

It's a good thing there are plenty more people in this forum way more knowledgeable than you, including myself. I wouldn't say this to you if you were just wrong about your suggestions because I'm not rude, but since you called someone a retard without provocation and you think you know better than everybody else when you clearly don't, I don't really care. In fact, I already ordered the Matrox MXO2 Mini Max from B&H since they are selling it for $600. Maybe it will work and maybe it will not, if it doesn't I will just return it, simple as that.

[David_V_Clarke]

I am using an MX02 Mini all the time and I have not seen a drop in performance on long, small, complicated and nested sequences.  This is based on using it not benchmarks.  Out of interest where are these benchmarks?

[Harm_Millaard]

Benchmark Results

You can not readily recognize them, since we have no field in the SQL database to display Matrox cards, but here are some results, based on the current entries:

I performed this test with Matrox MX02 Mini installed. Not the MAX version.

I did a second benchmark with the Matrox removed from the system. Results are the virtually the same, except for the disk I/O test. Reading of '73' compared with '451'

Look at #668 and # 676. Both with the MXO2 and both with far worse results than one would expect, only caused by the Matrox card.

[srukweza-PhMhaR]

Sebasvideo wrote:

In fact, I already ordered the Matrox MXO2 Mini Max from B&H since they are selling it for $600. Maybe it will work and maybe it will not, if it doesn't I will just return it, simple as that.

Can you please update us on the perfomance of the Matrox Mini Max when you have got it.

[Sebasvideo]

srukweza wrote:
Can you please update us on the perfomance of the Matrox Mini Max when you have got it.

Certainly. I got it yesterday, and at least for now, I couldn't be happier. Perhaps I'm jinxing it by posting this, but hopefully it will help others without a giant budget to decide for a decent output card instead of a piece of junk like the Intensity Pro, especially since the Max version is $600 at B&H right now for a month or two.

For starters, the MXO2 Mini doesn't have any lag. Ever. The tiny lag I see now between the Premiere monitor window and my TV set is the same I saw with Edius and the HD Spark, and it's caused by the extra processing added by the TV set to the signal, which can be disabled by selecting the "game" mode, but that means lower picture quality. The TV set has a lag of about 3.5 frames, but with the BM Intensity "Pro" (I would like to know what's exactly Pro about that card), it was about one second in certain instances, where I would have to stop and resume to get the correct sync.

The BMI was even worse when scrubbing. While Premiere is pretty bad at scrubbing compared to Edius, the perfomance with the BMI was hillarious. I would go up and down the timeline and the monitor window in the GUI would get stuck sometimes, but the TV set with the signal from the BMI was like a guy in really bad shape trying to catch up to the cursor, and lagging several seconds behind. It was like "Hey dude, let me catch my breath, don't move that mouse so fast, I'm just a itty bitty card with a slow processor!" The MXO2 output signal moves along with my hand, again, with only the lag caused by the TV set.

Picture quality is great, just as good as it is from Edius using the HD Spark, or connecting the camera to the TV set directly using HDMI. The MXO2 outputs a proper interlaced signal (from interlaced footage, of course) that the TV set identifies correctly and can deinterlace for the screen. It can output progressive as well, PAL or NTSC, any size in SD or HD.

Maybe I'm calling the Gods of Jinx to punish me for this, but for me Premiere is very stable with the MXO2. I haven't had any crashes. Only a couple of times it seemed to get stuck for a few seconds and display a frozen frame, but again, this only happened twice in a day and it was as simple as switching to another sequence and back. I don't know if this was caused by a bug in Premiere or the MXO2, but I can live with it if it's just twice a day.

As for those supposed benchmarks that it's supposed to slow down hard drive I/O 300%, it's all BS. The only lack of speed I notice is typical of Premiere, since it's much slower than Edius at handling footage. With Edius, editing AVCHD footage feels almost like editing I-frame only MPEG 2 footage. It can play forward up to 3x or backwards up to 2x without dropping a single frame, with 3 way color correction and curves, scale and rotation. Premiere just can't do that. Even without any effects applied, and with my GTX570 (480 CUDA cores) and a 6 core 3.2 GHz AMD CPU with 16 GB of RAM, trying to play in reverse freezes it for more than a second before it starts playing, and it doesn't do it smoothly. This was that way back in CS5 too, without any additional monitoring card. But the disk speed is exactly the same whether the MXO2 is connected or not, or at least it feels the same, having worked on a project with a four hour timeline. And we're talking AVCHD footage, the one from professional cameras that is 21 Mbps VBR, which is much harder to decode than the one from consumer AVCHD camcorders.

And finally, the Max addition is excellent. I was weary of this type of encoding, having tried the h.264 encoding from both ATI and Nvidia cards, which delivered on the promise of speed, but the resulting footage was absolute garbage, full of pixelation and unwatchable by anyone who demands better than YouTube quality. With the MXO2 I can encode in real time, with Max. render quality selected, and the result is high quality. I did three different encodes of the same 4 minutes of foootage, one in the default 30 Mbps, then 20 and 10 Mbps. I burned that to a BD-RE in Encore and played it on a Sony BDP-S370 connected to my Samsung 46" TV set, and I didn't notice any obvious pixelation, unless I paused and went frame by frame on the 10 Mbps and a bit on the 20 Mbps sample. But overall the quality is great. I still have to do some comparisons with the x264 encoder at the slowest settings, but being able to export in the real time directly from the timeline to high quality h.264 is just amazing.

Of course this is just my experience, and I understand that some people may have had a bad experience with a particular Matrox product and now wants to do nothing with the brand, but in my short experience with the MXO2 Mini, it seems like a hell of a card. I hope it stays that way, because I really want to go back to editing in Premiere. Back in 2010 I tried Premiere CS5 with a GTX465 and the BMI, and it was a terrible experience. The real time was nice, butthe GTX465's fan would speed up like hell every time I hit play, which was very annoying. And to make it worse, the driver for BMI would crash Premiere about three times per hour of editing. So after that horrible experience, I jumped to a promotion to get Edius with the HD Spark for $200 off, and I enjoyed excellent real time and stability, but Edius lacks many creative effects that Premiere has, more so now with CS6. So I'm happy that finally Premiere offers a stable and dynamic editing experience for me.

[HD_SECTIONONE]

I'm Glad Sebastian that you listened as Matrox and CS6 Rocks now, also keep in mind that After Effects Now is dinamically Linked without the need of Premium suite or Master Collection In case you don't have the master collections or the premium suite.

In my Experience with adobe this CS6 is the Bomb I never seen better performance till Now Specially premiere now supports the WarpStabilizer so no more shaky footage

Best Regards

Julio César

[srukweza-PhMhaR]

Thanks Sebastian for getting back with the update on the MX 02 mini. I am currently considering that and should be able to get one by the end of the month.

[Evil Edison]

Harm Millaard wrote:

Why? It works great if you know the right keystrokes.

Which keystroke turns your computer monitor into a professional standard broadcast monitor? 

[Harm_Millaard]

Which keystroke turns your computer monitor into a professional standard broadcast monitor?

[ unnecessary abuse removed by admin]  You think a Matrox card does that? Come on, get real.

None, but then a TV is far away from a professional broadcast monitor. If you attach a pro broadcast monitor instead of a simple computer monitor, then the keystrokes work equally well, but then on a pro monitor. Keystrokes do not improve the quality of the monitor in  use. Keystrokes make it possible to use a monitor and then it is up to you to use a good or bad monitor or a lousy TV.

[Jason_Britski]

Harm, how do you feel about kona cards?

It is an expensive option, but if you want a professional standard broadcast monitor then that is the way to go.

I realize you don't like Matrox options, but I have had good luck with them.

I have a matrox mini that is connected to a decent Sony 1080p TV that is used to work with FCP, PP, and Avid with a MacPro.

I have done tests with a proper broadcast monitor through a Kona 3 card side by side, and while the Matrox is not 100% accurate it is pretty damn close if set up right.

[Harm_Millaard]

I used to have a DVStorm card and it was great at that moment, untill they stopped support for PR back at version 1.5. I then moved to Matrox and got burned, as someone said. I have never tried another card and never missed anything without a third party card. I use dual monitors and a separate HD TV for full screen display. So I can't give you an accurate reply about Kona. From what I read here, Matrox still has regular problems with drivers, BM appears to be better and from AJA one seldom hears anything negative and they appear to have great support.

[Mark_Editor]

Hi Sebastian,

I do beta testing for Matrox and I can confirm that Mxo2 Mini works just great with CS6 and audio sync problem, if this is your major problem with Black Magic! Btw if you need to fast export H.264 I would suggest you to buy an MXO2 Mini MAX to let you export H.264 for bluray, Iphone, Ipad, Ipod and for internet faster than realtime.

With MXO2 Mini Max you can capture in H.264 so you will be ready to burn to bluray or upload on the net as soon as you finished your capture.

MXO2 has a unique HDMI Calibration that let you calibrate your HDMI Monitor and turn your HDMI screen into a professional grade video monitor with the unique Matrox HDMI Calibration Utility.
The MXO2 works as a streaming device so if you connect any source to the MXO2 it can be streamed on the ned using softwares like Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder...

So is not just an I/O product is much more... and I think you will not regret you will buy it....

Btw, much more info the can be found at : http://www.matrox.com/video/en/solutions/adobe/

Hope this is helpfull for you!

Regards

Mark

[srukweza-PhMhaR]

Mark Editor wrote:

I do beta testing for Matrox and I can confirm that Mxo2 Mini works just great with CS6 and audio sync problem, if this is your major problem with Black Magic!

What do you really mean by saying " and audio sync problems"?

[Sebasvideo]

"What do you really mean by saying " and audio sync problems"?"

He meant the audio sync problem I'm having with the BM Intensity Pro.

[Mark_Editor]

O yes sorry I wrote in a hurry.....sorry

I mean the MXO2 works just great with CS6 and doesn't have any audio sync issue....

regards

Mark

[HD_SECTIONONE]

Hi Sebastian

In My Experience you will Benefit Using Matrox 100% as you can Preview Composite, HDMI and Component, Use the external Audio in the Mini with a mixer and take advantage of the Quick and Fast Encoding wit hthe Max Technology inthe Card for H.264 that works Great with Media Encoder, I run in my Studio the Mini with the HD Compress Card in My windows and also same setup for the Mac. If you buy the matrox I sugest you to buy the Longer Cable as it comes with the 90cm Cable sometimes not long enough.

Also the best thing is if you love the good Color Presets that matrox supplied with the Software they are Fantastic, To boos the power of your machine use an Nvidia card that works Fantastic with premiere pro CS6.

For preview you can Use a second Monitor with premiere or WYSIWYG from matrox that is Awesome

Remeber all thos Bench marks have no prove and if you have a goos strong machine and Know how to fully use the software and take advantage of It you will be more than happy

Best Regards

Julio César

[Curt_Pair]

Sebastian,

I have SEVERAL Matrox products, and they all work great.  I have an older "Axio" system, an MXO2 Rack Max, and a DVI Convert Plus.  I believe ALL of these products IMPROVE our efficiency in post production.  I like them so much, that I have told many of my friends who have also purchased Matrox products, specifically the Mini and the LE!  They are all happy as well. 

I truly believe sometimes things go wrong... it can be set up, it can be hardware/software/drivers, it can be the physical product... People develop a "bad taste" in their mouth over certain products, companies, or experiences.  I'm no different.  However, I can tell you that I have NOT had a "300% drop" in performance of my machine due to adding anything Matrox.  In fact, I'd say quite the opposite...

Let's say something does go wrong...  One of my buddies was ready to throw the MXO2LE in the garbage because he was convinced it was terrible... "It doesn't work as well as yours..."  I was honestly too busy to help him at that moment but suggested he contact Matrox customer support, as they are quite good at solving problems, and they do so in an expediant manner.  It ended up that HE didn't have HIS SETTINGS properly configured, and that was the issue.  He created conflicts himself.  Now that it's all set up correctly, he's wearing a huge smile.  The guys at Matrox support were able to figure out his problem and get him on track... (He was using the MXO2LE to record files "live" as H.264 files and it was dropping frames... it was due to his codec choice... )

I agree with the post that the MXO2 line does so much more than provide a secondary monitor.  There is an extensive toolset that comes with the box.  In my case with the Rack... I can still use practically ANY device to get in or out of the system, which is very helpful when editing broadcast masters, as believe it or not, most broadcasters STILL want tape, usually HDCam or HDCam SR for programming. 

As for the encoding of H.264 material... the Max will change your life.  In our world of post production... time is money.  Money is everything.  Let's not kid ourselves.  The Max feature is beyond fast!  The quality is great.  I don't see a difference between it and what AME does, only it's faster.  We have been able to secure new clients because of our ability to quickly make changes and then post preview videos to clients on the likes of Vimeo or YouTube.  

The other REALLY cool thing about the MXO2 line is that you can use them in your post facility and on the road.  I travel extensively, and it's great to know that I can take entire projects with me and use the same hardware/software configurations while NOT in my studio.  Matrox are the ONLY company that offer that solution.

Good luck with your decision.  I think you're on the right track!

Curt

[nickdbomb]

Adobe chooses to allow self proclaimed experts to substitute for support that Adobe should be providing. This practice is below my expectations from a leading software company.  Is it a liability issue Adobe worries about or possibly Adobe is being cheap to please investors? Some of these self proclaimed experts can be helpful but at times I find them providing information that is not well researched.  When pressed on a issue there can an unprofessional response that baffles us with obscure information unrelated to the problem being discussed. I am asking Harm Millaard to please elaborate on his Copyrighted Benchmark document that I find very confusing.  What Matrox card and what Matrox software was installed? How was the study conducted?  Are these results scientific and repeatable. 

I have been doing integration sales, service and support for NLE systems for over 10 years and now find myself on the creative side. There seems to be a  issue with credibility with some of the experts I've done business with in many of the manufacturers support departments. Some manufacturers are no longer in business because they had bad technology and lied about it to cover up their faults.  My recent experience Matrox is with owning the MX02 LE. While there have been problems, finding a solution has been much better than average, Matrox tech support employees do seem to care.  Problems are escalated to higher levels and Matrox employees have stuck with me with telephone support to solve complex installation issues.  Sometimes it was the Matrox drivers but just as often it was Adobe to blame and yes I was the cause of one issue.  Once Matrox identifies the problem they worked hard at finding a fix. Eventually they get it right. 

Al Mooney a Product Manager, Adobe introduced Premiere CS 6 to the San Jose Adobe users group.  He admitted previous Premiere Pro versions had many faults including not providing enough support to the vendors that support Adobe like Matrox. At this moment, I am having a serious issues with Adobe premiere Pro CS6 tearing video from a Sony EX1.  The Matrox MX02 is NOT the problem and it is very stable with CS6. The good thing is Adobe acknowledges the bug.  So I'll need to revert to CS5.5.2 until it is fixed.

[Sebasvideo]

nickdbomb wrote:

Adobe chooses to allow self proclaimed experts to substitute for support that Adobe should be providing.

I just know that Adobe would benefit immensely from making their own monitoring card, and not being so tied to Nvidia for proper playback. How is it possible that Edius has better real time playback even after adding tons of effects and layout modifications, such as rotation and scale plus 3-way color correction, YUV curves, etc, and still playback in real time, when it doesn't use the graphics card for that at all, only the CPU? And we're talking about a  32 bit application, not even a 64. Premiere is 64 bit and needs a fast Nvidia card with lots of CUDA cores to offer the same kind of playback Edius offers with just the CPU. To me that doesn't make any sense. Even with my GTX570 card and its 480 CUDA cores, Edius still offers better real time on my computer. Can somebody please explain that to me?

The other thing is that Edius is the most stable NLE or software of any kind I've ever seen. Premiere CS6 is far more stable than predecessors, but I still had some crashes for no good reason. With Edius, I'm surprised if I have one crash per month and usually it doesn't happen that often. But part of that stability is because the same company that makes Edius also makes their monitoring cards, and you cannot use other brands with it.

[David_V_Clarke]

I ran Harms benchmark test on my system and I got slightly better results for all the tests except the disc i/o when the MX02 was plugged in.

I think I know why Matrox scores badly on the disk i/o test.  Matrox have their own way of handling DV footage which works well if the timelines are setup correctly (which you would do if using a Matrox card).  The disc i/o test uses MSDV and makes MSDV files and so if not set up to test it the "Matrox way" resulting in a bad figure.   If you do not have a Matrox card and do not know something about what is going on in the background you would not know this and just see the figures.  If you actually have a Matrox card you would use the Matrox settings automatically when doing your own work (not using a pre-designed test) and therefore would not have a problem.

[Jim_Simon]

With Edius, I'm surprised if I have one crash per month

With Premiere Pro, crashing that often would actually be a huge step backwards.

[Jim_Simon]

Adobe chooses to allow self proclaimed experts to substitute for support that Adobe should be providing.

Adobe actually provides both.  You can get user help for free with these forums, or official Adobe help for a fee.

[Videowilk]

I used Axio LE for years with CS4 and CS5 with many stability issues. Since dumping Matrox drivers, it's been a dream. A couple of months ago, I bought a $50 HP USB monitor splitter on a whim with a large project that required having a large space for bins. It has done amazingly well - I have two  22-inch computer monitors, splitting the second monitor with a 37-inch Panasonic LED. Works great. From time to time, I have to wait for USB signal to update, but I am amazed how this has worked. Sorry Matrox, but that $50 adapter was better for me, especially when looking at the $ and stability. Anyone interested in an Axio btw?

Now that I'm shopping for a CS6 workstation, I'd like to see Adobe release some kind of statement on what is best for folks who want more monitoring options - external box, dual GTXs, or dual Quadros? Any thoughts from our experts?

Cheers,

Diane