Matrox Announces Realtime HD Editing at a Breakthrough Price with New RT.X2 LE Platform

Montreal, Canada .- Matrox® Video Products Group today announced that the new Matrox RT.X2 LE realtime HD and SD editing platform is now available through a worldwide network of authorized dealers. Priced at $1,095 US in North America (£649, €895), Matrox RT.X2 LE is a ¾-length PCIe card with a professional breakout box. It is designed to work with Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS3 or Adobe Creative Suite® 3 Production Premium.

“The demand for HD video production is set to skyrocket now that HD televisions are in widespread use and Blu-ray has won the battle of the distribution formats. There has never been a better time for corporate communicators, event videographers, project studios, educational facilities, digital filmmakers, and video enthusiasts to get into HD,” said Alberto Cieri, Matrox sales and marketing director. “HDV and P2 cameras are affordable and the new Matrox RT.X2 LE card dramatically reduces the cost of a high-performance HD editing system. Not only is the price of the card itself lower than ever, it also fits into a low cost desktop system.”

“The new Matrox RT.X2 LE card for Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and Adobe Production Premium CS3 delivers substantial benefits for customers,” said Hart Shafer, senior product manager at Adobe. “RT.X2 hardware combined with our software gives customers accelerated editing of full-quality, full-frame-rate video, export to DVD, Blu-ray, QuickTime, Adobe Flash and other media formats, and extra productivity with WYSIWYG graphics and realtime downscaling of HD projects for SD delivery.”

The Matrox RT.X2 product line will be demonstrated at NAB 2008 in booth SL320.

Key features of Matrox RT.X2 LE
Matrox RT.X2 LE extends the capabilities of the Adobe CS3 software with many important benefits.

* Realtime, mixed-format, multi-layer workflows that combine HD and SD material from analog and digital sources
* Realtime Matrox Flex CPU effects - color correction, speed changes, chroma/luma keying and many more
* Realtime and accelerated Matrox Flex GPU effects - 2D/3D DVE, blur/glow/soft focus, shine and many more
* Extensive camera support including many new models from Canon, JVC, Panasonic, and Sony
* Native HDV 1080i, HDV 1080p, HDV 720p (JVC ProHD), Panasonic P2 MXF 720p, and MPEG-2 4:2:2 I-frame HD editing
* Native DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO, Panasonic P2 MXF SD, and MPEG-2 4:2:2 I-frame SD editing
* Realtime playback of 32-bit MPEG-2 I-frame AVI files with alpha in HD and SD
* Realtime mixed-format multi-cam
* Realtime high-quality downscaling for analog SD output from an HD timeline
* Accelerated export to Blu-ray, DVD, multimedia formats including Flash Video, and Adobe Clip Notes
* WYSIWYG for Adobe After Effects, Bridge, and Photoshop, Autodesk Combustion and 3ds Max, eyeon Fusion, NewTek LightWave 3D, and Windows Media Player with dynamic Alt+Tab switching
* Composite, Y/C, HD/SD analog component input and output