In Review:
Matrox RT.X100 Video Editing Platform
I am constantly amazed at how technology continues to develop, bringing media ministries new high-quality tools at prices that almost any church can afford. I have been editing video using a PC since 1996. For less than what I paid for a Pentium 100 with a mediocre capture card and a small video hard drive, you can now purchase a computer-based non-linear video editing system that would rival the top-of-the-line editors of only eight years ago.
At the heart of a non-linear editor (NLE) is the capture card. I recently reviewed a new capture card with capabilities that knocked my socks off!
Many new computers include a FireWire connector (also called IEEE or iLink). This connector allows a user to transfer video from a digital camcorder to the computer’s hard drive. Once transferred, the video may be edited, adding transitions, graphics and more. When editing, any time two video clips and/or graphics intersect (e.g. a transition or a title on top of a clip), most computers will need to render the video frame by frame, creating a new file for playback. This takes time and computer resources. Several years ago a new type of affordable capture card began to emerge; a card that would bypass the rendering process and show the video edits in real time. These cards had certain limitations, of course. For instance, the Matrox RT2500 was a real-time card that would allow up to three tracks in real time (e.g. two video tracks and a graphics track). If more than three tracks were needed, then rendering would be required. Another limitation was that the real-time effects would only be displayed through the analog outputs of the card. In order to transfer the video digitally back to a video camera, the edits still needed to be rendered. Although the RT2500 was a huge step in the right direction, there still were some features that videographers craved. Enter the Matrox RT.X100. This revolutionary card will satisfy that hunger and then some.
The RT.X100 works in tandem with your computer’s CPU to perform up to 16 effects in real time. The computer’s CPU speed needs to be at least 2.2 GHz in order to maximize the RT.X100’s capabilities. There are limitations as to which effects will run simultaneously in real time. Here is a listing of what types of effects can be combined in real-time:
- 5 channels of transparency
- 2 channels of smooth slow/fast motion control on video
- 2 channels of color balance on video 2 channels of input/output level control on video
- 2 channels of proc amp control on video
- 2 channels of keyframeable 3D transform and perspective with soft borders
- 2 channels of keyframeable cropping
The System
I built a system designed specifically for the Matrox RT.X100 by
consulting them company’s web site to make sure that I chose components that would
work with the RT.X100. That system incorporated a 2.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor,
512 MB of system RAM, 2 7200RMP IDE hard drives, a DVD writer, and a Matrox
Parhelia graphics card with 128 MB of RAM. It was loaded Windows XP home edition,
Adobe Premier 6.5 (included with the RT.X100) and the Matrox drivers. By carefully
following the instructions, I had no problems with installation. No special “tweaking” was
necessary, and the system was ready to go as soon as everything was installed.
The RT.X100 includes a breakout box that has S-Video and RCA inputs and outputs for video and audio. The FireWire connector is located on the card itself. I hooked up my video camera via FireWire and the video and audio output from the breakout box to my video monitor.
The Demo
Matrox supplied me with a demo project for the Adobe Premier software,
including clips, graphics and music files. Once the clips were loaded on my
hard drive
I opened the sample project in Premier. Before actually playing the demo, I
examined the edits. There were many multilayered graphics and video tracks.
Video effects were applied to many of the clips. All of the footage was “raw”,
meaning that nothing had been pre-rendered.
I pressed play and watched the demo, which appeared on my video monitor and in Premier. I was extremely impressed as I saw real-time color keys and luma keys performed. In one example, the original footage was of a lady in front of a green screen. The green was keyed out and a desert landscape inserted. The detail around the lady’s hair was crisp without any “bleeding” into the green. On the luma key example, a fire sequence from Artbeats, a popular source for stock video footage, flawlessly encircled a clip of a cowboy in a rodeo. The keying was all done in real time. In years past, I remember waiting all night for this type of keying to render on my computer. Other effects performed in the demo included real-time blurs, ripples, page curls, emboss, color correction and an assortment of 3-D effects that were simply amazing.
After viewing the demo, I played with the settings for the effects. Custom controls for the Matrox plug-in effects are easy enough to understand for those with basic understanding of video editing. The documentation for the controls was above average. Most effects have both basic and advanced controls. I was able to change various settings over time down to the individual frame. Borders and drop shadows could be customized in many ways, including color, distance and blur effects. It became quickly obvious that the RT.X100 is a very powerful tool.
A Practical Example
To put these capabilities (and more) in a practical scenario,
let’s
assume that a church has recorded some “man-on-the-street” interviews.
A couple of members of the media team asked people in their city, “What
is Easter about?” They received all sorts of interesting answers and
now the footage needs to edited in an interesting way to present to the church.
The first step in non-linear editing is to transfer the footage from the camera to the computer’s hard-drive. This process is called capturing. Once the camera is connected to the RT.X100 via a FireWire cable, the Matrox SinglePass software will scan the tape and capture the footage automatically. Every time the camera was stopped and restarted (e.g. in between interviews), the RT.X100 saves those sections as an individual clip. If an hour of interviews were recorded, it would take an hour to capture the footage. Once captured, you may then go through the clips and delete any unwanted footage.
To edit and arrange the clips, the RT.X100 comes bundled with the full version Adobe Premier 6.5 non-linear editing software. In addition to the transitions and effects that come as Matrox plug-ins for Premier, the RT.X100 will perform 100 of Premier’s native transitions in real time. We will not go into the details of editing using Premier, but rather concentrate on the Matrox real-time effects, which are accessed through Premier.
Once on the timeline, a number of effects may be applied. For instance, in order to make the video more interesting to watch, you could add an animated background and inset a clip in a smaller window. The clip could also be colorized for further effect. Text relating to the clip could be scrolled across the bottom. All of these edits would be performed in real time. This is just a small sampling of the possibilities of the RT.X100.
Relatively Speaking
The street price for the RT.X100 is $999. To put this price
in perspective, you must realize that a system capable of the same real-time
capabilities only
several years ago would have cost well over $10,000. The price of this editing
card has to be considered one of the most amazing aspects of the RT.X100. In
the aforementioned three-minute demo that I viewed, the edits performed in
real-time would have taken literally hours for a non-real-time system to render.
How much is your time worth? The final consideration is the bundled software.
Adobe Premier 6.5 alone costs $600. Also included are several utilities and
DVD authoring software. It doesn’t take long to see that the RT.X100
is an unbelievable value.
However, where it’s real value lies is in its power to act as a tool for media ministries to tell a story in a professional and compelling manner with minimal effort. Using the RT.X100 and a little creativity, a media ministry can create video presentations that will communicate messages extremely effectively. This is a must-have and affordable tool for any church wanting to take their media ministry to the next level.
