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The market for low cost, real time, dual stream nonlinear editing hardware has just heated up with the introduction of three new engines from the Matrox garage. Based on the successful DigiSuite chassis, DigiSuite LX MAX, DigiSuite LE MAX and DigiSuite DTV MAX present a serious challenge to Matrox's chief competitor, Leitch DPS and other hardware manufacturers catering to the Intel platform. The "MAX" category adds a higher level to Matrox's overall line, which starts at the entry level with the RT 2500 ($899) and the RTMac board (which adds real time effects to the Apple's Final Cut Pro & Adobe Premiere), followed by the full Digisuite boardset ($9,995) which was debuted in 1996. (All prices quoted are manufacturer's list.)

The Line up

In the design of the three new boardsets, Matrox has advanced the proposition that there are three distinct categories of video producers in its potential customer universe and designed the boardsets that best suit each.DigiSuite LX MAX ($5,995) is aimed at the corporate and long form producer who primarily shoots in DV format.

Capable of both native-DV editing and MPEG-2 I-frame editing at up to 50 Mbps, LX offers significant advantages at an attractive price by limiting its format envelope to the expectations of a large category of end users.

Rarely, if ever, do DV producers require non-compressed acquisition or the ability to acquire such esoteric formats as DigiBeta or D-9 on a serial digital interface, so these capabilities are segregated out into an SDI (serial digital interface) option which is available for the LX as a digital module that includes SDI I/O & AES / EBU digital audio.

The typical DV format producer will, however, need fast MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 encoding for CD and DVD production and I'm here to tell you that the LX can whip out DVD compliant MPEG-2 video files at real play time - in one pass. And when it makes these files, it renders the files that are compliant (MPEG-2 compression wrapped in AVI) with the most popular DVD authoring software from Sonic Solutions (DVDit, RealDVD and Scenarist).

DPS Reality hardware, which, even when employing the hardware accelerator, takes significantly longer than real time to create DVD compliant files. DigiSuite LE MAX ($5,995) is targeted to high-end postproduction houses, commercial editors, animators and compositors because it offers acquisition and editing that is fairly close to uncompressed.

The most similar engine on the market to Leitch DPS's Reality engine, DigiSuite LE MAX runs M-JPEG, which allows variable acquisition rates from a nearly transparent 5 MBps up to 15 MBps per dual stream (or a combined, single stream bitrate of 30 MBps for a compression ration of 1.3:1). For those of you who would like to compare this quality to the DV format, DV operates at 25 Megabits per second. 15 Megabytes per second, the highest bitrate of the LE, is equivalent to 120 megabits per second, or nearly five times the bitrate of DV.

Although DigiSuite LE MAX sells for the same price as LX, it will require significantly greater amounts of hard drive support due to the large size of M-JPEG files.DigiSuite DTV MAX at $7,995 is the priciest and most versatile of the three systems. Producers employing the DTV system can combine native DV material with higher resolution forms of digital tape such as DV 50 4:2:2 sources. DTV also supports MPEG-2 I-frame editing at up to 50 Mbps. DTV seems best suited for project studios and editing facilities that want to maintain the highest degree of flexibility in terms of working with various compression formats, allowing easy mixing of DV and DV50 material.

As configured, the system will assist in the production of video productions, CDs, DVDs and streaming website content.Editing InterfaceAt present, Matrox systems are designed to operate the Adobe Premiere 6.0 NLE (nonlinear editing) software, which comes bundled with all DigiSuite MAX platforms. A lesser-known software, known as Incite, an NLE product from IMC, a Swiss manufacturer, may also be used DigiSuite Max systems. In addition to the interface and functionality of these two NLE systems, Matrox adds its own interfaces and controls, which appear within appropriate windows of Premiere and Incite.For instance, within the Filter and Transition windows of Premier, Matrox inserts its own list of available tools that efficiently drive the Matrox hardware.Users who are already familiar with the ubiquitous Premiere on other systems will find the transition to a Matrox system nearly seamless, while users who wish a more professional NLE layout can explore Incite, which is similar to the higher end software products offered by Avid, Leitch DPS and Media 100.

Bundled Software

In addition to Adobe Premiere 6.0, Matrox systems come bundled with a wide array of software, including Inscriber CG (for character generation), Inscriber Video Clipboard (for instant video output of still graphics), Ligos LSX-MPEG plug-in for Premier (creates MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files), Sonic Solutions Reel DVD (Sonic's mid-range DVD authoring program which sells for $1500), Artel Boris FX (advanced compositing features), and several Matrox programs.Hardware LimitationsAll Matrox DigiSuite MAX configurations offer two channels of real time video with one channel of graphics or one channel of video with two channels of graphics.

The graphic channels need not be wedded to a layer as an overlay, but may be placed as foreground, background or between layers. I found that up to 15 simultaneous effects could be combined without the need for rendering. These were one transition, one channel of 2D DVE (including scale, crop and position), one channel of 3D DVE (including scale, rotation, position and cropping), one Flex 3D effect (blur, page curl, distortion, etc.), two linear keys (graphics), two channels of YUV color correction, two special effects filters (tint, mosaic, posterize, etc), two chroma/luma/matte keys (for graphics or video), two streams of variable speed motion control and three fades.Each of the above effects is obtained from proprietary Matrox control interfaces which work as Premiere plug-ins. Each is intuitive and easy to use. A slider features easy access to key frames which may be added to a clip to identify points within the clip where control data changes from moment to moment.

"Linear" and "spline" playback controls provide both rigid and rubbery adherence through key frames although there is no control for the amount of spline influence or a graphic tool to manipulate the shape of a spline curve. At times when an effect must be rendered, Matrox renders about 30% faster than DPS hardware, making the DigiSuite MAX platforms among the fastest renderers on the market.AcquisitionSeveral NLE manufacturers have been offering a form of capture automation for DV tapes which employs the "start data bit" which is recorded on a DV tape whenever the camera is triggered to record. Pinnacle, Canopus and other manufacturers allow users to insert a DV tape into a compliant VCR, press "capture" and begin an automatic process of capturing every clip and storing the results in a gallery, ready for selection, deleting and editing. The only drawback of this feature is that the time required for the process is twice the play time of the tape.

This is because most systems require one pass to identify the start bits and another pass to acquire the footage. Matrox's "scan and capture" feature accomplishes this task in a single pass, thus halving the time to acquire.Unique EffectsMatrox offers a wide array of real time effects, some of which are unique to the MAX lineup. One particularly useful effect is Blur, which up to now, required render intensive programs like Adobe After Effects or Eyeon Fusion. Matrox Blur, which is real time, and keyframeable, can be applied to text or video and using another plug in you can even create blurred independent shadowing of the blurred object on a background layer. Mask Effect employs any 8-bit gradient TGA image as a source mask upon which, video can be projected and through which another track of video may be revealed.

An impressive feature of Matrox hardware is its true 3D DVE engineering, which, for instance, allows a superimposed title to be curled back over itself while revealing the backmost portion of the title. DPS Reality engines cannot execute this effect.Supporting DrivesMatrox systems are not very particular in their selection of media hard drives. While fast SCSSI drives are preferred, lower cost IDE drive arrays, such as those offered by Medea, may also be used. Matrox recommends that users dedicate a set of four, striped drives for media storage, but the drives may be any mix of sizes and types.

The drives can reside anywhere on the computer's bus and remain accessible to all other computer functions.Matrox systems work well over optical SAN (storage array networks) platforms and are suitable for multiple workstations that draw from a common source of media files, such as a large editing or broadcast facility or an educational facility. Such a SAN would have to obtain a bandwidth of 80 MBps, but such hardware is available off the shelf for prices that would make sense in a facility with four or more workstations.Test PlatformWe tested the Matrox LX system installed on an IBM Intellistation equipped with two Pentium IV, 1.2 GHz processors, 512 MB RAM and a stiped set of four Seagate 36 gigabyte Cheetah drives totaling over 100 gig's.

Matrox recommends a dual Pentium III, 700 KHz platforms with 256 MB RAM as the minimum workstation for any of the DigiSuite MAX systems. The Matrox website offers extensive informational screens with a wide array of acceptable workstation configurations, including the HP WX8000, the Dell and others, as well as a global list of certified Matrox integrators who will build a system fit to your requirements and budget.