MATROX MXO AND AVID MEDIA COMPOSER
Last year at NAB (2008) I was working in the Matrox Booth. The MXO2 was announced, but not shipping. I was working in the booth at the MXO for FCP station, showing off how to make your Apple Cinema Display into a color correction monitor, and how the MXO displayed interlacing as well.
Well, other stations in the booth showed the MXO used in combination with Avid Media Composer. Avid? How did it work with the Avid? I thought only Avid hardware worked with Avid software. They showed me how it worked and it was pretty slick. Impressed all the Avid editors who saw it.
Then 6 months later I find myself working on an Avid. And then at one point I needed to work from home. When I found myself at home I figured, hey, why not check this thing out? I have an MXO. But the MXO took one of the DVI ports, and I still liked working with two monitors as workspaces. So what was I do to? I recalled that a station at the Matrox booth across from me showed off the TripleHead2Go Digital Edition. What this box did was take one DVI port and spread it across two monitors...increase the horizontal resolution from 1920 to 3840. This way you could put two monitors on one DVI port, and then the MXO on the other. So I ordered one.
When it arrived I got the TripleHead working with two monitors on the one DVI port. Then I put the MXO on the other DVI port. Now, the MXO does two things. First off, it passes through the computer video, allowing for another computer monitor. And second, when used with FCP, you can activate it to send a broadcast signal to an external monitor, either Apple or Dell display via DVI, or broadcast monitor via Component or SDI.
What we are going to be using is the first option...the MXO allowing passthrough for another computer monitor. While this allows passthrough via DVI, you might not know that it sends this signal out via Component, Composite and SDI as well. Because of this feature, this allows the MXO to be used on an Avid. The image isn't broadcast quality, but it is still full screen on an external HDTV or client monitor. And since most of the time you will be working with offline formats, like 15:1, or formats you capture via firewire, this is fine...it looks like poo anyway (well, 15:1 does).
HOW do you get this image onto the external monitor? Well, with this simple thing called TOGGLE FULL SCREEN. Go into the Avid Settings, click on this to open it up, drag it onto the monitor you want to use this with, and click SELECT MONITOR. Now when you activate this option your image will appear full screen.
Normally this allows you to play back the footage full screen on one of your computer monitors. Well, since the MXO allows playthrough of the computer image to another computer monitor, and out via SDI and Component, you can now send a full screen image out through the MXO to an external monitor. Doesn't matter if this is a computer monitor, like my Apple Display, or CRT monitor, like my PVM-14L5.
Would you like to see this? Here:
If you want to see it bigger, CLICK HERE.
As you can see, I have the image full screen on my Apple display via DVI, and on my HD CRT via Component. Now, because I can get this signal out via component, composite and SDI, I can now output to tape, or a DVD recorder. Not sure about deck control. I know you can get USB to RS-422 adapters, but I don't know if this will work with an Avid. I assume you can, as I did this with Media Log to log footage.
But that isn't something I tested this time. But, if it does work, this means that you can output rough cuts to tape. And have that nice big image on the client monitor. And you don't need the Avid hardware for this. $995 is a lot less than $4000 (Mojo DX). Bear in mind that the MXO does not capture, it is an output only device. And again, it is outputting a computer signal, so it isn't full quality. This will not output full res to master. But it is great as a client monitor box. If you have multiple edit systems, you can get one Nitris or Mojo to capture the footage, and the rest can use the MXO (in cobination with the TripleHead2Go) to get the image out to a client monitor.
Heck, this will even work on an iMac, since the iMac can run the Avid software, and it has a DVI out...perfect for the MXO. That makes this one heck of a versatile box.
13 comments:
How does the MXO2 make the Apple Cinema Display a broadcast monitor?
How can it match the ACD's primaries to REC709 primaries without a LUT? Do the ACD primaries match REC709 primaries bang on by some fluke?
Read this:
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/matrox-mxo-broadcast-monitoring-on-a-desktop-monitor
Thanks for your reply Shane.
I read the article but I'm still not clear how Matrox can make the claim that with the MXO2 you can hook up a HDMI monitor and turn it into a Broadcast Monitor as there does not appear to be enough control via their proc amp calibration routine to calibrate the display.
For the claim to be valid surely the monitor being fed by the MXO2 must have an identical colour gamut as specified by, say, REC709. Many monitors these days have massive gamuts that exceed the 709 spec by some distance which would lead to super saturated images without a LUT.
I don't claim to be an expert so if I've overlooked something please feel free to put me straight.
I'm interested in one of those new MXO2 minis with the h264 on-board compression chip. It'll make such a difference to my workflow...
Cheers
I won't pretend that I know anything about the highly technical aspects of how this works. But the MXO2 sends out an HDMI signal, that is a Rec709 signal is it not? It is an HD signal, not SD. And their proc amp gives you all the controls you would have on a Broadcast monitor, other than the D65 color setting...the color temp settings. You can get a great image on an HDMI monitor with this.
The main thing is AFFORDABLE. Will it with a Panasonic Plasma hold up against a $35,000 HD CRT? or CRT replacement (eCinema)? Maybe not...But it will be close. "close enough" for MANY peoples uses. By the time they compress the image we gave them for air, all that color is squashed and gone...and then it hits your TV, and granmas TV, that are set up differently and forget about it.
But as long as it gets you close....as you can say "yup, that's red, not salmon" then you are good to go. IMHO.
You guys mean MXO not MXO2. MXO2 is an i/o device. The MXO is the box that converts a DVI monitor into a broadcast monitor.
BTW Mr. Anonymous, take up your questions with Matrox. Shane is just a guy that tested and reviewed the device. He didn't design it and he's not an engineer.
I've used the MXO as well. In fact, I recently used it to color correct a film. On my system I simultaneously ran the MXO to a 23 inch ACD and a Sony BVM-D24E. After calibration, the image on the ACD looked very close to what was on the D24E.
The key thing that the MXO can do is to send out master quality video from a DVI port on your system's graphics card.
Hi Shane
Thanks again for the info.
Yes, the MXO2 will send out a REC709 signal but how that is displayed will depend entirely on the position of the RGB primaries in the monitor's colour space. This is why we profile them and create a LUT so that when we send out REC709 we see REC 709.
It would be great is Matrox would allow us to calibrate our monitors, create a LUT and then the MXO2 use that. This would be like having a cut price Cine-tal Davio.
I thought the MXO2 was doing was doing more than it is. SO thank you for helping me understand. I guess we all have different ideas what "broadcast" means and for the price the MXO2 offers excellent value for money.
Oh Dan, the MXO can't possibly be sending out a mastering quality signal unless you consider 8 bit mastering quality.
Cheers
Steve
Steve,
While it is true that you can't output 10-bit with the MXO, I wouldn't say that you can't consider 8-bit mastering quality. Especially when you consider that many acquisition formats are 8-bit. Take HDV and DVCProHD. Both are 8-bit formats. Now consider FCP's performance with 10-bit video. Over the years I have had issues with the bad renders that I get when working in 10-bit. Strange green artifacts, solid green or black frames, things that shouldn't happen but do because not all effects in FCP work in 10-bit. So generally I work with 8-bit. I've never had a project kicked back and most people would never be able to see the difference between 8 and 10-bit anyway.
but back to the point... the original question was "How does the MXO2 make the Apple Cinema Display a broadcast monitor?" Answer: It doesn't the MXO2 is an i/o device similar to a Kona card. It does not connect to an ACD. The MXO on the other hand does do this, because that is what it was designed to do.
Dan,
With respect, Matrox provide the same proc amp calibration tool in its MXO2 software as the MXO. Matrox also claim the MXO2 will also transform your HDMI monitor in one which is good enough for colour correction.
Thank you for your correction I should have said MXO in my original post but the answer directly transfers over to the MXO2 which is what I am really interested in.
If the answer had been that the ACD does have near as damn it REC709 gamut then I could connect the MXO2 to one via the many HDMI-DVI coverters around.
I thank Shane again for his answer as it is all about getting as close as damn it for as little as possible which in financial times like these are pretty much a necessity.
regards
Interesting how a post on how the MXO works with Avid sparked this great discussion...
Yeah, I like Dan master out 8 bit most of the time. DVCPRO HD mainly, so having the 8-bit original MXO is fine. And remember, this is a $995 box. If you need 10-bit, there are other options out there. There is no short supply of options for capture cards now. Figure out your need, and get the one that suits that need. Most people who need an inexpensive playback box don't need 10-bit output, and it they need 10-bit output, they need to get a better capture card.
But then that begs the question, is your HD monitor 10-bit? Most aren't. Most AFFORDABLE ones anyway. Panasonic, JVC, lower end Sony's...all 8-bit. All in the $2000-$4000 range. Want 10-bit? Higher end Sony and Barco and TV Logic...$8000-$12,000. Who here can afford that? Show of hands. Not me. And 8-bit is fine for what we do.
Now I am working with ProRes, so I use the Kona 3 or MXO 2, in conjunction with my HD CRT (I refuse to use the Sony LMD monitor). If I did get a monitor it would be the Flanders Scientific 1706 or 2406...an affordable one.
Ok, I wasn't aware that Matrox included the monitor calibration utility with the MXO2. But reading over the FAQ at the Matrox site I find the following a little bit misleading:
"Matrox MXO2 lets you adjustand control an HDMI monitor exactly like you would a broadcast monitor. Controls for hue, chroma, contrast, brightness, and blue-only are provided. This unique control gives you accurate color representation so that you can use your HDMI monitor with Apple Color to begin the first phase of color correction."
That last sentence has some interesting word choices, like "first phase." But I don't see the claim that converts an ACD into a broadcast monitor. Now the original MXO was designed specifically for the ACD and then support for other monitors was added. Also AFAIK an HDMI to DVI converter wouldn't work for sending an image to an ACD from the MXO2. This is because the 23 inch ACD is 1920x1200 and the signal coming out of the HDMI output of the MXO2 is 1920x1080. The reason that the MXO works with an ACD is that it does pixel mapping and provides a virtual bezel. The box is actually sending black to the remaining 120 lines. So the MXO sends out a signal that matches the resolution of the monitor, whereas the MXO2 doesn't do this. It merely sends out signals at a video res of 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x486, and 720x576.
If I'm wrong about anything, please correct me, but this is my understanding of how these boxes work.
Dan is right...you cannot take the HDMI out and convert it to DVI. I tried it...then asked Matrox and they said it wasn't possible. HDMI sends out a 1920x1080 signal and when it hits a 1920x1200 monitor, it won't display it.
Thanks Dan, I forgot to address that question.
Tell the truth. Is that desk always that pretty?
Hell no. You should see it now. Ugh.
That was "between projects."
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