I looked through <b>all</b> the posts in this forum and only saw one inquiry about the Matrox RT2500, but it had no replies...which may be telling me something, right? The post was from April 2001.

So, for something a little more current I am wondering if there is anyone on this forum that has any experience with it, and if so, what thoughts?

Thanks,

Carl

Like with all Matrox products, most people who are using this card like it and say it's working well.
You still need to know who to work with video in the first place. It's not a beginers card and learning curve is steep.


Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

Thanks.

I come to serve

BTW, there is an article at my site about the Pinnacle new Pro-One card Vs. the Canopus DV Storm.
You might want to take a look at it as well....


Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

i have some feedback about matrox rt2k. people are not so much satisfied. first, they don't like the fact that matrox has no realtime dv output. second, reliability and compatibility of the card is questionable. lot of people that i know are leaving rt2k and buying canopus dvstorm.

Every card have it's problems, supporters and folowers.
One is happy with Matrox, One with Canopus, One with Pinnacle.
There are even some that are happy with Dazzle cards and TV tuner cards for capturing and editing video.
If the RT card do what he need there is no reason why not to get one.
There is also question of resaller prices and tech support.

My suggestion will be to find some one with a card that is working good and give him a visit.

Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

yes, you're right. from your storm-pro one comparation, i can see that you are aware of the different kind of people and different needs.
the problem is that not a single one reviewer from all of those i read on the web, nobody says 2this card is not realtime on dv, this is realtime just on analog outputs", so we can see immediatelly is it for us or it is not.
if i am a videographer who will go shoot weddings and my clients will ask for final on vhs tapes, this is one kind of videographer.
if my final work has to be at the dv or dvcam tape because i need better quality, this will make me another kind of videographer.
that small but very important thing, realtime dv output, is usually hidden somewhere in the review, behind all kind of hollywood effects. (this is not related to the review on your site, i'm just complaining in general).

do you agree with me?

Real time DV is a problem.
Main reason is that more and more companies are relating on M$ DV to capture and export and by doing this you loose features. Among them in meany cases is th ereal time DV.
You can render the needed parts and export but I know it's not the same.

Still it's a question of what are one's needs.
I for ones don't use DV. I use component and XLR.
Another card with real time DV is the Pinnacle DCx000DV cards. they use some sony addon card that give DV out at all time.
another card the "RTN" can be equipted with the same sony card and you can have DV in real time on a 350Mhz computer.



Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

you can't say that you only loose features with ms codec! ms codec is the most unusable codec i've seen, primary because of worst picture quality. these cards that are using ms codec are usually just a generic texas instruments fw controllers and ti chip is not dedicated for video.
similar to this, the reason for pinnacle and matrox why they don't support realtime dv, is their chipset. they use very old chipset (c-cube) that is not designed for dv. this chipset is not capable of realtime dv editing.
this can be a very big problem not with transitions, but with filtering. if you apply filters, you will apply them on the whole clip. sometimes, there are three filters, or even more, needed to be applied at the same time. if you have to wait for rendering, you wait all night.
i tried to find those pinnacle cards that you were talking about, with no success. i suppose that they are hardware codec daughterboards, with sony dvbk-1 codec. few years ago this codec was only in the very expensive editing boards and systems.
now, the conclusion: if you need features, buy a cheapest firewire card and load your computer with a various software, effect packages, titlers, plugins etc. if you want picture quality, then go buy yourself more expensive dv editing card that will come with good codec, and if you have a lot of work, be sure it is realtime. (realtime means realtime, not realtime in some segments). after a few days of medium serious work, you'll see that you can't sell fancy effects, but you can make a nice money if your picture quality is good and if you can use quality filters.
if you take a look at the market, and if you exclude simple firewire cards, and if you don't go over $3k, you'll find pinnacle, matrox, dps and canopus.
dps is mjpeg, it is not good.
matrox and pinnacle can apply two filters with their strongest cards.
i suggest, if somebody wants to edit dv format, to take a closder look at the canopus, and load the computer with fancy plugins. that must work.

With my Pinnacle card I can have 3 video Layers and 8 graphic layers on the same time, All with filters, motions and Alpha channels.
All in real time.......

Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

on analog or dv output? or both?
rt chroma keying?

Both and yes for the Croma Keying, as well as other forms of Color correction/color changing filters.

Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

i swear by my RT2500