Re: Matrox MXO or MXO2

Ken,

I read your review of the MXO and I think I will buy the unit till I saw that there is the MXO2 coming out soon. I also saw the specs for both units but it got me confused to what unit to buy. What is your take on both boxes?

Hi Gunther,

Different units. The MXO ($999) is for output only. The MXO 2 ($1,599) handles all types of input as well as output. It's like a video capture card you would put in your Mac.

The MXO 2 can not output broadcast to a ACD, it has HDMI and Component out.

--ken

Gunther,
if you're going to get the mxo be aware that at the moment it won't work with fcp 6.0.4 / QT 7.5 nor does it have native output support for the EX1. Hopefully these are issues the company will resolve shortly.
David

David,
thanks for the heads up. I guess I will wait till they fix this since I use FCP 6.0.4/QT 7.5 and I don't want to go backwards.

I just heard from Wayne at Matrox. They plan on having a fix by mid-August (same time as the MXO 2 rollout, which needs the fix too).

--ken

David,

The MXO does indeed have full support for all flavors of HDV and EX1 footage. What is important is that the frame size you pick in the Easy Setup matches the fame size in your sequence settings.

--ken

Hi David,

Here is an interesting point.

If you look at all of the MXO settings, you'll notice that no where is color space an option, not 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 or 4:1:1.

All of the HDV video is 4:2:0 and the MXO handles that just fine, so I don't know why it would not work the same with EX 1 footage that is also 4:2:0

I'm very new to this and not a tech guy, but I don't think that this is an issue.

What do you think?

--ken