Ready For the Masses — Video Editing With Matrox RT2000 — THG.RU

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Digital Editing — Ready For The Masses

Editing videos on a PC will soon be as natural as burning audio CDs. The times when you had to purchase a 50.000 dollar studio system for video editing are definitely over. Matrox now offers digital video equipment which comes a lot cheaper. The RT2000 is avaiblabe at just $1099 in the U.S.

Video editing is on the rise. No wonder, users that decide to buy a new camera go more often for a digital solution instead of an analog one. The advantages are obvious. Digital video cameras offer better quality as they do not use analog tapes. Especially when you want to copy or edit your clips, you can do that with virtually no loss in quality as seen on analog tapes.

Most of these cameras use the widely accepted DV format and are equipped with a Firewire interface (IEEE-1394). With Firewire it is very easy to transfer video clips onto your PC. The Matrox RT2000 has got a 1394 interface that can be connected with many DV cameras such as Panasonic DVCPRO, Sony DVCAM, Sony Digital-8 or models from JVC and Sharp.

Digital Editing — Ready For The Masses, Continued

But there is also a downside. Currently, there are hardly any PC vendors that equip their PC systems with proper hardware. Users who want to edit their holiday video clips will probably find lots of megahertz and gigabytes instead of special solutions.

In most cases, a card for video editing is missing. This situation will not change in the near future because the majority of these «special offers» are very price-orientated. The manufacturers and assemblers of PC systems just ignore the demand for editing videos. With the Matrox RT2000 pack it is relatively easy to upgrade a standard PC to a semi-professional editing system.

Our test system consists of a PC system with the Matrox RT2000, a digital video camera from Sony, the DCR-PC110E, a monitor for controlling, flat panel display and VCR.

RT2000 Test System: Athlon 1 GHz on a KT133 Platform

Matrox did not just provide us with the RT2000. Instead we received a fully-equipped PC system that conforms with their minimum requirements. Matrox recommends a Pentium III or Athlon CPU running at 750 MHz or higher. Our system even has a Gigahertz processor under the hood. We decided to test it along with a DV camera from Sony, the DCR-PC110E. Now, let’s have a look at the system.

This picture shows the two components of the RT2000 editing system: Above you can find a special Matrox VGA card, the G400 Flex 3D Edition, and underneath the RT2000 video editing card.

Two hard disks were used, one as system disk for Windows 98 and programs, the other for video data while editing.

RT2000 Test System: Athlon 1 GHz on a KT133 Platform, Continued

A radial heatsink is cooling the Athlon 1000. This solution is better than using the AMD serial cooler.

Our KT133 test platform is equipped with an AMD Athlon 1000, two big hard disks (one system disk, one data disk) and 256 MB of RAM. The RT2000 will only work with the Matrox Flex 3D graphics card, which is bundled with the RT2000 Pack. Unfortunately, you have to remove any existing graphics card. This also includes cards of the G400 series. Note that the Flex 3D card looks similar to the Millennium G400, but a standard G400 retail adapter cannot be used with the RT2000!

The RT2000 provides two Firewire connectors at the front.

As a professional video editor you also need a second monitor or TV set to control your work. It can be connected to the second VGA-Out on the RT2000 card.

Setup and Software

You will find all necessary cables and installation CDs in the RT2000 box. We were surprised that Matrox even provided a 1394 firewire cable. Such accessories are usually quite expensive in shops. A big, coloured instruction leaflet shows how to connect everything. Besides many applications and utilities are included for free. Here is a complete list:

The Two Components of The RT2000 Pack

The actual video editing system consists of two cards, the Matrox G400 Flex 3D Edition (as shown in the picture above) and the RT2000.

The RT2000 can only be combined with the so-called Flex 3D graphics card. No other Matrox card, such as a standard Millennium G400 board, can be used. However, the Flex 3D card is bundled with the RT2000 pack.

Breakout Box — Analog Interfaces for Audio and Video

Matrox provides an external breakout box with the RT2000. This concept is pretty much common among the competitors, such as Pinnacle, too. The breakout box contains all necessary audio and video connectors that don’t fit on the two cards. Furthermore, it makes the connection of your camera or VCR a lot easier. Whenever you have to plug it in, you don’t have to crawl under you desk and look for any sockets. This box can be placed on the desk.

The breakout box contains analog audio and video connectors.

Matrox uses the same chassis like the Marvel G450, but components differ under the cover.

Breakout Box — Analog Interfaces for Audio and Video, Continued

This is a look at the analog video connectors of the breakout box.

We couldn’t refrain from opening it up. However, we didn’t see any important chips on the board layout. Signal processing seems to be taken care of inside the PC.

The DV-camera Sony DCR-PC110E is connected to the RT2000 PC via 1394 firewire.

And Action!

The RT2000 offers nonlinear video editing. This means, you first roll out all video clips on a timeline. Afterwards you can rearrange the order. Therefore, the requirements for the hardware are very demanding, especially when the system has to handle data transfer. Most users will take a DV camera as video source and will connect it via firewire to the RT2000. It is also possible to save any additional video and audio signals by using the dedicated connectors of the external breakout box.

To start a new project with Adobe Premiere you have to chose a video codec. In this case, the native Matrox RT2000 Capture codec should be used.

Chosing Video in. The digital interface IEEE-1394 (firewire) ensures best quality with virtually no loss in quality.

The Matrox RT2000 is able to capture four different video formats.

And Action!, Continued

The RT2000 supports different formats when capturing and editing digital videos: The native DV format is the most important format for owners of DV cameras. You can also work with MPEG-2 I-frame or DVCPRO/DVCAM format. In our test we used footage from four different DV tapes. If you are capturing in DV format the data transfer rate can be up to 3.52 MB/s. A one-minute clip then requires 212MB of your hard disk. A 60 minute DV tape makes 12.5GB. While editing, temporary files consume additional space on the disk. That shows what huge masses of data your PC must be able to handle.

Choosing Movie Capture under Adobe Premiere.

By using this menu the capture of an external video signal on the hard disk will be started.

And Action!, Continued

This tool checks the performance of your hard disk. In general, any current ATA/66 or ATA/100 drive offers enough bandwidth. Only fragmented hard disks might cause a problem here.

The hard disk benchmark in action.

The native Matrox DV codec is used when you capture from a video source. However, you can’t use this format for replay on other systems. Whilst working on a project, you always have to stick to the native Matrox format. After finishing, you can export your movie into any other format, such as MPEG-2 or even MPEG-4. You will find further details about conversion later in this article.

The RT2000 offers a lot of real-time effects. Video freaks will love it.

Editing in Progress

After capturing your clips or copying it from other sources, you can start editing your material. The RT2000 enables you to mix two video streams in realtime (2 layers). Additionally a third graphics layer, e.g. captions, can also be applied for realtime rendering.

We recommend to use only one video format when editing, either DV or MPEG-2. Otherwise the realtime effects of the RT2000 are not available on the timeline. In our test we also mixed a DV sequence with an MPEG-2 film. The result was that all functions had to be rendered by the software, which means that all realtime features were gone. Before you start editing, make sure that both sources use the same format. That means that you might have to convert one source into either MPEG-2 or DV.

You can see the effects rendered in realtime on the monitor.

This peel effect demands some time to be calculated.

Editing in Progress, Continued

Our sample project contained 45 single clips. We also added 32 effects. At the end, our project reached a total of 80 minutes which summed up to 17 GB on the hard disk.

Overview of available effects. They should be used well-dosed.

Overlay effects can be watched on the monitor or on TV.

Editing in Progress, Continued

For most users simple effects are sufficient. Bear in mind, that a good movie shouldn’t be overloaded with funky effects. It’s the plot that matters. However, the variety of all possible effects were quite impressive. Some of those are also available as plug-ins for Adobe Premiere. Unfortunately, some of the more complex effects could not be calculated in realtime — they had to be rendered first.

Along with the integrated Matrox effects there are other effects available. But these are not suitable for real-time.

This intensive curl effect in the right picture can be done in realtime.

Exporting Your Production

The easiest way to save your movie is copying the native DV format back on DV tape. This can be achieved without any export filters. Another option is to convert the whole film into MPEG-2 and give it a finishing touch with Sonic DVDit LE. This is an authoring tool to publish digital video on DVD. Although MPEG-2 is very common, you have to consider space limitations. You probably know that a full DVD movie needs about 4.7 GB, which can’t be «pressed» on a CD-R. DVD burners, however, are very expensive. Furthermore, there is currently no adequately-priced solution available that burns DVDs in a format that can be played on standard DVD players.

If you want to produce a nice present for you friends or loved ones you should resort to MPEG-4. Matrox does not provide this codec, but it can be downloaded for free and integrated into Matrox software. With MPEG-4 a 90-minute movie easily fits on any CD-R.

The export function from Adobe Premiere allows creating any video format. You only need to have the right codec installed.

The whole project can be saved in space saving MPEG-4 format.

Exporting Your Production, Continued

You should apply MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) for audio.

It is also possible to save your project on an analog VCR. The audio and video signal are then taken from the breakout box. You should use a S-VHS device in order to keep the quality loss as small as possible.

The file converter helps you convert single sequences into other video formats.

Exporting Your Production, Continued

Example of an exported file in the space saving MPEG-4 format.

The DIVX MPEG-4 codec should be configured correctly. Important: The maximum data rate of the codec should be adjusted to 6000 Kbit/s.

Windows 98 — Not as Professional!

At the moment Matrox only provides Windows 98/ME drivers for the RT2000. Windows 98 or ME is definitely very common amongst PC users but it is not the ideal platform for video editing. Compared to NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, it is a well-known fact that Windows 98 cannot manage system memory in an economic way. For example, we upgraded our PC from 256 MB to 512 MB of RAM — no improvements in performance could be noticed. No wonder, Windows 98 wouldn’t get faster with this amount of memory. In addition to that, Windows 98 or ME are not as stable as NT4 or Win2000. If you work on simple projects you may not experience any problems. However, our extensive testing showed that Bill Gates’ Blue Screen Department took revenge from time to time. Drivers for Windows 2000 are more than overdue. Matrox promised to releases them by the end of this year. Well, they have only a couple of hours left…

Another Deficit — No Color Correction Possible

Many users who plan to edit digital videos will be satisfied with the features of the Matrox RT2000. But we noticed another deficit. Color correction is impossible after saving your project on DV tape. You can only adjust color schemes while capturing. This is the only big difference between the RT2000 and a professional video-editing card.

High Quality of The Analog Video Signal

The quality of the analog video-out signal of the breakout box is very good. Compared to products of the same price range the Matrox RT2000 sets a new standard. Even at a refresh rate of 60 Hertz the RT2000 manages to produce an impressive picture. Everybody who knows the bad TV-out quality of standard VGA cards will be positively surprised.

Conclusion — A Complete Platform for Video Editing

The RT2000 is a perfect solution for digital video editing in its class. For $1099 you will get all the editing components you require. Matrox put an effort in not just supplying all the hardware necessary but also in bundling useful software packages that are needed by a home-user or semi-professional artist.

At this point there is one last question to answer. What platform is the minimum requirement for this kind of application? Matrox provided us with an 1 GHz Athlon KT133 reference platform that performed very well. Even though Matrox boasts about «REAL Realtime Editing» it is an illusion to believe that everything can be achieved in realtime. Bear in mind, there should be enough headroom for additional tasks such as converting or exporting your video clips that require a lot of rendering time. Therefore we recommend the following minimum requirements.

Recommended Minimum System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows Me or Windows 98 SE (NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 currently not supported)
• Pentium III or AMD Athlon CPU running at 750 MHz or faster
• 256 MB or more RAM
• one free AGP slot and one free PCI slot
• System drive hard disk with 500 MB of free space for software installation
• Separate hard drive for A/V content, more than 40 GB, formatted using FAT32
• 16-bit sound card.
• CD-ROM drive for software installation
• Video camera or VCR
• DV video camera (to use 1394 connections).
• NTSC or PAL video monitor

Matrox RT2000 Specifications

Hardware Bundles

• RT2000 3/4 size PCI codec card (editing)
• Millennium Flex 3D Edition 32MB AGP card (displaying)
• Breakout box and cable
• 1394 cable (6 feet, 6 pin to 4 pin)
• CD audio cable

Software Bundles

• Installation & driver CD for Windows 98/ME
• Adobe Premiere
• Adobe Photoshop LE
• Inscriber TitleExpress
• Matrox DVD Player
• Pixйlan Video SpiceRack Lite
• Sonic Foundry ACID Music
• Sonic Solutions DVDit! LE
• Ulead Cool 3D

Video Features

Audio Features

Video Codecs

Notes

Set BIOS to AGP aperture size of 128 MB or greater. (AGP Aperture is called «Graphics Aperture» or «Graphics window» in some system BIOS models.) The current generation of Intel Celeron processors cannot be used with RT2000 because they have a 66-MHz Front Side Bus whereas RT2000 requires at least a 100-MHz FSB.