Monitoring Avid with declink or matrox?

[theatereleven]

has anyone here read the post below on Avid right now? They are talking about HD monitoring with Avid on Mac via declink and matrox.

http://community.avid.com/forums/t/57653.aspx

anyone here trying this? i'm gonna need to do HD monitoring on a RED shot feature, and want to cut on Avid MC 3.0 on a MAC. but i can't afford a mojo DX right now....getting a declink or matrox to work would rock the house.

[MichaelP]

At NAB. Matrix showed HD monitoring via the MXO for low cost monitoring. I am working on getting one in for testing purposes. It uses the overlay from the DVI connection to send out via component, etc.

Michael

[Dylan Reeve]

I have a Decklink HD Extreme in the Mac Pro at work, I'll try to test it out tomorrow.

Basically you can 'extend' the desktop to the Decklink card and then should be able to do fullscreen playback on it from there. I'll see if I can make it work if I get a chance tomorrow.

[MichaelP]

As long as it uses the overlay from the host application or you use the second DVI connection off the graphics card and enable "full screen play" in the settings for that monitor.

Michael

[theatereleven]

Nice! My dilemma has evaporated. Matrix, RED and MC 3.0....here we go.

[Greg Huson]

At NAB. Matrix showed HD monitoring via the MXO for low cost monitoring. I am working on getting one in for testing purposes. It uses the overlay from the DVI connection to send out via component, etc.

Michael

I received mine this morning.

We run Avid on several of our FCP work stations, and I wanted to be able to put video onto my regular monitor, as well as for approval dubs, etc. The video quality is unacceptable in full screen mode- Avid is 601/709 internally and on the 'full-screen mode,' and the Matrox box is expecting RGB; I don't find adjustments in either the Matrox software or in Avid. Also, that funny sync line that runs through the 'full screen' mode periodically, which I assumed was a problem with the apple computer monitor, also appears in the output of Matrox. I downloaded the latest updates, etc- I'm pretty good at this kind of stuff and pretty pissed at Matrox right about now.

I think this thing is definitely designed for FCP, and it's a fluke that it works with Avid. So far that's just my initial observation.

Matrox phone support closes at 5pm eastern (I called at 1:55, but still made it to voice jail,) which is pretty irritating. I'll repost tomorrow after I speak with them if there's anything achieved in the conversation. I really hope my initial impressions are wrong.

[Dylan Reeve]

I had reasonable success with Decklink card just before. Works nicely.

The middle-of-screen split was evident on some shots. Okay for monitoring though.

[theatereleven]

man...there is too much controversy over this. ugh...i just want to use Avid to edit RED, but I have to be able to pump out to HD. i don't want to use final cut. =(

[Dylan Reeve]

You will be able to monitor the HD output with a Decklink HD Extreme (or possibly a Matrox MXO, don't know about that one). It looks good (although I've only tested SD output, will try with HD tomorrow perhaps).

It's not going to be suitable for mastering to a tape (although I'd say it'd be okay for a scratch output for sound post or something).

I'm actually pretty delighted with this personally :)

[Greg Huson]

Matrox phone support closes at 5pm eastern (I called at 1:55, but still made it to voice jail,) which is pretty irritating. I'll repost tomorrow after I speak with them if there's anything achieved in the conversation. I really hope my initial impressions are wrong.

I've started a dialog about this with Matrox support. The initial conversation was encouraging... if we can make the MXO work with Avid as needed, then I'll get over their east-coast-cetric hours. More to come.

--- They understand the situation and are evaluating. More as they update me.

--- From Matrox this morning: No immediate obvious solution for the MXO when the picture is 16-235 instead of 0-255. They're contacting Avid in an effort to find a solution.

[theatereleven]

Greg and Sychophant - thanks so much for the info. I just don't have the cash to dump into this stuff for testing only at the moment. but yeah...i don't need to go to tape - just monitor.

that would be sweetness.

[Dylan Reeve]

The Decklink definitely seems to be a viable option, and I assume the MXO is too (although I believe it will take up one of the existing DVI outputs from the video card, where the Decklink provides another 'monitor' - or that's my impression anyway).

[theatereleven]

At NAB. Matrix showed HD monitoring via the MXO for low cost monitoring. I am working on getting one in for testing purposes. It uses the overlay from the DVI connection to send out via component, etc.

Michael

Hey Michael...you guys are swamped with the new stuff I realize, but have you got one of these in for testing? the director is coming in to look at SD out from the old mojo from downconverted RED footage to see if that will suffice, but if he wants to cut and watch in HD i'm gonna need new hardware, and just can't afford the mojo dx at the moment. plus would rather just get the nitris dx.

[Dylan Reeve]

I'd get the Black Magic for the time being I reckon. It works fine as a playback monitor. Biggest restriction is that it doesn't work when doing things like Color Correction, only in the editing mode. But you're unlikely to do that I guess.

[MichaelP]

You can always just take the DVI out of the grahcis card for HD monitoring (not color correction) or go full screen on the edit monitor if your graohic card supports it and your moitor has the resolution.

[theatereleven]

Michael - I need to send to both a client monitor for myself and an HD display for the director. so that would force me to either the matrox solution or avid hardware right?

I'm not against the Avid hardware, but probably won't have the cash for this feature as I've got to upgrade my workstation as well for MC 3.0 (i've only got a single 3.2GHz Xeon - it is dual-core but it sounds like MC 3.0 has to have more cores than that).

Sycophant: thanks...i'll have to try that i guess. so people say it works and others say it doesn't. so i'm cautious to put my hopes on that route. But if you think it will I'll get it.

[Dylan Reeve]

You can get Fullscreen out in any standard video display that the system support (so any monitor you can see the desktop on). If you use the Matrox solution that will, in a typical situation, leave you with only a single montior to edit on.

Alteratively, put a second display card in your editing computer to give you a 3rd (or 3rd and 4th) DVI output. That can then be used with the MXO and a broadcast monitor, or alternatively straight out to a big monitor with DVI/HDMI support.

The Blackmagic card can be configured to be available to the OS as a system display, which is how you make it work in Avid.

The Blackmagic solution certainly seems to work as expected on our MacPro suite (I haven't tried it in a Windows box, but it should work the same there).

[Edit: Sorry, I skipped over the bit about running two client monitor... In which case either the Blackmagic or MXO option would seem the best 'cheap' option. However you could also get a DVI/HDMI splitter for use with a standard DVI out]

[theatereleven]

no, that makes sense about the extra video card. but yeah, the two display thing is the gotcha.

i don't think Matrox will work on Windows, but I'm gonna get a mac anyway since RED is so friendly with that platform currently.

is matrox the brand you like best of the two?