Matrox Adds Tape Capture/Output, Monitoring Solutions for Final Cut Pro X & Compresso

RaySigmond

RaySigmond

Well-known member
Matrox Adds Tape Capture/Output, Monitoring Solutions for Final Cut Pro X & Compresso

Heath McKnight

"I thought I’d just quote Matrox‘s entire press release detailing how Final Cut Pro X users will be able to capture multiple tape formats with their hardware and software solutions, plus export back to tape. They also offer a way to monitor in FCP X. This is great news so far, and Matrox is continuing to work on solutions!"

http://heathmcknight.com/2011/07/ma...g-solutions-for-final-cut-pro-x-compressor-4/
 
This isn't anything new. It's supplying the same type of workflow AJA has managed to throw together. Basically, it's this:

Capture from tape - via a Matrox app. Been available for a while. It's not from within FCPX.
Print to tape - again, not from within FCPX. Instead you output a Quicktime and use the Matrox app.
Video monitoring - via extended desktop. Not a true video signal, can't be used for color work, it's preview quality. You still can't have 3 monitors (2 edit monitors and a broadcast monitor) with FCPX.

Don't get excited this stuff yet. Wait until you can monitor a real video signal from FCPX, then get excited.
 
I am very open to the new paradigms of FCPX, but not being able to monitor via my MXO2 setup is a 100% deal breaker for me.

Grant
 
Butcher said:
Don't get excited this stuff yet. Wait until you can monitor a real video signal from FCPX, then get excited.
Click to expand...

Why should I care if I can do it within FCP X? Because it's always been that way, or because there's a real reason why it's better? It seems to me to make more sense to let a dedicated app do tape ingest and FCP X edit the footage than try and do both.
 
Here are the reasons I want Tape Capture and Print to Tape in my NLE:

Capture/Batch Capture - decompose/offline a sequence, batch capture it from within my NLE. I can watch it update as it captures, see if I've missed anything or if anything has captured incorrectly. If I have to go to a third party system, will is tag the clips properly so I can reconnect in my system? What if my edit system has an update that breaks the third party capture tool? I like the idea of being able to capture via a third party, but not at the sacrifice of having capture built into my edit system. Plus, I edited on a system that allowed you to capture directly to the timeline - this was a timesaving feature when you were given a list of footage with timecode. When you were done with the last tape, you had a rough cut done.

Print to Tape - the sequence is done, it's rendered, time to output. From within my NLE I should be able to fire up my deck, set my output channels, route my audio, control the deck, lock the sequence timecode to deck so it starts when I need it to, etc...then watch my timeline scroll by and see the playhead slide over the edits as it outputs to tape. If I happen to see a mistake, I stop, fix it, and start output again from that spot. Plus, if I can see my timeline stacked up I can see when it's about to hit a complicated section, etc...and watch a little closer to ensure that there are no glitches. With a flattened Quicktime, you don't have that luxury and it's less efficient if you catch and error. I'm also concerned about doing an insert edit with a third party program. Do you make the change in the edit system, export a Quicktime again, take into the third party program, set it up to insert edit on your deck, reset timecode within that app, etc? I just think it's easier to do it from within the NLE because that stuff is already set up.

Video monitoring - you know why that's important.

My reasons might be "because it's always been that way", but that way has always worked and worked great. Why change that and risk introducing issues? We've had AJA and Matrox ingest/print to tape programs for a while now. Wouldn't it be better to always have both, or at least until the last Beta, 3/4, 1/2 inch, HDCam, DVCPro tape is destroyed?
 
Butcher said:
This isn't anything new. It's supplying the same type of workflow AJA has managed to throw together. Basically, it's this:
.
Click to expand...

Personally I'd not buy anything from Matrox. But I find it laughable that someone would find this 'exciting'... The 'boon' that Apple has handed the software providers like Adobe and Avid, is now extending to hardware vendors who, at 'small fee' will solve the lacks in the Apple bright shinny new widget, by essentially doing nothing.
 
Butcher, I see the value in offlining and capturing/recapturing directly to your timeline. However, the coming XML integration should help with that quite a bit (though not to the same level, but still). Regarding the Print to Tape, I don't see the value here nearly as much. When you export to a flattened quicktime file (often faster than realtime), you can watch the file to make sure everything looks right, and then print that to tape without worrying about glitches in the complicated part. Setting up the timecode to insert the next segment onto tape isn't that big of a deal.

Regardless, unless Apple offers an SDK or APIs with hooks to allow developers to create these sort of extensions within FCP X, I doubt you'll ever see any further tape support from Apple. I think their stance is pretty clear at this point; they are moving forward and not looking back. For the minority that needs tape support solutions from Matrix or other vendors will have to suffice, or as another poster pointed out, those users will need to switch to an NLE that better suits their needs.
 
filmguy123 said:
I think their stance is pretty clear at this point; they are moving forward and not looking back. For the minority that needs tape support solutions from Matrix or other vendors will have to suffice, or as another poster pointed out, those users will need to switch to an NLE that better suits their needs.
Click to expand...

Sounds like Apple Muntzed their own product...

--------
Muntz started plans to sell television receivers in 1946,[11] and sales began in 1947.[20] Muntz played the madman in his unorthodox television commercials, but in fact he was a shrewd businessman and a self-taught electrical engineer. By trial and error, taking apart and studying Philco, RCA, and DuMont televisions, he figured out how to reduce the devices' electrical components to their minimum functional number.[21] This practice became known as "Muntzing".[11]
-------

Here's a shot of one of his crowd getting ads...

Earlmuntz.jpg
 
Muntz started plans to sell television receivers in 1946,[11] and sales began in 1947.[20] Muntz played the madman in his unorthodox television commercials, but in fact he was a shrewd businessman and a self-taught electrical engineer. By trial and error, taking apart and studying Philco, RCA, and DuMont televisions, he figured out how to reduce the devices' electrical components to their minimum functional number.[21] This practice became known as "Muntzing".[11]


Ha! I learned something today - "Muntzed". I'll have to wrench this into my next conversation. "Please Muntz the screenplay - leave only the essential elements" - hey wait, it's supposed to be derogatory, no?
 
OldCorpse said:
[/I]Ha! I learned something today - "Muntzed". I'll have to wrench this into my next conversation. "Please Muntz the screenplay - leave only the essential elements" - hey wait, it's supposed to be derogatory, no?
Click to expand...

In some ways, yes it is an 'insult'... in other ways it is sort of admiration...

The other term that Muntz popularized is still with us... TV... to the point of naming his daughter Tee Vee Muntz... (although those initials did occur to others... he definitely was an early proponent of using the initials for the new technology...).

There have been a couple of documentary type movies... but this guy cries for a movie like "Tucker"(1988), and Muntz was far more successful than Tucker ever was, well with cars at least... don't think Muntz ever made a machine gun turret, with products ranging from automobiles, called the Muntz Jet, the TV, car stereo (4-track), big screen home entertainment(based on Sony TV chassis)... and of course his wild ads... copied by a number of people or businesses...
 
Wow, how come I never heard of this guy? So this is where guys like Cal Worthington and Crazy Eddie got their ideas! I read the wikipedia entry on him. Wild. Thanks for this, my friend.

OK, I'm dropping the subject, cause it's a bit of a derail.
 
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