Matrox or Blackmagic or AJA ???

B

b19

New member
Just finalizing our HD editing system build and the last item is about our third monitor (reference) setup. Our two reqular monitors are the Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP and the GPU is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295. Even though I am still a fan of CRT's, the LCD's are getting better and are needed for HD. Two of which, the Panasonic BT-LH1760 and the Sony LMD-2050W we have access to. We use PP CS4. For the Reference Monitor and HD-SDI, I know we need a PCI-e card. I have been reading about all the above listed solutions and were hoping to get some suggestions:

-Blackmagic DeckLink HD Extreme
-Matrox RT.X2
-AJA XENA

Problem with Matrox card is based on their compatibility charts on their site, the RT.X2 may not work with our hardware:

-ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer LGA 1366 Intel X58
-Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz LGA 1366
-Nvidia GeForce GTX 295
 
I´m pretty happy with the Black Magic products.
We use them since years and they never gave any trouble.
Signal quality is superb.

You can also install the codec on any worksation to use the footage even if no card is installed.

I would not go with Nvidia when you work with Premiere . We had some trouble with overlay and response. So we changed to ATI Radeons and they work suuuper smooth.

Frank
 
I've found Blackmagic to be extremely quirky, unstable, unreliable, and far too limiting. But, you get what you pay for, and the Intensity Pro is cheap.
 
Thanks all...with the Matrox RT.X2, from what I have researched, either people love it with PP or hate it. Since our rig is pretty fast, the real-time benefits that the Rt.X2 provides might be over kill (especially if we have compatibility issues with the mobo, etc.). Which brings me back to the Blackmagic DeckLink HD Extreme & the AJA XENA. The XENA LH is around 250.00 more than the HD Extreme. Both offer HD-SDI. I may have to run a comparison on both and more importantly how they preform with Premiere CS4. Most of our footage is shot using the Panny AG-HPX500.
 
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