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MillimeterMatrox RT.X2 in the Real World: Part 2
Aug 27, 2007 11:03 AM, By Jan Ozer
The strongest first impression of the Matrox RT.X2 is the realtime HD preview to flat panel LCD monitor via the RT.X2’s DVI output. If your LCD panel has sufficient resolution, RT.X2 can provide pixel-to-pixel mapping up to 1920x1080. Preview is realtime during color correction and chroma keying, allowing much more accurate fine-tuning than possible through Adobe Premiere Pro’s own preview window. If lip sync becomes an issue, the preview could be invaluable.
You can access many of Matrox’s effects in After Effects, with real time preview to your preview monitor. Sweet!
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In addition to preview in Premiere Pro, you also get realtime preview in other graphics programs, including Photoshop, After Effects, and Encore—all obviously valuable when creating content for television display. With broadcast HD capable monitors easily costing in the thousands, HD preview alone could be worth the price of the RT.X2.
All these Matrox effects work in realtime.
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Matrox also provides 27 effects, plus a number of transitions, all fully keyframable, and previewing in realtime. I focused my attention on the ones that I use often in my productions, starting with color correction.
I found the Matrox color correction filter highly usable.
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Color Correction
The Matrox color correction filter is a three-way tool with a Master wheel and separate controls for shadows, midtones, and highlights. Like most color correction tools, you set the basic settings by clicking an eyedropper and choosing a region within the frame that’s supposed to look white. Matrox white-balances the frame, which you can fine-tune with manual adjustments, with a helpful splitscreen preview. Using the Reference and Match eyedroppers provided, you can also match the colors in multiple clips, an invaluable feature with multi-camera productions.
The auto adjustment seemed invariably dark to me, but I was able to produce great results using the Proc amp controls in the filter, which included brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue. I like Premiere Pro’s color correction capabilities, but was able to quickly produce equal or better results using Matrox’s controls, all of which previewed in realtime. Note that Matrox provides a secondary color correction filter that also works in realtime.
Matrox’s Chroma Key effect was very effective in Premiere.
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Chroma Key
Matrox’s Chroma Key effect proved much more effective than Premiere’s native chroma key filters, about on par with After Effect’s Keylight Filter. Operation was pretty standard; use an eyedropper to select the background color, then adjust the hue, saturation, and aperture controls to optimize the key. Once you’ve eliminated as much of the background as possible, softness and spill removal controls let you fine-tune the result. Obviously, working with realtime feedback from the external preview monitor was a real benefit.
