About Matrox Mini capture and decode, encode cycle. I am getting interested in purchasing into their system with capture of PcIE card or perhaps Thunderbolt on next gen of motherboards.

I wonder if anyone on this forum has experience with this codec in the VFW / direct-x environments of VegasPro upto version 10.

I note this HD codec is supposed to support alpha channel and I thought it was 10bit capable???

Any comments?

Thanks very much :)

Does it have to be MPEG-2?
There are some fabulous YUV 4:2:2 intermediates out there.

To: musicvid
Wasn't sure what your above post was ? of. I am interested in a video capture system for VegasPro that will allow HDMI or SDI capture of 10bit 4:2:2 at the least $ investment - namely here the Matrox family of product with their codecs. And using a codec that supports alpha which some intermediates such as Cineform codec do not.

vTg,
OP wanted a 422 I-frame MPEG-2 codec.
My response to him was that if one doesn't "need" MPEG-2, there are several visually lossless YUV intermediates that actually hold up better.

I was in my second round of tests on these codecs when I decided to take a break. Some have alpha, some do not, some are 4:2:2:, some are 4:2:0, some 10 bit, some 8. Actually Matrox held up "not so well" iirc. I have no idea about the usefulness of any of them as capture codecs, only as intermediates.

You can see the first round of tests here that included only technically lossless intermediates (not Y'CbCr). You'll note that not even Matrox Uncompressed or Matrox RGB made it into the elite group, along with some old warhorses like QT Animation that showed variations, possibly due to rounding errors..
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=771326

"namely here the Matrox family of product with their codecs"

I think you'd need Matrox hardware to do that and as far as I know, i.e. last time I checked Matrox hardware and software does not work with Vegas.

I'd imagine that Matrox can supply a basic piece of capture software just as BMD do for their cards. You could use that to capture. Then assuming the Matrox codec will play nice with Vegas you have your solution. Even such capture cards that are supposed to work with Vegas, from my experience, it can be an iffy proposition to use Vegas to do the capturing. BMD's Decklink card caused me considerable grief when I used Vegas to handle the capture. Capturing with PPro or the BMD utility and all was good editing in Vegas.

One thing I'm curious about is why you want a capture codec that supports alpha, no camera outputs alpha data that I know of, some high end tape systems do record with an alpha channel but if you can afford them....I think that's pretty much why Cineform doesn't support it, no one using their codecs in their intended role needs the alpha channel.

Actually now that I think about it, have a look at the BMD cards, they certainly capture 10 bit 4:2:2, I hope you have some fast disks of course.

Bob.

I am grateful for the advice from forum members like farss and musicvid - I don't know where else I can tap such good experience.

The Matrox system today is configured much like BlackMagic - you can use their capture codecs independent of the hardware such as on VegasProTimeline. To capture you can use the manufacturer's small utlities pack and then open these files on the timeline.

Thanks musicvid for sharing your Codec intermediate usage test - that could be very relevant to a capture and composite scenario.

Many years ago I moved away from Premiere to work with VegasPro versions 7-thru-9. And I have held up the NLE compositing values with Cineform. Not sorry about that at all. But according to the stars this looks like it might be a dead-end workflow very soon.

My dilemma is that if I choose to move upto the high data-rate MXF 4:2:2 format of video of a new camera (Canon XF305) - I would like to remain at the 4:2:2 level through compositing - now Matrox offers that with their full package support of (yeah, you guessed) ONLY Adobe Premiere CS6! Matrox draws me in at a lower price point to start and have some overlap with VegasPro usefulness.

What say you all?

I've never had any experience with Matrox.
Based on input from one of my FCP using friends and one poster here, Matrox can be a bit flaky when it comes to support. That's not a large enough sample to base any real conclusions on. Their products do look attractive and they've been in business for a long time. I'd suggest doing your own research.

Bob.

Hi musicvid, the reason I was looking for MPEG-2 was because I wanted to try the procedure outlined at the end of this tutorial:

http//bellunevideo.com/tutorials/hd2sdTutorial/hd2sd.html

Tony

To TonyP:
I think you are going to have to clue us in what you are attempting to do. In your first post - you sounded to me as if you were talking about manipulating the Matrox MpegHD codec on the VegasPro Timeline - which I DO have special interest in. It seems several people have confirmed that the Matrox works well in Vegas 8 and 9 - but not 10 or 11. - If people on this forum have found otherwise, I would like to hear from them.

Good grief-
But I digress for a moment, I took a look at your recommended link and that took me into la-la land of Adobe Premiere. Care to explain what you are wanting to do?

So you really want to convert HD to SD for DVD.

That tutorial you mentioned is a bit excessive, and converting to MPEG 422 I-frame just as an intermediate with DGIndex and back to Lagarith in VDub and then again to MPEG-2 4:2:0 for DVD authoring is just nuts. The intermediate does none the things the author suggests (4:2:0 source stays 4:2:0), and everything else is just fine, despite his fanciful statements. Does nothing except create the need for another unnecessary lossy render and wastes a whole lot of time.

Vegas has a compliant encoder and templates that go direct to DVD Architect without any redundant renders. They work just fine, and you use them but once.

Here's some more current reading for you; Nick's workflow using QTGMC in Avisynth makes a lot more sense, and probably gives better results than what you are following. You haven't actually told us what your souce video is, but once you do, I bet you'll get lots of relevant suggestions.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=761694
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=753683
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=758052
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=738430