I have made the move to Avid and loving the editing work flow. I am still cutting everyday on FCP but for my own projects using Avid.

The question I have is. I want to send a feed to my broadcast monitor which is SD and my editing timeline is general in HD 1920x1080 P&I Pal. What box do I need to achieve this? I have searched the web and now I'm more confused.

Can anyone offer me some advice.

Cheers.

AJA IO Express is the best (only) box that can currently work on FCP, Avid and Premiere, for both monitoring and input/output, so is the best option. They are also great boxes in their own right.

If you just need to monitor, I believe the Matrxo MXO2 Mini will work for you.

Thanks guys.

I think the Matrox MX02 is the best cost effective way to go.

Cheers

Hi Simon, whil the MXO2 is great, ensure that you'll never need to ingest or output from Avid before going to it. Its a big advantage to get inut output as well as monitoring in the one box for anyone who is ever likely to do long form broadcast work.

Hi Craig,
That is a good point that I never looked at. So will the AJA box will give me this option.
I will look into this more now that you have raised that point.

Cheers

Hi Simon, whil the MXO2 is great, ensure that you'll never need to ingest or output from Avid before going to it. Its a big advantage to get inut output as well as monitoring in the one box for anyone who is ever likely to do long form broadcast work.

Word on the street is that the very next iteration of Media Composer will allow ingest from the MXO2 line. This from AVID reps I spoke with 2 weeks ago at a trade show here in town. Of course, this is considered hearsay as I am NOT officially in the know.

No longer hearsay:
SMART I/O for Avid Media Composer 6 (http://www.matrox.com/video/en/solutions/avid/)

This news is indeed awesome. Now I can only recommend the AJA IO-Express from personal experience of AJA products being of a VERY high quality, and that it works for us now on 5.5 - but now you have a whole range of choices with AVID, which was the exact reason our suites switched to FCP about 3 years ago when we needed to go HD.

AVID now is really the NLE of choice again for people who make their livings cutting. Adobe's offerings continue to be excellent in promos, graphics, vfx, and as an all round suite, but an Avid plus Resolve Plus an Blackmagic Decklink card is a hell of a cost effective editing and finishing suite!

Yep, I think Avid have kicked FCPX and is now the choice for editors. I just moved to 5.5 and wonder if 6 is an up grade or a new buy. The Matrox gear looks great, more toys.

Cheers

Looks like Avid users can also take advantage of the brand new Matrox Mojito Max (http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mojito_max/) solution.

Exciting times for Avid users, eh?

Andrew

Im revisiting this again. So the Matrox MXO2 Mini for Desktop Systems would be suitable for me to get a signal out of Avid 5 or 6 to a broadcast monitor and or a LCD screen. I need to monitor my time line as I'm editing and I'm after a cheap box just to get a signal out.

Will this box do the trick?

Hi Simon,

I'm not an Avid user, but it certainly will do the job for you. And by all means pay the extra dollars and get the Max functionality included when you purchase. The speed increase when exporting to h264 is awesome.

BTW, the Australian pricing has become quite reasonable of late. In saying this I am considering the costs of freight and other aspects involved in purchasing from overseas.

Just a quick note that the calibration for HDMI output to a computer monitor (to make it behave exactly like a professional video monitor) is broken at the moment, and that the Matrox people are actively working on a comprehensive solution. You can be 'mostly there' with a native uncalibrated signal in the meantime ... which is what I am doing with my MXO2, simultaneously using an S-VIDEO output to my Sony professional monitor for gauging colour accuracy.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

This is where I'm confused with the Matrox boxes. If I don't need the h.264 encoding the mini will be fine?

I'm not sure what you mean by" pay the extra dollars and get the Max functionality included when you purchase"
Which product is this?
I have been looking at the B&H website for products and pricing.

Cheers

Whether it is the mini or the full rack version of the MXO2, you can choose at the time of purchase to have the "Max" functionality or not. The important thing to consider is that you can't upgrade a non-Max unit to having the "max" functionality via a software or firmware upgrade. Having a "max" unit involves the addition of extra processing components at the time of manufacture.

If you are only going to monitor, then a non-Max MXO2 Mini will suffice. You can still export out a video to the h.264 format with your CPU. I merely mention the 'max' aspect in case your needs change in the future.

Since you're in Australia, PM me with your landline number and we can always have a chat over the phone. Sometimes talking is faster than typing. :-)

Andrew

Thanks mate, you cleared that up for me.

Cheers