video I/O hardware box

[Chris Ratledge]

Greetings,

I need to pick up a new piece of I/O hardware, and unfortunately the Kona3 is beyond my budget. Curious for feedback concerning the following items among the throngs here. All are PCI-card based breakout boxes that I'll be using with my MacPro, but could also use with MBP with Expresscard Adapter. Additional interest in use as playback I/O. (Currently only the AJA IOexpress is supported by Qtake, which I may look into in the future)

1) MOTU HDX-SDI. I like the price point of this unit but it's kind of an unknown to me. Curious if anyone has experience with it. Has more I/O options than the AJA unit

2) AJA Io Express. Only has SDI input, no analog video input, but is currently supported by Qtake software.

3) Blackmagic Design Multibridge Pro 2. Seems really robust and powerful, with x4 PCI host card instead of single-lane alternatives in this list.

4) Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX. I REALLY like the capability of MAX technology to help with speedy h.264 encodes of footage for web/iPod/etc. dailies.

Primarily working with RED ONE footage on set, what have been your experiences, pros and cons, horror stories, etc with these items if applicable? I appreciate everyone's input, thanks.

 

[Uli Plank]

I don't know all of them, but there's one thing I'd like to inform you about: you are not tied to the MXO2 with MAX for fast H.264 encoding, there is the Turbo HD stick from Elgato which does it very well too.

 

[Chris Ratledge]

...the Turbo HD stick from Elgato which does it very well too.

Thank you for that info, I was unaware of that little piece of hardware. I wonder how it compares to the performance of the MXO2 Max in the below linked review? Probably locked into using the Elgato software as well?

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/hofmann_jerry/matrox_mxo2.php