Which is the best for Macs

[Andrew Salter]

Help needed!

l have at present a Mac Pro and MacBook Pro with FCP and just purchased PP CS4, at present l have an old AJA LHe card installed which works ok for FCP but not so good for PP CS4. Have looked at the Matrox MXO2 and the Blackmagic decklink DH extreme card with connections.

At present not editing on Red awaiting scarlet, but want to use P2 and AVCHD natively and red as and when l shoot on it.

Output in the main is to a JVC 24" HD monitor, looking at 8 and 10 bit 422 and hopefully with red 444. Down scaling needed also.

Has anyone had good or bad experiences with matrox or blackmagic or is there another card l should be looking at.

All replies welcome

Andrew. Just awaiting scarlet !!!

 

[Mike McCarthy]

Your LHe should be fine for your needs. Is there something wrong with it?

 

[Andrew Salter]

Yes the connection to FCP is fine but with premier Pro its keeps losing the picture when switching through pp edits, though in contact with AJA. Had the card for two & a half years and wanted to see if there's another good alternative out there.

 

[Ben Holmes]

I use both Blackmagic Multibridge Pros and Matrox MXO2 and would recommend both - although I cannot speak for PP compatability, both support it officially I believe. I'm curious why you would want to use PP if you have FCP however - and I speak as an AE user - the RED FCP workflow is a lot more stable.

MXO2 is a great product if you have a laptop and desktop system, if you have expresscard or your MBP. As a case in point, I am shipping tower overseas for a job next week - if there are any problems in transit, I can always fall back on the MBP to edit. It's so flexible and reliable, I use it with both types of system every week.

 

[Kwan Khan]

Yes the connection to FCP is fine but with premier Pro its keeps losing the picture when switching through pp edits, though in contact with AJA. Had the card for two & a half years and wanted to see if there's another good alternative out there.

Same issues here...

 

[Andrew Salter]

Hi Ben, l edit in FCP in the main but lm trying to use native files with no conversion and PP accepts P2 sony's ex1 and AVCHD and AVCIntra all natively which FCP dosn't. l have to work with a library of 4 TB of travel footage, so backing up has been eating into 16 TB (2 x native files) (2 x QT files) so all getting a bit crazy.

Swapping between FCP & PP seems ok at present, but as you know After effects is well above anything motion has to offer!

Additionally once Red comes into play, native files as well. l think FCP will be left behind in a few years unless its start to work natively with files.

 

[Andrew Salter]

Looking into the Matrox MXO2 has hearing good things about it.