Matrox MX02 Vs AJA LHe
by mike faulkner
on
Sep 9, 2009 at 11:45:37 pm
I have a new Mac Pro Tower, Apple Cinema 24" display and Dell 2408 display
plus I have a Aja Kona LHe.
I really want to have a monitor with a some sort of calibration.
and considering selling my Aja card and buying a Matrox MX02.
will I be loosing out on anything
also is the Matrox MX02 Max - worth considering the with its H264 encoding
any help appreciated
regards
Mike
Re: Matrox MX02 Vs AJA LHe by Steve Oakley on Sep 10, 2009 at 2:30:51 pm
you'll be a happy camper with the MXO2. it just works, and the quality is excellent. all the audio outs is also very handy to have just to drive stereo to a bunch of VTR's, or to do 5.1 monitoring without having to get any extra adapters like SDI audio extractors. I think you'll like just have a metal box with real connectors on it instead of the AJA fan out cable. you also gain HDMI I/O the kona doesn't have which is great for working with all the gear that has those connections now. of course the HDMI out can be adjusted to get better color matching on the LCD being driven by it.
MXO2 also supports closed captioning better then anyone else too right now - both for capture and export.
as for MAX h.264 acceleration, yes that to just works. and works really fast. you will get very spoiled having it, especially if you encode to h.264 based formats everyday. its a quick 15-30 minutes saved everyday ! if you do multiple h.264 encodes, the time savings add up even more. for the few hundred extra, you'll make it back quick enough to not worry about it.
I don't think you'll miss the AJA card at all.
Steve Oakley
DP • Editor • VFX Artist
www.practicali.com
Re: Matrox MX02 Vs AJA LHe by mike faulkner on Sep 11, 2009 at 9:23:52 am
hi Steve
thanks for your advice, I am still torn what to do.
People tell me by selling my Aja card I am not really stepping up, unless I have better monitor.
Trouble is I have limited desk space.
I did post this with Aja forum too and got this message
if you need a monitor that can be calibrated, it might be best to think about getting a monitor that supports calibration. The Kona will output whatever color correction you throw at it, but you need to properly calibrate the monitor to SMPTE specs. Both of those monitors don't support proper Smpte specs and therefore will be difficult to calibrate, no matter what the Matrox documentation might tell you.
Here's a recent thread for reference.
You have a perfectly great capture card, you just might need to step up on a better monitor. What formats do you work with?
Re: Matrox MX02 Vs AJA LHe by Andy Mees on Sep 11, 2009 at 11:18:14 am
Its a tricky thing Mike ... if you go to the AJA forums you're likely to encounter happy AJA owners who will encourage you to stick with your LHe, but over here on the Matrox forum you'll find us happy Matrox owners who will gladly tell you what we like about our MXO devices. How can a guy decide eh?
Look, simply put, you do indeed already have a great I/O card in the Kona LHe ... if your main need is for monitoring color more accurately than your current setup allows, then a professional reference monitor that can be properly calibrated is certainly your best possible solution. Obviously that's a reasonably pricy purchase and if you don't have the budget for it then an MXO2 is certainly another option you can consider, so if you can sell or otherwise get an LHe for MXO2 trade in deal then yes, without question you will be able to get a better color representation from your existing monitor than possible with the LHe ... but as noted it can't and won't magically turn your existing monitor into a true reference grade monitor, it'll just get you closer to true color than a raw output to the monitor.
But its not just about color options to consumer displays, although that may be your primary motivation right now. You have to consider the bigger picture as it were...
Do you need to upres SD to HD at the best possible quality? Do you do that a lot? The MXO2 does a stellar job but the Kona seems to have the edge.
Do you need a portable device that'll work on a desktop and laptop as and when needed? The Kona can't compete here, so if portability is a consideration then the MXO2 will win out.
Do you need to be able to capture via HD-SDI with embedded timecode? If so, then the MXO2 is not the box you need (unless Matrox produce their own capture app as AJA have done with their VTR Xchange app)
You mentioned before being interested in the hardware accelerated H264 encoding option on the MXO2 ? Obviously again there the MXO2 wins out as thats not a functionality offered in the AJA line ... although the same tech is also available to you in the Matrox CompressHD format (PCI-E card) so it is still an option that you can go for if you end up deciding to keep your LHe.
Bottom line, no one can decide for you.
Hope its helpful
Andy (a very happy and obviously hopelessly biased Matrox MXO2 MAX owner) Mees
Re: Matrox MX02 Vs AJA LHe by mike faulkner on Sep 11, 2009 at 11:11:00 pm
Hi Andy
what about the new MX02 LE
I don't have a need for 5:1 audio
if I sell my Aja card and buy the MX02 LE, there is not much more cash I have to shell out to get my monitor calibrated
what do you think
mike
PS I know the more I learn, the more I would probably would respect my Aja card.
but this is all fast learning especially me coming from a SD Firewire 400 budget route :-)
Re: Matrox MX02 Vs AJA LHe by Andy Mees on Sep 12, 2009 at 1:43:32 am
Hey Mike
I'm VERY impressed by the newly announced MXO2 LE, it looks really very nice indeed. It's smaller footprint makes it very much more portable for field work and it keeps all the most important functionality of its bigger brother (its missing only the AES/EBU I/O and direct surround sound monitoring, but neither are functions I need routinely) ... and its $600 cheaper. No brainer.
Again, your AJA Kona LHe is a superb card in and of itself and I wouldn't ordinarily imagine anyone would want to swap it out ... but, if your primary need right now is to get a more color accurate representation of your edits onto your existing monitor, plus you're looking for some H264 encoding acceleration, then the MXO2 LE MAX is looking like a very nice solution.
