Capturing
The system is made to capture DV video through a FireWire (IEEE 1394) slot in the RT2000 card. This allows for not only a pure stream of digital video and audio, but also DV time code and machine control that lets you batch capture numerous clips from any number of DV tape sources. The breakout box also gives you the advantage of capturing material from other analog sources through composite or S-Video inputs.

Video/audio capture and editing is performed through the included full version of Adobe Premiere 5.1, a workhorse in the NLE field. Capture presets include DV NTSC, DV PAL, and various levels of MPEG-2. For those of you producing DVD projects, RT2000 lets you create DVD-compliant MPEG-2 files.

I captured a variety of clips through my Sony DVX1000, and although the machine control interface seemed a bit sluggish at times, it read time code and batch captured without a hitch. I also captured material from VHS and Hi-8 through the composite and S-Video inputs on the breakout box, and brought in some music from the CD-ROM.

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Now the fun begins. Those of you familiar with editing in Premiere will feel right at home. After selecting the various video, audio and preview settings in Preferences, you are ready to take advantage of the RT2000’s dual streaming capabilities. The system lets you work with two video streams and a 32-bit uncompressed graphics layer in real time. No more waiting for those pesky titles and transitions to render.

Matrox has supplied a vast array of real time transitions and effects you can access through the Premiere Transition Window. These include: 2D and 3D DVEs (Digital Video Effects) with customizable drop shadows, soft edges and color borders, page curls, organic wipes like “fabric” and “bark” and transparency faders. In addition, Matrox also provides a hardware accelerated multi-layer compositing engine, which lets you render an unlimited number of video graphics layers at break-neck speed.

The real time titling is a bit of a workaround. Instead of using the title function within Premiere, you create your titles and graphics as a Targa file with an alpha channel in graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop. These are then imported into Premiere and laid into the effects track. The good part of this is that your compositing and fades work in real time, and you do have the advantage of arranging your type and graphics in ways that you can’t with the Premiere Title Tool.

Next: Finishing Up