Hands-on Preview
RT 2000
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Take a look at this dialog box, and you'll see there are plenty of 3D effects from which to choose. Use perspective, curls, and all kinds of flying stuff. It's fun!

The first thing many new users of RT2000 will be looking for is more disk space. They'll be pouring their DV footage over the RT2000's 1394 interface so fast, even a big disk will be filled up in a hurry. So, Matrox is busy testing every disk known to man, and according to the company, they'll be quick to release a compatibility list.

Another major benefit of this new system is its ability to do native DV editing. This is especially nice, because your footage stays entirely in the DV realm, with no transcoding to another format like jpeg, just to get the editing done. All your footage stays in the DV25 format the whole time, so there's no loss of quality. It works great with DV cameras, too. We used a Sony TRV-103 DV camera for our testing, with a 1394 cable connecting the camera with the RT2000 card. Within Premiere RT, we were able to log shots, compile a capture list and send the DV camera off to find each shot without a hitch. By the way, it's not really capturing, because the DV data is simply transferred to disk via the 1394 cable.

Here's another nice feature of the RT2000: The ability to use two monitors. Got an old PCI card lying around? Install it, then plug a second computer monitor into it and you'll have a cool two-screen setup. You can still plug an S-Video NTSC monitor in to see your finished video. So, try using Premiere with two computer monitors -- a great way to edit, giving you plenty of room for a really wide time line. Yes, it’s three monitors, no waiting!

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