You might be tempted to make all your titles in the included Ulead Cool 3D 2.5 LE, where it’s a simple matter to put together some great-looking effects. Better yet, the system is set up to use the Matrox G400’s rendering engine to display the result instantaneously.

This kind of speed gives you real time feedback, allowing you to manipulate objects with no waiting. Look at how you can put a variety of bevels, 3D positions and lighting on your text. Is this cool or what?

Finally, when it's time to send your finished video back to DV, it would be nice if this recompression process were faster. Recompression, you say? Yes -- while you're editing your footage, although the parts of the video that don't have effects on them are untouched in the DV format, for effects to be added the data must be uncompressed. To send it back to DV, those effects sequences need to recompress into the DV format. But it's not such a big deal -- in a worst-case scenario where you're using lots of effects it takes between 2 to 3x real time to put the effects sections back onto a DV tape, with the cuts-only parts passing through in real time.

So a thirty minute program that's 100 percent effects (for example, an 800-number keyed across the lower third of the entire program) will take about 90 minutes to recompress back to DV. It'll take much less than that if you're working with a cuts-only program -- streaming that back to DV tape happens in real time. In between those two scenarios -- say you have a typical program with a few transitions and supers here and there -- it might take a half-hour program 40 minutes to place back onto DV tape. Or, you could just play it back onto an analog tape via S-video in real time.

So, to sum up: The Matrox RT2000 represents a remarkable value for a measly $1295. The quality is extremely high, and even though the effects and transitions are "canned," if your idea of a special effect is a dissolve, you won't be affected by this. Also, although some would strongly disagree with me, I see Premiere RT in this package as a benefit. It's fast and has a great three-point-editing metaphor that's easy to get used to. That, along with all the other software fun included with the package gives the Matrox RT2000 lots of bang for the buck.

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Charlie White has been writing about digital video editing since it was the laughingstock of the post-production industry. He's an Emmy award-winning producer and director for PBS, and Producer of this Web channel. Reach him at cwhite@digitalmedianet.com