CompressHD

DESCRIPTION
Faster than real-time creation of H.264 files
Matrox MAX technology saves you time. You’ll spend less time rendering and more time being creative and productive.

Now compatible with the RT.X2 and Axio line of products!

Matrox Mtx.utils 3.0 (PC) provides the following new features:

• Support for Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium software, including Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, Adobe Encoder CS5, and Adobe Encore CS5
• On MXO2 systems that have MAX technology or a Matrox CompressHD card, new Matrox RT technology gives you full-resolution, full-frame-rate, multi-layer, real-time video editing in Premiere Pro. With Matrox RT technology, all the Matrox effects are real-time, and many Premiere Pro effects and transitions are accelerated for real-time playback, including Motion effects, dissolves, fades, and speed changes. 
• When encoding using the Matrox MAX H.264 codec on MXO2 products with MAX technology and CompressHD, the following new features are provided:
  • Support for H.264 levels 4.1 and 4.2, and a maximum data rate of 50 Mb/sec.
  • A maximum GOP size of 254.
  • A slider is provided to let you adjust the bitrate for AAC audio.
  • Support for transcoding directly to Matrox H.264 format for Blu-ray Disc authoring in Adobe Encore.

Matrox Mtx.utils 2.0 (MAC) provides the following new features:

• Support for Mac OS X Snow Leopard only (v10.6.4).
• New Matrox MAX H.264 encoding features:
  • For Apple Compressor: 
    • Variable bit rate.
    • Scene detection.
    • Constant quality. 
    • Noise filter. 
    • Chapter marker support for Matrox MAX H.264 .mov and .264 files. 
    • H.264 level 3.1 support for encoding HD video for use with Apple iPad.
  • For Telestream Episode version 5.x, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Apple QuickTime: 
    • Constant quality.
    • Noise filter.
    • H.264 level 3.1 support for encoding HD video for use with Apple iPad.

Specialized, dedicated hardware processing
Matrox MAX offloads CPU intensive encoding tasks to a dedicated hardware engine to crunch out your deliverables in record time for Blu-ray, the web, and mobile devices, without sacrificing quality. The Matrox MAX hardware engine offers sophisticated encoding capabilities such as:

• Baseline and main profile encoding algorithms
• CABAC entropy encoding for high quality
• CAVLC entropy encoding for mobile devices
• High quality scaling with de-interlacing
• Color space conversions
  • HD to SD
  • SD to HD
  • RGB to YUV
• GOP structure controls
• Bitrate controls from 100 Kbps to 50 Mbps

Direct integration with professional encoding applications
Matrox MAX technology taps into Apple Compressor on the Mac and Adobe Media Encoder on the PC to let you quickly and easily create H.264 files for Blu-ray, PS3, Apple TV, YouTube, Flash, web formats, and mobile devices including iPhone, and iPod. You can take advantage of all the familiar settings in your favorite application, use the Matrox MAX presets or customize your own. As an added benefit, the Matrox MAX technology lets you directly export to higher quality H.264 Blu-ray compliant files from Compressor. A growing list of presets are available including:

• HD 1080i, 1080p, 720p
• NTSC, PAL
• Apple TV
• iPod
• iPhone
• YouTube

Customizable Encoding Formats
On the Mac, Matrox MAX technology is also accessible to all applications that support the QuickTime codec component such as Final Cut Pro and QuickTime. You get delivery of H.264 files, at resolutions for iPod to HD, directly from the application.

Efficient Blu-ray disc creation
Matrox MAX technology lets you create Blu-ray H.264 video files, directly from Compressor on the Mac or Adobe Media Encoder on the PC, that can be authored in Adobe Encore CS4/CS5 or Roxio Toast 10 and burned without re-encoding. To create a Blu-ray disc without Matrox MAX technology, you typically rely on your authoring application and your system CPU to re-encode your project into a Blu-ray compliant file. On an 8-core Mac Pro, this process takes about 90 minutes for a 20-minute project. With Matrox MAX, you can create a H.264 Blu-ray compliant file directly from Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder at faster than real-time speed. That file can then be used by your authoring software without the extra re-encoding step. On an 8-core Mac Pro equipped with Matrox MAX technology, this process takes less than 18 minutes for the same 20-minute project.

Support for Apple Qmaster
You can take advantage of multiple systems with a Matrox MAX processing engine for distributed encoding across a network using Apple Qmaster on the Mac.

REQUIREMENTS
Mac

• Intel-based Mac Pro or Apple Xserve.
• Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later.
• One free PCIe x1 slot.
• If using CompressHD with Final Cut Studio 2 or later, you need 2 GB of RAM when working with compressed HD and uncompressed SD sources, or 4 GB of RAM when working with uncompressed HD sources.
• Supported programs:
  • Apple Compressor v3.0.5 or later (required for Blu-ray Disc).
  • Apple QuickTime Pro v7.6 or later, Apple Final Cut Pro v6.0.5 or later, Adobe After Effects CS4, Adobe Encore CS4, Apple Motion v3.0.2 or later, Apple Qmaster v3.0.5 or later, Telestream Episode and Episode Pro v5.3 or later, Media 100 Suite version 1.0 or later, or other QuickTime-based video applications.

PC

• A computer that supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2), such as an Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 or later.
• Dual-CPU, or one dual-core CPU.
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate (64-bit), Windows Vista Business or Ultimate (32- or 64-bit) with Service Pack 2, or Windows XP Professional (32-bit) with Service Pack 3.
• 2 GB of RAM for 32-bit Windows systems, or 4 GB of RAM for 64-bit Windows systems.
• One free PCIe slot.
• Adobe Media Encoder CS4 version 4.2 or later.

Note: Adobe Media Encoder is included with many Adobe programs, such as Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Encore.