[ This article was first published in the Sept/Oct, 2007, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]
I’ve been traveling with a Matrox MXO box over the last couple months on my PowerUp tour. After writing about the MXO recently, Gino Del Guercio sent in the following on his uses of the MXO:
I found another application for the MXO that I’ve been extremely happy with.
I recently completed a 90-minute feature doc called Abandoned in the Arctic, which is about the doomed Greely expedition of 1881-84, and a modern attempt to recreate Greely’s trip. The doc was shot primarily with a Varicam in 720p just 400 miles from the North Pole.
For the premier we rented a beautiful old movie house in Portsmouth, NH, called the Music Hall.
Instead of outputting the doc to tape and then renting a deck to play it, I ran the doc in FCP straight out of my MacBook Pro through the MXO and into an HD projector. The doc was projected onto an 80 foot screen and boy did it look great. The theater was sold out, there was a line a block and a half long out the door, and we got a standing ovation at the end. I’ve included a review.
The tech staff at the theater was very nervous about my running the doc through my laptop, but I tested it once through before the show with no glitches. I also had an SD DVD as backup.
So if you think the MXO output looks good on a 23 inch monitor, you should see what it looks like on a 960 inch monitor! As we like to say in Boston: wicked awesome.
Andy Mees sends in the following caution, however:
Quick note worth including in your newsletter regarding the Matrox MXO, or worth passing on to your reader who is looking to purchase a field editing kit.
The Matrox MXO is NOT currently compatible with the latest MBP, or more specifically its not compatible with the Nvidia GPU in these laptops.
“Unfortunately there are some users who have been experiencing playback issues with Apple latest Macbook Pro, which seems to be a compatibility issue with Nvidia’s new GPU. We are currently doing some test with the new MCB and the MXO and will update users of our results. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. ”
Please see full thread here: http://forum.matrox.com/mxo/viewtopic.php?t=409
Larry replies: Thanks for the update. In general, I’m very impressed with the MXO and I’m looking forward to playing more in the future.
[Disclosure statement: Matrox is a sponsor of my 2007 PowerUp tour, but even if they weren’t, I’d still be impressed with this box. You can learn more about the Matrox MXO here]
