Can someone please help, i'm in the process of buying a new pc to run Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 for video editing. I dont know which graphic card i should buy for the job, i have a DV sony cam corder which i connect to my pc via firewire.

i was thing about buying a Matrox X100 capture card but i dont under stand the benifits. Why would i purchase 1 of these cards when i can capture straight through the firewire.? Does the X100 card help with creating mpeg 2 quicker.?

john

Others here will give you a more detailed answer, but a good-spec PC with plenty of hard disc space, and plenty of memory (1Gb is a nice figure) will run Ppro with no trouble. I think makers of ready-built video PCs say Premiere favours Intel chipset motherboards. You can check this on Adobe's website.

Because Windows reads/writes from the main boot drive, a separate hard disc is preferable for video, so insist on that if you can.

Capture cards like the Matrox can perform complex edits in realtime, but they're not essential by any means. They also capture analogue video, which you won't be able to do with a firewire-only connection.

Again, you don't need the latest whizz-bang graphics card. In viditing, their role is display only, as far as I'm aware, so a card with a decent amount of memory is fine.

I have a Matrox RTX100 and and I can't complain about it.. But, as he said, for video editing nowadays you don't need necessarily a card like that.

Your decision is depending what kind of raw video you are thinking to edit.. If this video comes from analog sources, go to a card. But if it is only from DV equipments, you can only adquire a Firewire cheap-card.

The great advantage of Matrox and other cards that makes effects realtime is that you don't need to wait while you playing the video: There's a micro-processor inside these cards that helps CPU to run without pre-processing. It's very important for some intense-consuming effects, like chroma-keying, twirls, 3D...

I can assure to you that if you want speed and if you like to edit video, you'll love RTX100 - and so, at the finishing you'll encode the edited video in realtime speed: MPEG2, WMV, MPG and DV AVI.

Thanks for the advise i think i'll hang fire with the Matrox card until funds permitting, as i'm capturing via firewire, one question thou does the maxtrox card have a firewire connection on it.?

John

It certainly does. The Matrox Break-out-Box also has analogue inputs as well allowing you to capture analogue signals as well, form your VCR for instance.

I agree that the Matrox card is a great time saver, allowing realtime export as well as render free editing. But it rather OTT for most poeple.

It does come with copies of Adobe Premiere Pro, Encore and Audition but don't be talked intot buying just for these as there are other legit offers around allowing you to get this s/w (if you want it) cheaper

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Don't forget that if you are really thinking about owning a Matrox card, you would buy a RTX10 Xtra - It's not a RTX100, don't encode MPEG2 realtime, it doesn't have so many effects that RTX100, but it is still a great choice. Read about it: http://www.matrox.com/video/products/rtx10hw/home.cfm

PS: I have no bonds nor stocks of Matrox. Just I love Matrox's cards