Refine search for Graphics

  Leave a comment      Email this to a friend TrustedReviews Newsletters

Performance

It’s only fair to expect better performance from a package that costs nearly £200 more than the Pinnacle Edition Pro 5, and the RT.X100 Xtreme doesn’t disappoint. To test it, we created a 5-track edit, comprising a colour-corrected base layer, two moving transparent Picture-In-Picture effects, a TIF graphic overlay, and a title overlay with a page curl.

Premiere doesn’t report preview frame rates like Edition, so I can only say that I obtained a similar frame rate on both systems, but when it came to rendering this 13.5sec sequence, the RT.X100 Xtreme stormed ahead with a 36-second render against Edition Pro 5’s 1m 48s. The caveat here is that you can’t use your PC for anything else while it’s busy rendering, while Edition lets you carry on editing.

Thanks to the on-board C-Cube chipset, turning this rendered sequence into an elementary MPEG2 stream took a little over 15 seconds – not quite real-time, but who’s arguing? It’s a lot better than forty seconds, and you have to bear in mind that this is only a 13.5s clip – imagine the difference if you were working on an hour-long feature.

As well as lacking an integrated DVD authoring tool, Premiere 6.5, also only lets you apply transitions to the A/B track (Edition lets you apply them wherever you want). Once you get your free upgrade to Premiere Pro, however, this will no longer be an issue.

It has to be said, however, that Premiere 6.5 is not as stable as Edition 5 – which is ironic, given that the latter is the software with the InstantSave feature – and the reliance on separate applications for DVD authoring and video capture can be a little tiresome, although some may prefer to work with a discrete authoring tool.

Conclusion

When it comes to overall performance and flexibility, there’s no contest here. The Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme is easily the better digital video editing solution of the two on review. Something else to consider is the fact that the RT.X100 Xtreme isn’t just tied down to the one application. As we’ve already mentioned, it’ll soon support Premiere Pro, but it also supports Adobe’s high-end editor After Effects, as well as providing a plug-in for 3D Studio Max. This doesn’t stop me from wanting some of Edition Pro 5’s features (background rendering, integrated DVD authoring, InstantSave, GPU hardware acceleration) in the RT.X100 Xtreme’s makeup. But you can’t have everything. Until something better comes out, I’d thoroughly recommend this one.

Verdict

It’s true that you’re paying considerably more for the RT.X100 Xtreme (particularly if you opt for the full bundle with ReelDVD), but it’s a more powerful piece of kit that’s scalable in line with the host system, without tying you down to a dated graphics card.

Add your comment