By Steven Gotz

I am not going to comment on every feature or effect. Let's just say that the Matrox RT.X2 does what it is advertised to do.

For a more detailed review of functions, check out the Videoguys site and also look at the RT.X2LE FAQ. It seemed silly for me to duplicate their efforts. I will just point out a few things I liked, and didn't like.

I checked out the RT.X2 in a system provided by Matrox, but if I was going to buy one, I would probably get the RT.X2LE. It would fit in my case where the larger RT.X2 would not.

First up, borders on PIPs. Much easier than in Premiere Pro natively. Edge Softness on a crop is so handy I can't believe that Adobe hasn't implemented it yet. But Matrox has.

While color correcting, the split screen capability to see the before and after is much more adjustable than in Premiere Pro natively. Nice touch especially since a simple horizontal or vertical split really doesn't always cover the area of most interest. But even better is the ablility to mask the effect right from within the color corrector. An amazingly fast way to put in backgrounds for lower thirds. Just color correct a small section (without having to make a copy of the clip and apply the correction to that, then crop it). read more...