Matrox CompressHD is designed for professional content creators delivering H.264 files for Blu-ray, the web, and mobile devices, who need a fast, flexible, high quality encoding workhorse. Matrox CompressHD is the first implementation of Matrox MAX technology in an amazingly affordable H.264 accelerator card. It works in systems with or without a video I/O device and extends the life of your current system investment, giving you the power you need to deliver today's premium H.264 formats faster than ever. This low profile, half-length PCIe x1 card fits into Mac Pros, Intel-based Apple Xserve systems, and PCs. Get yourself a Matrox CompressHD card and deliver your projects in a fraction of the time!

Professional accelerator card for faster than realtime H.264 HD file creation

Matrox MAX is a unique technology that implements faster than realtime H.264 encoding for resolutions ranging from iPod to HD. It uses a dedicated hardware processor to accelerate the creation of H.264 files for Blu-ray, the web, and mobile devices. By using specialized hardware acceleration, jobs are finished with amazing speed and system resources are liberated for other tasks. Quality and flexibility are ensured through direct integration with professional applications such as Apple Compressor on the Mac and Adobe Media Encoder on the PC. As an added benefit, the Matrox MAX technology allows direct export to higher-quality H.264 Blu-ray compliant files from Compressor.

Key features of Matrox CompressHD for the Mac

• Faster than realtime creation of H.264 files, for resolutions ranging from iPod to HD, using Matrox MAX technology
• Low profile, half-length PCIe x1 card that fits into all Mac Pros and Intel-based Apple Xserve systems
• Works in systems with or without an I/O device
• Three-year hardware warranty and complimentary telephone support

Key features of Matrox MAX technology

• Faster than realtime creation of H.264 files, for resolutions ranging from iPod to HD, at bitrates up to 50 Mbps
• A specialized, dedicated hardware processor liberates system resources for other tasks
• Accelerated encoding for Blu-ray, PS3, Apple TV, YouTube, Flash, web formats, and mobile devices including iPhone, and iPod from various video sources including 2K files
• Direct integration with Apple Compressor to simplify workflow
• Creation of Blu-ray H.264 files that can be authored in Adobe Encore CS4 or Roxio Toast 10 and burned without re-encoding
• Support for Apple Qmaster to take advantage of multiple systems with a Matrox MAX processing engine for distributed encoding across a network

The Matrox CompressHD Awards

The Black Diamond Awards recognize the best products making their debut at the NAB Show, specifically those that will appeal to DV Magazine's readership of independent video professionals.

The Best of Show Vidy Awards recognize outstanding achievement in the advancement of the art and science of video technology. The Videography Vidy Awards is the longest-running NAB awards program.

EventDV, The Authority for Event Videographers, has announced the winners of its fourth annual "Best of NAB" awards. Chosen each year by contributing editor and leading L.A.-area videographer and filmmaker Marc Franklin, the awards recognize products in four categories: cameras, production gear, and postproduction solutions.

This year's Top 10 list began with Matrox, and it ends with them as well. The Matrox Compress HD and MXO2 family of products with MAX technology allow you to encode your footage into H.264 faster then real-time. A one-hour video might take several hours to encode using Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder or a 3rd party encoder like Sorenson Squeeze, even on a Dual Xeon Mac Pro or HP workstation. With the Matrox MAX technology this same clip would take around 50 minutes. That's right, from HD to Blu-ray H.264 in under an hour! Now that's a huge savings in time, with no sacrifice in quality. In the video business time = money. So you should immediately be able to see the value of the MAX technology.

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Our "Toasted" Blu-ray Bundles for Mac also happen to be perfectly timed with a hot new product from Matrox that solves yet another Mac problem - ENCODING! We know that encoding your HD video to H.264 gives you the very best possible quality video on Blu-ray and Flash. Unfortunately H.264 encoding takes lots of time.

How fast is it? Right now a fully loaded 8-core Mac Pro tower will take several hours to encode one hour of ProRes HD video to H.264 - with the Matrox CompressHD card it will take less then an hour! That's right faster then real-time encoding - even on a slower Mac.

• Faster than realtime creation of H.264 files, for resolutions ranging from iPod to HD, at bitrates up to 50 Mbps using Matrox MAX technology
• Works great with your existing HD hardware including AJA, Blackmagic and more
• 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.

Matrox MAX technology saves you time. You'll spend less time rendering and more time being creative and productive. The following table shows typical encoding times for a 20-minute H.264 deliverable.