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 much time? 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 MAX Technology it will take less then an hour! That’s right faster then real-time encoding – even on a slower Mac.

Montreal, Canada – June 15, 2009 – Matrox® Video Products Group today announced that versions of its popular I/O devices for the Mac (Matrox MXO2, Matrox MXO2 Rack, and Matrox MXO2 Mini), are now available with Matrox MAX technology1 for faster than realtime high definition H.264 file creation. The unique Matrox MAX technology 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 speed2 and system resources are liberated for other tasks. Quality and flexibility are ensured through direct integration with Apple Compressor on the Mac. As an added benefit, the Matrox MAX technology allows direct export to higher-quality H.264 Blu-ray compliant files from Compressor.

“Content creators today need to deliver material in resolutions ranging from HD to iPod and H.264 has become their codec of choice due to its high-quality and low bandwidth requirement,” said Wayne Andrews, Matrox product manager. “By incorporating Matrox MAX technology into our popular MXO2 devices, we are providing our customers with the extra productivity boost they need to profit from today’s most popular workflows on laptops as well as towers.”
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 Compressor3 on the Mac to simplify workflow
* Creation of Blu-ray H.264 files that can be authored in Adobe Encore CS4 and Roxio Toast 10 then 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
* Works with Intel-based MacBook Pros, Mac Pros, and Apple Xserve systems

Price and availability
The Matrox MXO2 product line is available through a worldwide network of authorized dealers. Matrox MXO2 Mini with the MAX option is priced at $849 US (£644, €758). Matrox MXO2 with the MAX option is priced at $1,995 US (£1,495, €1,695). Matrox MXO2 Rack with the MAX option is priced at $2,395 US (£1,749, €1,995) not including local taxes.