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Scouring the floor for more things new and unique, in a far corner was found Matrox , where the big announcement was its new 128MB Parhelia APVe PCI Express x16 graphics card ($349, available first quarter of next year). What makes this card unique is its dual DVI monitor support with an additional HDTV component output, which is the first of its kind. Along for the ride is its WSIWYG support that I’ve reviewed and praised before, letting you see in the HDTV monitor what you’re actually getting when you’re working in After Effects , Premiere Pro, Photoshop , Combustion and even 3DS Max and LightWave 3D. Also on display was the forthcoming Axio HD, the company’s successor to its venerable DigiSuite line of Premiere -based nonlinear editing hardware. Matrox officials told DMN the new product will be available in March of 2005, and will be sold through dealers as a turnkey system for around $25K, depending on storage. After spending about a half-hour with the system, I have to say that so far I think it’s excellent. It runs and integrates beautifully with Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, and is capable of pumping through huge HD files without a hiccup. Matrox also revealed that it was working on HDV support, and even hinted at a lower-end HD editing hardware product in the works as well. But Axio looks to me like it’s ready to ship, where it was running like a Swiss watch and was able to handle any flavor of HD I saw thrown at it. Expect a full review coming up here on Digital Media Net as soon as the ship date draws near.
