Well, this high tech item has been sitting on a top shelf for a while (cough - ten years - cough) and it's about time I did the official unboxing. As you can see from the product box photo, you pop this bad boy into your computer and you automagically become a sophisticated HDV video professional.

Seriously, this gave you real time editing of a bunch of codecs as well as some unbelievably powerful 2D and 3D effects, thanks to Matrox's utilisation of a good graphics card to take the processing load off the CPU. It was bona fide real time video goodness until Adobe had this great idea about using the video card processor for themselves to make Premiere Pro super amazing fast (which blocked Matrox from continuing to do so).

For a small extra fee you could purchase a training DVD by the amazing Jeff Pulera who has even been spotted on this very forum from time to time.

Press play on this video to be transported back in time to a place where these real time features were enough to make an editor drool.

Demo Matrox RTX feature - YouTube

The box also came with a copy of Premiere Pro.

So you take the outside layer off to reveal ... a box.

... which you then open up to reveal more cardboard stuff that looks like boxes.

Taking the top cardboard item out reveals sub-boxes on the left and right side. This is the left sub-box which contained the product manuals and a disc/s with software on it.

In the right side sub-box we have what was affectionately known as the squid head. It was the big I/O block (for your video and audio needs) on the end of a long cable. Previous I/O blocks such as the one with the predecessor RT.X100 (standard definition) product were more triangular shaped and looked like a squid with a long tail ... so you get the idea.

The movie The Matrix came out almost ten years earlier and it too had electro mechanical squid things with a long tail. I'm sure it's purely just a coincidence.

But what of that funny shaped cardboard thing we removed earlier to get to the remaining contents of the box? Short of proclaiming it to be a freestanding post-modern environmentalist sculpture worthy of an arts grant, we must investigate further.

Not quite as dramatic as the opening of the space ship in Close Encounters, we open it a little. Savvy viewers will note the glimpse of an anti-static plastic bag.

Here it is, removed from its protective cardboard casing, the processor card that is the Matrox RT.X2.

It's just not a proper unboxing without proof of virginity. Here you see the obligatory warning sticker that seals over the end of the anti-static bag, intact and thus proving it has never before been opened. This processor card is truly untouched by the end customer, but not for long.

Released from its confines, behold the mighty RT.X2 processing card which was so powerful it gave you HDV video editing and special effects, all in real time.

(There was a more expensive sister product, the Matrox Axio, which gave you the ability to edit in full HD resolution, not just the lesser HDV resolution. The electronics of both cards were effectively the same and at the end-of-life for the RT.X2 product Matrox were kind enough to release a final set of drivers which removed the HDV resolution limitation.)

You can read more about the Matrox RT.X2 product here (https://web.archive.org/web/20090212102811/http://matrox.com/video/en/products/rtx2).

This voluntary act of kindness and generosity is something you get from a privately owned company and not a shareholder driven one. It's a difference you come to notice and appreciate over the years.

A closeup of the processor card that is the RT.X2 product. Notice the big shiny chip with the word "PRO" on it? That's probably where the magic happens. All those other bits are just a distraction.

It was a serious card to add into your editing computer, needing its own dedicated power connection just to run. What was normally supplied by the motherboard wasn't enough. Forget to plug this in and it won't even show up for your software to recognise.

The other side of the video processor card. Because I could.

Here's a detail shot of the video and audio I/O block, affectionately referred to as the squid head. This gave you your composite and component analogue inputs as well as that exciting HDV direct digital input thing called a Firewire interface.

But what of the S-VIDEO connections we were possibly more likely to use?

S-VIDEO came via these handy adaptors.

Notice the white plastic labelling on the main trunk of these adaptors? Burning to know what it says on the other side? Well, here it is. "Made in China." That's right, nothing is sacred, no matter how much you paid.

Thus endeth the unboxing.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the unsolicited shout out! Brings back a lot of memories, amazing piece of hardware for sure. Better realtime than we get now even on the fastest machines. Edited a LOT of multi-cam weddings, dance recitals and plays with that hardware and some corporate as well. Even worked the Matrox booth at NAB one year doing demos.

Before that, it was the Matrox RT.X100 for realtime DV editing, and I also used the Canopus DV Storm hardware way back. And who can forget the Pinnacle Miro DC30? Ah, the good old days!

I also got to use a DPS Velocity 3D system for a few years when I was a beta tester. That was like 20 years ago now....and prior to that, one of the first prosumer I/O cards was the DPS Spark in the late 90s (though not realtime). Yes, pretty much used them all at one time or another.

Hang onto those S-Video adapters, those are hard to come by (people do still need them for use with other more current I/O boards from other vendors).

Matrox really had a good thing going while it lasted.

Thanks again for sharing

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

Hey Jeff,

As it turns out, those Y connectors are the very things I will be keeping.

Yes, it was a great/awesome/interesting time in tech that I doubt will ever be repeated. Wonderful days once you forget such things as how we used to sweat over stuff like dropped frames during a capture. ;-)

Andrew

Thanks for sharing. I remember the RT.X2. Considered buying one. I had the RT.X100 and used it a ton. A ton. Still have that workstation, actually, complete with the *cough* powerhouse matrox Parhelia AGP 256MB graphic card and whopping 4GB RAM windows XP and 10,000rpm drives.

I still miss some of those Matrox effects and capabilities. I probably most miss some of the transitions. On my later workstations have quadro and gtx GPUs, loads of RAM and tons of software plugins, yet still never have been able to fully replace some of what my RTX could do.
I also own a couple Matrox MX02 mini w/maxand love them too, though they can't do as much as the RTX could.

Matrox has since gotten out of graphics cards and NLE cards to focus in streaming, I believe. I really liked their products.

Now that you unboxed it, what are you going to do with it? Harder to sell now

I wasn't aware they did that at end of life at the final release. That is really cool.

When we made the transition from sd to HD I almost again bought the rt.x2 and running cs4 without the update that shut off the real time matrox stuff. But my workstation didn't have the needed slot type so I would had to have bought a new workstation which wasn't a possibility then. So I ended up upgrading my other workstation (Mac Pro) to run cs5 with a quadro.

Thinking back, matrox was a serious player back then and before that. I remember almost buying an rt 2500 and before that the....RT...can't remember the name now... Required certain hardware and it did all the processing as opposed to how the later RT.x100 shared processing with the CPU doing some. What was that called?

As much as I disliked tape, I miss those days. Matrox gave you an edge over the competition and speaking of competition... It was nothing like today. Dozens upon dozens of people in my area doing video now. Not like that back then...
Now the field has tanked with dirt cheap rates.

Now that you unboxed it, what are you going to do with it? Harder to sell now

ROFL. Impossible to sell in good conscience as you couldn't even buy a motherboard these days with the correct slot type for the card to work. It's well and truly past its lifespan.

I had been wanting to build a computer around this card, but before that happened the MXO2 product (https://web.archive.org/web/20130913160727/http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2_max/) came out and I made the hard decision to jump to this and build a new system around the very latest from Matrox, which in turn effectively meant writing off the money spent on purchasing the RT.X2 card.

I just took a look around for the RT.X2 price and from what I can work out it was $2500 AUD. Ouch (sniff).

Andrew

Another former Matrox user here. Started with the RX and finished with the 2000. Yes I thought is was amazing how they transformed a decent computer into a magical NLE. Somewhere I probably still have a disc that that says Adobe Premier on it with no "pro or version #" on it. Been using Premier through every version since then.

Your post reminded me how much I miss firewire. It flat out worked, and it worked bidirectionally with everything. Computers, cameras, hard drives etc. Then we went backwards and have not had anything that works like that since then.

Also, it is worth noting that for many of us Matrox users DVINFO was a place you had to be. This is where you found the answer to every question you could possibly have about using or building such a system. There were a ton of us who supported each other in those not so perfect but exciting times.

Yep....your not a "Pro" unless you have hit a capture button and sat back with a beverage and watched your computer take over your Canon XL1 and magically transfer your video from tape onto a hard drive! HaHa.

Kind Regards,

Steve

I started with the Pinnacle card and breakout box. Came with Premiere 6.5