MONTREAL, CANADA -- (February 24, 2000)-- Matrox Video Products Group announced that the production version of the eagerly awaited RT2000 card is available from authorized dealers and distributors worldwide. RT2000 provides an impressive array of professional realtime editing features at the unprecedented price of $1,295 US.

The revolutionary "Matrox Flex 3D" architecture of RT2000 exploits the explosive 3D graphics performance of the award-winning Matrox Millennium G400 accelerator card to provide realtime broadcast-quality 3D DVE and 32-bit, uncompressed, animated graphics in a dual-stream, native-DV editing environment. MPEG-2 output for DVD and web video streaming applications, along with 1394 and analog video output for tape distribution round out the solution.

"Following an extensive beta testing program that has resulted in an extremely stable and reliable product, we have shipped thousands of RT2000 cards to fulfill the backlog of orders and to stock the distribution channel," said Spiro Plagakis, Matrox vice president of sales and marketing. "Cost-conscious video editors can now benefit from the realtime editing productivity and superior production values that broadcasters have long enjoyed."

"Matrox RT2000 is a great product and one of the most stable boards we've had the pleasure of testing," said Stephen Inoue, Premiere product manager, OEM certification team, Dynamic Media Group, Adobe System Incorporated. "The time the Matrox team took to do it right will make a big difference in the marketplace."

"I've been a beta site for RT2000 since September, 1999 and I've seen it progress from a capture card with a lot of promise to a full-blown, rock-solid realtime nonlinear editing platform with all the features I need to impress my clients and get the job done in record time," said Frank Mediati, owner of Mediati Productions, a Montreal-based production company specializing in corporate, medical, and government video projects. "I've already paid back my investment many times over, and with DVD becoming more popular everyday, we are ready to cater to our customers' future needs, too. This system rocks!"

"It is hard not to be impressed by the Matrox RT2000. I have been beta-testing it since October, and seen it develop into a truly remarkable product," said Dr. Andrew Gould, managing director of The Dental Channel, London, England. "My company develops training and educational programs on CD-ROM, video tape and soon, DVD. The RT2000's realtime features allow us to be far more creative and work much faster than our existing single stream edit machine allows. The DVD support is a real boon, and for the price, it really is outstanding."

About Matrox RT2000
The Matrox RT2000 bundle includes the Matrox Millennium G400 Flex 3D Edition graphics accelerator, the RT2000 codec card, an audio/video breakout box, and a complete content creation software suite - Adobe Premiere RT realtime nonlinear editing, Ulead Cool 3D titling, Sonic Foundry ACID Music audio editing, and Sonic DVDit! LE DVD authoring.
Professional features include:
• Dual-stream, native-DV editing with support for all DV formats including Panasonic DVCPRO, Sony DVCAM, Sony Digital-8, and the consumer DV format used by Sony, JVC, Canon, Sharp and Panasonic. • On-board 1394 I/O interface that includes batch capture and camera control • Y/C and composite video I/O for capture from analog cameras and output to tape • Dual-stream MPEG-2 4:2:2 I-frame editing at variable bit rates from 10 to 25 Mbps • MPEG-2 MP@ML output for distribution applications such DVD and web video streaming • Realtime broadcast-quality 2D/3D DVE and transitions with sub-pixel resolution, anti-aliasing, and high-quality filtering powered by Matrox Flex 3D architecture • Over 500 user-customizable realtime effects and transitions including page curls, perspectives, scaling, picture-in-picture, organic wipes, tiles, and many more • Additional effects libraries, available in the future, including 3D warps, water reflections, explosions, ripples, and more • Realtime, 32-bit, uncompressed, animated graphics layer • 48 kHz stereo audio I/O genlocked to video ensures perfect lip-sync • Attractive audio/video breakout box simplifies cabling • Millennium G400 provides a high-performance console with a video-in-a-window display. An additional graphics display adapter is not required in the system. • Windows 98 support (Windows 2000 support to follow) • "Matrox Infinite Capture™" overcomes the 2 GB file size limit of Windows 98 by providing seamless capture and playback of unlimited file size within Premiere About Matrox Flex 3D Matrox Flex 3D is a fully programmable architecture that applies 3D texture mapping to video in realtime using a Matrox 3D graphics accelerator chip and graphics memory. Motion video or graphics are treated as source textures and mapped onto polygon-based 3D shapes such as page curls, planes, and particles. Broadcast-quality effects are achieved using special features that are built into the 3D-accelerator chip and exploited through the Flex 3D architecture: • Streamlined data paths between the graphics accelerator and the codecs allow multiple streams of uncompressed video to be interfaced directly. • High chroma bandwidth RGBA 4:4:4:4 processing combined with high-precision YUV to RGB and RGB to YUV color space conversion maintains high-quality video and produces sharp, crisp effects. • Full alpha channel support enables linear keying and multi-layer compositing. • Tri-linear and anisotropic filtering ensure high-quality video scaling and rotations. • Sub-pixel precision guarantees ultra-smooth DVEs and transitions. • Anti-aliasing ensures smooth edges. • True environment-mapped hardware bump mapping produces an unlimited variety of realistic effects. • Control over ambient and spot lighting produces true reflections in 3D space and enhances realism. • Field-based processing ensures high-quality effects without motion artifacts. The fact that Flex 3D is fully programmable means that additional effects can be added via supplementary software. An unlimited variety of brand new effects, that have never been seen before, can be developed.

About Matrox
Matrox Video Products Group is a technology and market leader in the field of digital video hardware and software for realtime editing, DVD authoring, and web streaming applications. The award-winning Matrox DigiSuite product line is used by television broadcasters, post-production facilities, and project studios worldwide. The new Matrox RT2000 platform is designed for corporate communicators, event videographers, and video enthusiasts. Founded in 1976, Matrox is a privately held company headquartered in Montreal, Canada with offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Hong Kong.