OK, so here I am playing with my MXO2 mini (with MAX) and wanting to see how far I could push it. I was asked to upconvert some BetaSP footage to ProRes 1080i 59.94 (30fps, not 60) but my MXO2 was on the home system, meaning that I’d have to bring home the betaSP deck and do it there (the Kona 3 here at work doesn’t have analog inputs, and I don’t have that $1000 converter box). I still plan on bringing it home, as the MXO2 offers deck control and thus TIMECODE (very important), but I figured, why not test it here with the Mini (that I carry with me all the time, seeing as it is lighter than my iphone)?

So I connected the UVW-1800 to my MXO2 Mini, then the Mini to my Dual 2.4Ghz MacBook Pro. I then attached my small bus powered G-Drive mini via firewire 800. I went into the MXO2 system prefs and told it to SCALE the image to match the FCP settings (FCP 6.0.5, BTW). I then chose ProRes 422 1080i59.94. Lacking deck control I had to press play on the deck manually.

I then proceeded to capture 5 min of footage…upconverting BetaSP 720×486 to ProRes 422 1920×1080 without dropping one frame of video. I then captured 10 min…again, no frames dropped.

This isn’t supposed to be possible.

Now, this isn’t AT ALL a statement saying that now Matrox supports ProRes 422 1920×1080 capture on a laptop. They don’t. This might be a case of “sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” Because I can also capture DV to my internal hard drive without dropping a frame either…never have. But because not everyone can do this, it isn’t supported nor recommended.

So I can capture ProRes 422 on my laptop without dropping a frame…this doesn’t meant that others might be able to…they might have issues. I just wanted to say “HOLY COW! I got it to do something it isn’t supposed to be able to do!”

Now, if I get that Keyspan Serial adapter I can get deck control…hmmm. Time to go shopping.

Update… I was able to get one full hour of ProRes 422 captured without a dropped frame.