Matrox CompressHD
So I just ordered the Matrox CompressHD card.
I was able to check it out at NAB, and even though my guess is that we will get the same kind of acceleration with some GPU acceleration with Snow Leopard, I still find the need to use a computer as a transcoding engine for proxy needs, ipod/iphone output, versioning for audio sweetening.
But is the near realtime performance sacrificing the quality we love from the very timeconsuming software transcoders?
So, what is more important? Speed or quality? My feeling is that I will say yes to the most speed as quality allows me. My quality curve has a knee, while speed doesn’t!
And of course, this does not compare to the ElGato TurboH.264HD unit I use to compress my DVDs to AppleTV friendly QuickTime files! 
hi,
interesting article. Would you recommend this card? what do you mean by the following. “And of course, this does not compare to the ElGato TurboH.264HD unit I use to compress my DVDs to AppleTV friendly QuickTime files”
how’s the quality of the CompressHD compared to the Elgato.
thanks and look forward to your reply.
Kevin.
Home Video Productions
Thanks for commenting.
I expect more quality from a H264 card made by Matrox. ElGato is fine, but Matrox has more professional functions. The Elgato Turbo H.264HD is not equipped with anything close to a Xilinx Spartan unit, so performance is significant.
I love the ease of use with the ElGato, but the Matrox board is already after a week of use showing awesome performance with some very DSP-hungry options turned on!