CompuServe Thread

FYI – MAX Matrox Animation Xpress, is an addon to certain models of the Animator Pro Card. Where are you located? Your local Matrox dealer,(I handle the Rocky Mtn States) should be able to tell you about MAX, if not, I can get you more information. Basically the MAX will take the single frames from the IllPro card and compress them into a stream to be played back real-time from your SCSI Hard Drive (That means you need one, and a fast one at that) The process works both ways. In and Out, and the system includes a program called MAX-EDIT whoch allow you to edit,extract,insert, and generally end up with a "non-linear animation editing system" There is a large following on the PAR here, so look for some ongoing discussions as each side postures for their own position. IMHO I see a place for both systems, based on level of use, type of application, desire for quality and the ability to look at the future. MSRP for a MAX w/ Illuminator Pro runs from $5995 – $6995. Private EMAIL gets you street info. Regards Jim Pope PS. to speed up your card, try Dual 32 bit frame buffers and 16 bit mode.

James, I'll take a little different approach in how I'll describe the differences between the products (I've had a lot of practice lately <g>). PAR vs MAX (basic differences) The simplest way of looking at these two devices is that the PAR is a "single function device", which is designed from the "get-go" to do one thing very well (and it does). That is playing animaitons is realtime from a dedicated HDD. The MAX on the other hand is really an add-on to a high quality "frame buffer" which has an internal TBC, keyer, etc. … the Illuminator Pro. Therefore, you can run other programs on the IllPro like Inscriber Charater Generation, Lumena, Tempra Pro (paint programs), HiRex QFX (paint and graphics .. comming soon). So if all you want is animation playback -> PAR … want to do more -> MAX PAR vs MAX (image quality and playback length) The image quality of the two systems is basically the same. The MAX does have the potential to use 2 SCSI devices in parallel and double the performance of the PAR .. but of course you would need to large HDD's to do this feat. The PAR uses its own HDD and the only ones available at this time are 1.0 GB and 1.7 GB (at 3MB/sec that gives you about 6 min and 10 min). The MAX uses a system SCSI HDD (non-dedicated) and the sky's the limit with capacity (we are now carrying the Seagate 9GB drive at under $5k .. would provide 54 min of video and animation!). PAR vs MAX (software and interface) Both products provide an excellent interface. The MAX-Edit program has some very nice features that the PAR does not though. One of the most important is the "strip editing" functions. By this I mean that you can take a series of JPEG streams and in a "script" join them, trim them, etc .. without recompiling a new JPEG stream or cutting segments and pasting them together. In otherwords, with the MAX you can tell the system .. start play JPEG-1 from frame 10-400, cut to JPEG-2 frame 0-500, etc .. and play that out in realtime .. without editing the originals .. or creating a new JPEG file. If you don't like what you see, edit the script and press PLAY. In other words the MAX acts more like a non-linear, cuts-only editing system. PAR vs MAX (hardware and capabilities) Since the MAX is based on the IllPro, digitizing video is standard . the PAR its an option with the TBC IV board. The PAR supports MII directly, the MAX doesn't. The MAX requires an EISA MB, Adaptec EISA SCSI controller and FSCSI-II HDD's (shared on the main system). The PAR requires its own IDE HDD (not shared with system) and will work in most any ISA motherboard. Ang