If you're a professional content creator delivering H.264 files for Blu-ray, the web, and mobile devices, you need a fast, flexible, high quality encoding workhorse. Matrox CompressHD is the first implementation of Matrox MAX technology in an amazingly affordable H.264 accelerator card.

CompressHD lets you create H.264 files, for resolutions ranging from iPod to HD, faster than real-time. It works in systems with or without a video I/O device and extends the life of your current system investment, giving you the power you need to deliver today's premium H.264 formats faster than ever. This low profile, half-length PCIe x1 card fits into Mac Pros, Intel-based Apple Xserve systems, and PCs. Get yourself a Matrox CompressHD card and deliver your projects in a fraction of the time!

Faster than real-time creation of H.264 files
Matrox MAX technology saves you time. You’ll spend less time rendering and more time being creative and productive.

Specialized, dedicated hardware processing
Matrox MAX offloads CPU intensive encoding tasks to a dedicated hardware engine to crunch out your deliverables in record time for Blu-ray, the web, and mobile devices, without sacrificing quality. The Matrox MAX hardware engine offers sophisticated encoding capabilities such as:

• Baseline and main profile encoding algorithms
• CABAC entropy encoding for high quality
• CAVLC entropy encoding for mobile devices
• High quality scaling with de-interlacing
• Color space conversions
  • HD to SD
  • SD to HD
  • RGB to YUV
• GOP structure controls
• Bitrate controls from 100 Kbps to 50 Mbps

Direct integration with professional encoding applications
Matrox MAX technology taps into Apple Compressor on the Mac and Adobe Media Encoder on the PC to let you quickly and easily create H.264 files for Blu-ray, PS3, Apple TV, YouTube, Flash, web formats, and mobile devices including iPhone, and iPod. You can take advantage of all the familiar settings in your favorite application, use the Matrox MAX presets or customize your own. As an added benefit, the Matrox MAX technology lets you directly export to higher quality H.264 Blu-ray compliant files from Compressor. A growing list of presets are available including:

• HD 1080i, 1080p, 720p
• NTSC, PAL
• Apple TV
• iPod
• iPhone
• YouTube

Customizable Encoding Formats
On the Mac, Matrox MAX technology is also accessible to all applications that support the QuickTime codec component such as Final Cut Pro and QuickTime. You get delivery of H.264 files, at resolutions for iPod to HD, directly from the application.

Efficient Blu-ray disc creation
Matrox MAX technology lets you create Blu-ray H.264 video files, directly from Compressor on the Mac or Adobe Media Encoder on the PC, that can be authored in Adobe Encore CS4 or Roxio Toast 10 and burned without re-encoding. To create a Blu-ray disc without Matrox MAX technology, you typically rely on your authoring application and your system CPU to re-encode your project into a Blu-ray compliant file. On an 8-core Mac Pro, this process takes about 90 minutes for a 20-minute project. With Matrox MAX, you can create a H.264 Blu-ray compliant file directly from Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder at faster than real-time speed. That file can then be used by your authoring software without the extra re-encoding step. On an 8-core Mac Pro equipped with Matrox MAX technology, this process takes less than 18 minutes for the same 20-minute project.

Support for Apple Qmaster
You can take advantage of multiple systems with a Matrox MAX processing engine for distributed encoding across a network using Apple Qmaster on the Mac.

System Requirements

• PCIe x1 slot
• Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 or higher and Apple Compressor or applications that support the QuickTime codec component such as Final Cut Pro and QuickTime.
• Windows XP (32-bit), and Windows Vista (32- and 64-bit)