Matrox's Extio Reviewed

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Matrox isn't as dead as some of us thought. This box of tricks lets you connect four displays up to a PC that's 250 meters away. All the graphic data is sent down a fiber optic cable to the Matrox box that then connects to the screens. To the end user it feels like they're working directly on the PC, but the PC can be locked away somewhere safe."

Optical Elegance

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

How elegant it seems to me, sending visual information in packets of light. It reminds me of seeds of some beautiful flower which instantly sprout when planted.

I wonder, if one were to send a one minute stream of uncompressed video data, would more photons be required for the transmission over the fiber, or in the final display to the user/viewer?

Re:Matrox never went away

[pipingguy]

They're from Montreal, what did you expect?

Kidding aside, I left Matrox after G450, they knew they couldn't compete in the consumer-priced 3D market (nVidia just spent too much money and ATI went chasing nVidia). It was sad to see them go.

They seem to know their market, it's just not you that's in it.

Re:I totally need this!

[Opportunist]

Instead of forking over 1200 quid for the card, take 300 of those to get a good card and use the other 900 (or less) to make the computer silent. It is possible to create a computer that doesn't generate much (audible) noise. You gotta take the right components (like, avoid those CPU fans that resemble starting jets), and you might have to make a few compromises, but it's quite possible. And it needn't mean you're taking a slower machine.

Just make sure you connect that power led. I forgot it, and that's a serious problem with my crate. I don't hear whether it's on or off...

Re:Matrox never went away

[Anonymous Coward]

removing all documentation however does seem like a case of taking all their toys and going home in a huff. Perhaps not the most mature course of action.

Without a doubt, and I think that's what chaffs the most. There are a lot of old Matrox cards still floating around out there and Matrox basically decided that they didn't want to support them any more, and no one else should be able to either. Even after all this time, it still strikes me as a rather odd thing to have done: they pretty much went from an Open Source friendly company with a responsive DevRel team to a closed shop overnight.

Of course that's not to say the documentation isn't available from other sources, but it's not legal to redistribute the Matrox owned documentation. Matrox have never commented on it, to the best of my knowledge, but it's still technically illegal.

Marketing department alive and kicking

[valderievaldera]

Matrox being dead or not dead, whatever some of us thought, at least Matrox's marketing department is able to make excellent use of the powerful /. publicity-tool "post [your product name here] as an anonymous coward".

Re:From the article

[Rmorph]

Obviously you've never worked in a music studio.

The listening environment needs to be equally quiet: No point in having high frequency fan noise coming from the corner whan attempting to de-ess (take the top of) high frequency sibilant vocal sounds, or try and place a hihat in a mix when you have the whistle of a pc-fan under your desk. Not to mention if you need to overdub from within the control room (quick fixing). A lot of artists like to sit in front of the speakers: by phase reversing one side of a stereo speaker while sending a mono mix, you get an almost total noise cancelling effect: Freddy Mercury used to sing with PA speakers directed at him this way - Personally I have never quite got the hang of it.

Lastly. a lot of project studio owners are musicians themselves. They need to be able to record from the control room.
Summary: The control room needs to be a noise controlled area also - not DEAD silent, so much as noticeably silent. a 40db powersupply is a buzzkill in a control room.

Re:Uhm...

[PopeRatzo]

It takes a big man to admit that he made a mistake.

Re:Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these

[shokk]

So the laptops that are potentially carrying viruses are put into the room where all your protected systems are? I see...
Not wise, unless you have a separate network for the laptops that is firewalled away from the servers.

Re:Other solutions

[kenh]

THe bandwidth of this unit far exceeds anything you could do with wireless - four 1920x1200 digital displays, keyboard, mouse, audio, and USB ports over fiber...

This unit is designed and PERFECT for financial "turrets" where traders have up to four screens on their desk at one time... This solution allows them to get the computer hardware out of the turret, allowing them to pack more traders in a given space.

This isn't for the home market, even the home "enthusiast" market, nor even the insane, "gotta have it" home market - this is for certain users with very specific needs where cost isn't really an object...

As for the price, this unit includes the four port video card, that helps explain some of the cost (for example this [provantage.com] Matrox card is $750 and provides 4 video outputs...

Re:An Ideal use for these is...

[kenh]

Exactly - even though this only displaces a single PC, you can make that PC quite powerful, and even a 1U rackmount server ot blade (with requisite PCIe 1x slot available) could provide a very dense solution. If a blade dies, move the fiber connection to a live blade, and you're back up in minutes.

Re:Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these

[Ash Vince]

Don't know why this has been modded insightful. Regardless of where the laptops are physically they would probably be connected to the same network or subnet anyway. It's not like where a PC is physically located has any bearing on what network you would connect it to nowadays.

Re:Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these

[TheLink]

Yes, but who is allowed to carry laptops vs who is allowed to enter the server room?

Are the people carrying laptops really going to wait for the poor "server room" person to carry their laptops in and hook them up?

After all he did say it's "for security reasons".

I'd just let people use their laptops wherever they are on a separate network, turn on various security stuff on the switches etc.

Plus if I were in Sales or some other not-IT dept, I wouldn't even want me or stuff assigned to me to have been in the server room and risk even being blamed for bad stuff happening in the server room.

Imagine if the Sony batteries in a laptop blew up while it was in the server room.

Re:The grandparent has it right

[Just Some Guy]

There was no 'commodity hardware' in the seventies.

Exactly my point. You had to pony up some series cash to get into such a system back then.

You can find lots of stuff on multiple screens by just googling.

Multiple remote screens with all that functionality?

A dumb terminal replaces the Matrox hardware for much cheaper.

Lots of people don't want dumb terminals. They want nice fat systems for whatever reason. This gives them that option.

Re:Ah, yes Matrox.

[Slashcrap]

I swore off Matrox in 1995 after spending $400 on a card, all to find out there was no way to get X running in more than 16 color mode without spending several hundred more dollars on Accelerated-X licenses at the time.

You got X running with 4bit colour in 1995 and you're complaining?

That's a bit harsh. It's not like it was the only card at the time that was a nightmare to get running.

Complaining about shitty X drivers for ATI cards in 2007 is fine. Complaining about shitty X drivers for Matrox cards in 1995 not quite the same. Especially when anyone running an alternative OS at that time should have done their research before spending $400.