Thursday, October 21st 2021

Matrox Celebrates 45 Years of Technology Innovation

This year, Matrox proudly celebrates its 45th anniversary. Innovation has been central to the brand's identity since its inception, and continual evolution has propelled Matrox through decades of technological and industry change. Its two divisions - Matrox Imaging and Matrox Video - enjoy a longevity that far outpaces many other major players in the pro AV/IT, broadcast, industrial imaging, and machine vision markets.

Continued innovative product releases evince Matrox's sustained market leadership; in 2021 alone, the company launched a highly anticipated IoT edge device, released new software tools that leverage deep learning capabilities, unveiled next-generation multi-4Kp60 encoders, and continues to advance work in remote production and champion open standards in the AV-over-IP realm.
Innovative products with transformative powers
Since its founding in 1976, Matrox has borne witness to, and helped propel, major technological shifts. Matrox explored the end-user consumer market before shifting its corporate focus to specialized professional markets, including digital signage, media and broadcast, enterprise communications, manufacturing, medical imaging, and factory automation. A storied history of innovation highlights the company's pioneering product launches and expansive market reach.

Matrox Video's focus in recent years is the expansion of their standards-based uncompressed, lightly compressed, and intelligently compressed product portfolio for content capture and processing, visualization, real-time encoding, recording, live streaming, IP KVM extension and switching, decoding, and AV distribution over IP. Greater demand for SMPTE ST 2110 and IPMX-based open standards implementations are driving the next wave of technological innovation to support new and emerging performance media-over-IP workflows and applications. Matrox Video's broadcast OEM products meanwhile, continue to form the basis of broadcast graphics systems, channel-in-a-box systems, video servers, and other PC- and cloud-based video solutions used worldwide.

Matrox Imaging continues to revolutionize its offerings for deep learning training and inference, 3D imaging, and vision guidance for robotics applications - all to meet surging demand from automation markets. With industry demand for AI-driven technology and ever-more-capable vision systems, Matrox Imaging is extending the speed, fidelity, and functionality of their vision product offerings, while ensuring the ease-of-use and interoperability that customers expect from a key industry leader.

Foundations of the future
Through the decades, the organization's mission remains the same - dedication to exceptional engineering and the highest manufacturing standards, coupled with careful attention to interoperability, industry standards, and protecting their customer's investments.

Core values center on longevity and excellence, so when Lorne M. Trottier became sole owner of Matrox in 2019, he oversaw a complete corporate recommitment to its employees and their well-being. The average employee lifespan at Matrox is more than 12 years, a clear indication of the community spirit that thrives in this organization

"This is a big milestone for Matrox, and on the heels of the past few years, it is a tremendous achievement that I am pleased to celebrate with every single member of the Matrox team," says Lorne Trottier, President and Co-Founder, Matrox. "I am exceptionally proud of Matrox, the values we espouse, and our committed drive for excellence. Our mission is the same now as it was back in 1976: building exceptional products that solve real-world problems and creating technology that empowers customers to reach their goals. I raise a glass to the people and minds that have helped steer Matrox to its current position, as we look to another 45 years of ambitious ideas."

Source: Matrox
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24 Comments on Matrox Celebrates 45 Years of Technology Innovation

#2
TheLostSwede
News Editor
DeathtoGnomesCongrats Matrox!
It's kind of insane that the samer person has been in charge of the company for so long.
If only they were still doing their own graphics processors, but I guess it got way too expensive really fast for them.
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#3
DeathtoGnomes
TheLostSwedeIf only they were still doing their own graphics processors, but I guess it got way too expensive really fast for them.
you mean trying to compete with 3dfx? yea they were trying to develop in two different directions.
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#4
pavle
What technology? What innovation? Parhelia lacked hidden surface removal and so they went into oblivion again. Curious though is that noone copied their excellent/non-demanding 16x FAA (fragment anti-aliasing)...
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#5
TheLostSwede
News Editor
DeathtoGnomesyou mean trying to compete with 3dfx? yea they were trying to develop in two different directions.
Why just with 3dfx? There were plenty other players still around back then.
pavleWhat technology? What innovation? Parhelia lacked hidden surface removal and so they went into oblivion again. Curious though is that noone copied their excellent/non-demanding 16x FAA (fragment anti-aliasing)...
I guess you haven't seen what they've done since then?
Posted on Reply
#6
Zyll Goliat
I always loved Matrox cards....Even today I been using P690 in my main rig as my second GPU to supply my side monitors....I also recently get Matrox Xenia and did a bit of testing on this rare card that is been used in medical industry.....I Also wish if they do comeback into the 3D even if they probably could not compete with the best&fastest AMD&Nvidia maybe they could do well in the low end market...especially this days when gamers desperately asking for low and mid range GPU's......
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#7
pavle
TheLostSwedeI guess you haven't seen what they've done since then?
Not much is my best guess or they would be better known among the gamers. Note that I had their G400 16MB card back in the day and the picture was very pleasant but because it wasn't 32MB, 32-bit colors were useless (slow) and I switched it for a Voodoo3 3000. Forget Matrox, we'd need 3Dfx! :)
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#8
Slizzo
I have fond memories of hacking my Matrox Mystique to run Quake 2 in OpenGL. That was a fun ride back then.

It is too bad that they stopped making gaming GPUs. But as they've survived this long they obviously made the right choice to stay out of that market.
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#9
TheLostSwede
News Editor
pavleNot much is my best guess or they would be better known among the gamers. Note that I had their G400 16MB card back in the day and the picture was very pleasant but because it wasn't 32MB, 32-bit colors were useless (slow) and I switched it for a Voodoo3 3000. Forget Matrox, we'd need 3Dfx! :)
Wow, that's not biased at all.
They pretty much own the trading floor market and a lot of other niche markets, plus they make a lot of non graphics/3D video products.
So yes, they haven't done anything in the consumer market, but they sure have done a lot of other things that is making them money.
Posted on Reply
#10
dir_d
TheLostSwedeWow, that's not biased at all.
They pretty much own the trading floor market and a lot of other niche markets, plus they make a lot of non graphics/3D video products.
So yes, they haven't done anything in the consumer market, but they sure have done a lot of other things that is making them money.
A lot of servers use Matrox IP for basic VGA output as well.
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#11
nienorgt
I have no idea on what you are doing these days Matrox, but congratulations for curving your niche and stat Canadian owned!
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#12
TheLostSwede
News Editor
dir_dA lot of servers use Matrox IP for basic VGA output as well.
Really? I thought that was mostly ASpeed.
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#13
Fouquin
pavleNot much is my best guess or they would be better known among the gamers. Note that I had their G400 16MB card back in the day and the picture was very pleasant but because it wasn't 32MB, 32-bit colors were useless (slow) and I switched it for a Voodoo3 3000. Forget Matrox, we'd need 3Dfx! :)
Ah yes because 'GaMeRs' are the only market that exists in the whole entire world for graphics accelerators... Some of their original product lines for AV and video compositing are still the primary drivers for them. They make a ton of specialized equipment for medical and engineering firms too. Big ticket items.
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#14
Wirko
What GPUs do they use? In products that even need a GPU, of course.
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#16
TheLostSwede
News Editor
WirkoWhat GPUs do they use? In products that even need a GPU, of course.
They've used both AMD and Nvidia.
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#17
DeathtoGnomes
TheLostSwedeWhy just with 3dfx? There were plenty other players still around back then.
Back then competitors changed, it seemed like, every few months with some now company and some new card. 3dfx was their main competition target at that time. It was Mystique vs Voodoo (I had one of each). In the end Matrox just couldnt keep up at the pace the market was growing.
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#18
TheLostSwede
News Editor
DeathtoGnomesBack then competitors changed, it seemed like, every few months with some now company and some new card. 3dfx was their main competition target at that time. It was Mystique vs Voodoo (I had one of each). In the end Matrox just couldnt keep up at the pace the market was growing.
I seem to remember a lot of people (who could afford it) paring a Matrox card with a 3dfx card, since Matrox had by far the best 2D graphics of a consumer card at the time and 3dfx did the best 3D cards.
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#19
trsttte
FouquinAh yes because 'GaMeRs' are the only market that exists in the whole entire world for graphics accelerators... Some of their original product lines for AV and video compositing are still the primary drivers for them. They make a ton of specialized equipment for medical and engineering firms too. Big ticket items.
I mean sure, they fill the niche that's not worth it for the bigger players I guess. But I wouldn't call it innovation in the slightest, they're kind of limping along unnoticed providing proved solutions for markets were reliable is a lot more important than performance. That's not innovation but at least they're still alive, can't say the same thing of other like 3dfx
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#20
dir_d
TheLostSwedeReally? I thought that was mostly ASpeed.
I exaggerated a bit Dell used them a lot in their servers especially the R72x series.
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#21
Patriot
TheLostSwedeReally? I thought that was mostly ASpeed.
Yeah G200/ew died off after ivybridge. Pretty good run considering it was first released in 1998...

Their innovation is in software much more than hardware.
Hardware side... they are pretty solidly rebranding AMD and Nvidia hardware on the workstation side.
Those rebrands have always been pretty lack luster on price/performance.

They do make some custom cards for IPV streaming and encode/decode. They aren't terribly special, good or price competitive.
In my mind, innovation means, first in field, or better than competitors, this is not what I see at matrox.
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#22
stimpy88
It's sad when I think of where they were back when the Millennium cards were all the rage. They are lucky to still be trading.
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#23
sam_86314
TheLostSwedeReally? I thought that was mostly ASpeed.
My home server has a Matrox G200eW onboard. It's running a Sandy Bridge-era Supermicro board.

It's literally only good for displaying text, which is fine since I only needed it for the initial OS install and sometimes for troubleshooting. SSH for everything else.

I tried running Windows 10 on it when I first got the board just for shits and giggles, and it was terrible (low framerate and stuck at a low resolution).

The board has two large-ish chips from Nuvoton, one of which has a Hynix memory chip near it. I'd assume that one has that GPU on it.

EDIT: Can confirm in the manual, the Nuvoton WPCM450R has the G200eW on it, and the memory chip near it appears to be 16MB of DDR2.

Posted on Reply
#24
TheLostSwede
News Editor
sam_86314My home server has a Matrox G200eW onboard. It's running a Sandy Bridge-era Supermicro board.

It's literally only good for displaying text, which is fine since I only needed it for the initial OS install and sometimes for troubleshooting. SSH for everything else.

I tried running Windows 10 on it when I first got the board just for shits and giggles, and it was terrible (low framerate and stuck at a low resolution).

The board has two large-ish chips from Nuvoton, one of which has a Hynix memory chip near it. I'd assume that one has that GPU on it.

EDIT: Can confirm in the manual, the Nuvoton WPCM450R has the G200eW on it, and the memory chip near it appears to be 16MB of DDR2.

All replaced by Aspeed these days. Same functionally with some added features.
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