Matrox and Quicktime issues.

Back in, oooh, 1893 Apple released a Quicktime update that broke Matrox MXO devices everywhere. Oh sure, the device still output a signal to the monitor. But for some idiotic reason the MXO calibration software now crashes each time it is started.

It has been over a hundred years since the Quicktime update was released, and Matrox still haven't managed to release an updated driver for the MXO. This, plainly, is unforgivable.

Yes, yes, I know all the arguments about not updating existing systems if they are working, but that 'advice' hardly helps people who need the latest software for compatibility with others, or those who have bought brand new Apple systems with an MXO, both of which will come loaded with the latest updates already installed.

Matrox is notoriously slow at releasing driver updates, but in this case they have overstepped the boundary. The poor old support staff on the Matrox forums must be getting pretty damn tired at having to deflect what is now becoming very irate criticism of the company's sloth like response to all of this.

I could be wrong, but I get the sneaking suspicion that there is more at work here than merely updating a driver. Knowing how some large companies work it wouldn't surprise me at all if there was some kind of dumb management decision that is stopping the release of the driver. Perhaps for example they do not, for some insane reason, want to release a bug fix and instead want to wait until the next major driver is finished. They did this once before for a couple of serious bugs in the first set of drivers. We had to wait so long for that first driver update that other video professionals had to dig us MXO users up at an archeological dig.

As a result it is left for the MXO support staff to attempt to keep the hungry dogs at bay with stock responses such as "Our technicians are working on it". Of course I could be entirely wrong about my theory of management decisions. But it is extremely hard to fathom exactly how some of the best programmers and video technicians in the world can take over two months to figure out what is causing a single serious bug.

Come on Matrox, sort it out. You have already lost sales because of this!

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