Jack Kelly

As with everyone else on this forum, I'm looking for a decent monitoring setup for my needs and my budget. About a quarter of my work is currently output at HD, the rest is SD. I enjoy and take pride in grading so getting colour accuracy is important.

The rather bizarre wish-list I've come up with is to get TWO monitors for monitoring my video:

1) A Dell 2408 1920x1200 (the new one which is getting great reviews and has lots of inputs)

2) A 2nd hand Sony BVM 9044D with SDI

I'm planning to drive both monitors simultaneously from my Decklink HD extreme. When I'm grading, I'll tell my Decklink to deliver SD to both monitors. When I'm doing compositing or checking for focus I'll turn off my Sony and deliver a full 1920x1080 image to the Dell.

As an added bonus, neither monitor is spectacularly heavy or bulky so I can throw one or both in the car for use on set.

One of my concerns is what the Decklink does to the HD colour space when downconverting to SD on-the-fly. I'm fairly sure it does a sensible conversion. Not sure though?

Am I crazy? Or am I right in thinking that this setup offers fairly good bang-for-the-buck? I should get good colour reproduction from the Sony and I get pixel-for-pixel 1920x1080 on the Dell and the whole package is both more versatile and far cheaper than getting a "proper" HD grading monitor.

Many thanks,
Jack

__________________
Jack Kelly's filmmaking website
AfterCarbon.org