G5 setup for plasma output.
 

Hello,

I'm a Mac newbie. got a couple of questions.

My G5 has ADC and DVI out , where the DVI is hooked up to a cinema display.
The G5 is hooked up to a Panasonic DVC pro 50 deck, that has BNC out only.
I have a Plasma tv that takes in DVI , component , Scart , s-video .

My questions are :

1 ) what's the best way to hook up all the 3 ?

Do I ? - Get an ADC to DVI converter and use the plasma as a mirror display ? Or can this configuration be used as an extended desktop for the main cinema display ?

2 ) If I want both outputs, from the G5 direct, as well as the deck to play tapes to clients, what's the best way ?

3) when I hook up the bnc to my plasma with a bnc to rca converter, I find that the Final cut pro timeline playing off through firewire to the deck and onto the plasma screen, shows a video lag delay of a few seconds. Is there a way to get rid of this ?

Thank you for the response(s) .

Much appreciated.

I'm not real clear on what you're trying to do, but maybe this following will help.

Get an ADC to DVI adaptor. They are very inexpensive, probably $20 or less. That would allow you to connect the plasma or the cinema display to either output from your G5. I use this to connect a cinema display and a second LCD screen to my own G5.

With this setup your plasma screen will be a second monitor that shows an extended desktop, although I guess you can choose for it to be a mirror using the Displays pane in System Preferences if that's what you want.

I don't know anything about your deck so I really can't answer that. But does it offer component video output? If so then I suspect that will be the best way to connect it to the plasma screen. You might need three BNC to RCA adaptors to connect it to the plasma screen. Here in the US these can be purchased at "Radio Shack" for a couple dollars each.

I use a similar setup with my second LCD screen on my G5. If I go to the Audio/Video settings in FCP I can choose Digital Cinema Desktop Full Screen and use the LCD screen connected to the G5 via DVI as my preview monitor (if editing HDV for example). Or I can choose Apple Firewire from the Audio/Video settings and send video over firewire to either my camera or DVD recorder which are connected to the LCD screen via component video.

I'm not real sure what's going on with the delay through your deck. If using the deck, be sure your audio is also coming from the deck. If using audio directly from the computer and video from the deck, they will not be in sync. Also read Volume 1 Chapter 16 in your FCP manual, "External Video Monitoring." The section entitled "Compensating for Video Latency by Specifying a Frame Offset" may help.