Dual or trible videoscreen
 

I will purchase new PC gear for video editing and want to have 2x17" TFT lcd screens for editing and one TV-out.

I have noticed that Matrox have 3 graphic boards:
the P650 with dualhead and
P750 and Parhelia with triblehead (2XDVI and 1 Analog)
which I think will do the job.
Have somebody tried the Matrox and gained experience? Does it work excellent?

However Matrox is not the fastest or newest graphic card.
Does anybody know if some of the newer boards based on Radeon 9600/9800 or Geforce 5600/5900 or other make supports dual or trible screen?

Or do you throw 2 graphic boards in the PC?
What is the setup if dualhead is not supported by the board?

Which NLE are you using? Most/all will allow you to preview footage through DV output. With a camera/deck you can hook up a NTSC monitor for proper monitoring of video.

Some NLEs can take advantage of the video card's GPU for real-time effects (like a CPU) while others can't. However it's largely your CPU that affects how much real-time effects you get and your rendering speed.

A lot of the Nvidia and ATI cards support dual monitors. The Matrox cards are the most stable and the best for dual monitor output from what I gather.

By adding PCI video cards you can expand your desktop even more.

Glenn,

thank you for your comments on Matrox and Nvidia and ATI cards support of dual monitors.

I will use Vegas NLE, but haven't really started yet because my existing PC equipment is too powerless (400 Mhz PII) - new gear is under construction - high end.

Even if I hook up a PAL monitor for preview throgh DV out, I imagine that a dual monitor system will be an advantage - for instance a greater overview and more workspace for the different windows.

I am still wondering if I should stick to Matrox - the secure road. Or try a ATI, Nvidia or Geforce?

Having 2 computer monitors is definitely very nice to have.

Regarding TV-output, it isn't necessary if you go the firewire route. It might be advantageous to have but I don't have any experience with TV-outputs on video cards.

Vegas as far I as know does not use the video card to increase real-time capabilities so the 3d acceleration from ATI or Nvidia cards won't make your system faster. Boris Red for Vegas might do this, but it's expensive and most Vegas users don't use it.

A dual head card from ATI should be cheaper than the cheapest dual head Matrox card, although the Matrox should have nicer analog(VGA) output. I'm not too sure on the exact differences between those cards.

i have used both an old ati radeon 7500? card (only drawback is it only has one DVI out and the other is analog only) and a matrox p-650 card (both outputs are dvi)

the p-650 had some issues with overlay but it turned out to just be a setting in their drive that their tech support people DID NOT know about, but the canopus tech support person walked me through!

i use it with two nec/mitsubishi 17inch lcd's with digital inputs.

the matrox p-650 card was cheap and it definitely looks better to my eyes than the matrox card.

matthew

Hi Matthew

quote:
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the matrox p-650 card was cheap and it definitely looks better to my eyes than the matrox card.
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Am I right if I think you ment "better to my eyes than the Radeon Card"? ...because I don't understand that matrox p-650 looks better tnah the matrox card!

Does anyone out there has anyu experience with the matrox p-750? Is it similar to the p-650 but with trible head in stead of dual head?

yeah, i meant to say that for whatever reason, i noticed a bit of difference between the radeon and the matrox and i would rather use the matrox p-650

matthew

Hmm maybe I gave some misinformation on the Matrox cards. I don't think there's evidence that they are more stable than other vendor's video cards. They don't have a huge multi-monitor advantage over ATI/Nvidia unless you want three monitors (and even that has limitations with the exact combination of devices you can have). You should make sure your video card has dual DVI output so you get the better quality of the digital output.

The Matrox cards no longer have the best analog output not taking into accout the glyph antialiasing feature.

The Matrox has glyph antialiasing (unique feature I think) which antialiases lines and text. That would be useful for computer-assisted design work and mainly-text applications. If you're doing video editing work then it may not be that useful since you are staring at video most of the time.

This is what I gather from the Multimonitor Shootout at this site: http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2...n/index.x?pg=1