Questions before buying a Production Monitor
 

I'm in the market for a (NTSC) production monitor to hook-up to my new XPS in addition to a M992 PC monitor I already have--for post production work. I have the ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256mb with tv out and dvi. I will be using Vegas as my NLE. Question: What inputs should I be looking for on a production monitor? Do they all have the same inputs? I don't want to get a professional monitor and find out this card won't hook into the monitor. And can someone suggest a 13-17 inch production monitor in the under $700 range? I only have two in mind at the moment: a Sony PVM-14L1 and a JVC TM-H1700GU model. I don't think they have blue check capabilities, but in this price range what 13-inch monitor does.

bump

I found that 'B' stock is a good way to buy a better monitor than one might otherwise be able to afford.

I purchased a 14" JVC with all the bells and whistles for around $800. It had a list price of around $1400 IIRC.

It is super.

Otherwise the little plastic case JVC monitors are hard to beat. About $300 new IIRC. If I werent' done with teaching until next year, I could go look at the model numbers for you. Bought a bunch about 2 years ago for camera monitors and editing stations. Not bad. Not as good as the expensive spread so If you are working for $, then the better monitor will do you some good.

Mostly they have composite and maybe S-video inputs. Fancier ones have SDI and component.

Just so I'm clear, since my video card has TV-out and DVI it will connect with any so-called professional production monitor, correct?

I won't need a DV-to-Analog box? I do have a DVI-VGA adapter that came with the PC.

Thanks for the reply

I could be wrong here, but the TV won't *really* work with Vegas. You can output to it, but Vegas doesn't use overlays as I recall and most modern cards route the overlays out the TV out. I guess you can route one of the displays to the TV out in it's entirety but that will not be as efficient, especially seeing as VEGAS won't scale the preview window to full screen.

You're better to go out firewire -> camera/DAC -> monitor.

Aaron

Aaron,

Thank you. Would the Canopus ADVC-100 be something you are referring to? Does it come highly regarded?


Dale

Dale, I don't have much experience with ADC unfortunately, but many people have mentioned the Canopus and I have no problem thinking that they'd be find for the job. You could of course, just use your camera as a deck.

Aaron

Would a simple solution be to buy a seperate TV card which has analoge outputs. I'm interested because I now run two CRT monitors off my ATI 9600xt,and I'm going to buy a post production monitor first of next year. I was thinking of buying a TV card and use that for Vegas to output to. I'm not sure I want to use a camera to bridge out to the monitor. If there is a firiwire/adapter that would be nice. Any other ideas on this?

You should probably get a cheap camcorder with analog-digital passthrough. The camcorder can act as a deck (saves head wear on your camera).

You should use a dual head video card (vga+dvi) to drive your dual computer monitors. Preview your video on the production monitor via firewire through a camera with analog outs or something like the ADVC-100 which only costs like $200.

Thank you for your reply. I guess I need to start hooking to afford what I'm going to buy next year. :}

I just bought the Sony PVM-14L1, and hot damn. This is a nice monitor for the money. You can't see the underscan area, which is the only complaint I have. That's a pretty big complaint actually, but Sony has to have a reason to jack up the price on their high-end monitors. Still, the picture is amazing. I had no idea the footage from my camcorder could look so sharp. Sturdy, steel cabinet too.

You're saying that monitor doesn't have underscan? I usually use an 8044Q in the field and use the underscan all the time. I think it better to not wind up with a fixture in the very edge of the frame these days because with the greater range of viewing applications you could see the whole picture beyond TV safe.

Sadly, yes, unless I'm missing something.

I've had the 14L for some time now. You are correct, it doesn’t have underscan.

But still, it’s a cracking monitor for the price.
Makes my XM2 footage look like digi beta...well not quite :P