Maybe a newbie question but......
 

After several years of editing with my Pinnacle DV500 "real-time" capture card I'm thinking about ditching it. The only thing I will miss if the fact it has a break-out-box that I can connect to an editing monitor. My question is, if I decided to ditch the DV500 and just edit via software without hardware NLE support. Is there still a way to connect an editing monitor. Sure I know some video cards have an output but that'll ouput the entire desktop and not just my "program" view of my timeline. How do you guys do it? Thanks in advance!

Matrox have a card that will connect to a TV/monitor and only display your preview window. The card is called the Parhelia and comes in a either 128MB or 256MB version

The Parahelia is a good solution. Otherwise, depending on your NLE, you might want to look into a Canopus advc100. THis is a transcoder. It converts analog to digital and vice-versa, while sending a signal to your tv/monitor. Costs about 285 bucks.

Another possibility is to leave your camera attached through
firewire and on and connect your monitor to the analog output
of your camera.

Well currently I'm using a 13" Television as my "editing monitor"....a far cry from a real-deal NTSC Editing Monitor. What's the benefit of a true NTSC monitor- color calibration? If I were to invest in a true editing monitor are there any special connections I should take into account or do they connect the same way a television would with A/V cables? Lastly with editing monitors do you run the same risk you do with televisions- ie Having them too close to your CRT disrupts it and causes interference due to the two refresh of both the CRT and Television?....or is it that much different from a Television that you could have your editing monitor butt up against the side of your CRT and have no interference.

The Parahelia I think has the most monitor support in a PC graphics card out in the market at 3. It is also not too expensive. If you want the monitor support and don't care much about your DX9 performance this card would be ideal. I saw on a a computer show for $330, I think it lists for $500.

So the Parhelia only outputs the timeline (project) view and not the entire screen?! Dare I ask how it does this?! And does it work with multible NLEs? I'm using Premiere.

I really should build a second computer- I have a gaming/editing computer. So my videocard etc is geared towards gaming (Gforce 4 ti 4600). I do have the DV500 capture semi"real-time" card. But I'm thinking it might be the actuall reason for some of premiere's quirkiness at times. When I do some weird stuff with footage, ie reverse motion (-100%) then repeat it with a bunch of virtua clips it doesn't play right. Granted there aren't many times, if any, I need a clip to be played in reverse and repeated via virtua clips on the timeline- but I'd like to know I can without Premeire acting buggy.