monitoring from MacBook Pro
 

Pardon my ignorance, but having always been an Avid guy, I'm still at the "sticking my toes in the water" part of figuring out how I'll make an HVX and FCP5 work. At this point, my plan was to load FCP on a new MacBookPro, and have external mass SATA storage on a PCIexpress/34 card for the throughput. So the question I have is: what's the best way to get video out to a broadcast monitor, since a Kona would use the same PCIe slot that the external drives are on. (And while we're at it, since I don't need to worry about the capture side of things with P2 data transfer, is there a cheaper, video-out-only solution? Or would I regret not having Kona's additional RT processing power?)

Scott,

I think you've got your hardware confused. The MacBook Pro is not a tower, it's a laptop. You can't connect a KONA card to a laptop. PCI-X or PCIe slots are strictly the domain of towers.

As for Express Card/34 adapters the only thing I've seen so far (and it's not on the market yet) are CF card adapters, nothing to connect external drives - not yet anyway.

The video-out solution on a MacBook Pro is one of it's shortcomings; it's the reason why many of us are lamenting the loss of an S-Video out port.

Keep in mind the Universal version of FCP is not shipping yet and nobody knows just how it will react in the Rosetta environment in the MacBook Pro until users get it and have time to test it. I'd say you've got at least 4-6 months before that combination will have ample time to prove itself as a stable platform.

If you want to use a laptop-type configuration for capturing and to have video output options other than DVI connectivity you'd need a PowerBook, but get one fast since they're no longer in production and most retailers have or are running out of stock.

I was trying to do the DVCproHD firewire way yesterday. I couldn't get it to work. I had the HVX200 hooked up to the powerbook with the 1394 firewire cable. Then had the S-Video cable connected from the HVX200 a broadcast monitor. This was the set up that worked with the Canon XL2. But the xl2 had "VCR mode" where as the HVX has "Thumbnail" mode. I don't know what setting I have to have the HVX200 on to edit footage on my powerbook and see it back on my monitor, can anyone help me?

Didn't have my Mac hardware confused, but I did have my cards confused. Thanks. I knew that Kona was a PCIexpress, which I thought was the same as Express/34. Nope. Thanks for the heads-up on that.

I was aware of the usefulness of the current Powerbook, but thought the MacBookPro might have the same capability shortly with the availability of more 34 cards. (The Express34 external drive card is expected in the next 4-8 weeks, I'm told)

It will work the way you describe; you just have to turn the thumbnail screen off. There's a button on top of the camera that lets you do this.

Note: this will work for firewire input/s-video output. Won't work for component output.

Thanks Barry, I will try this..

wow, you'd think it would make more sense to also view via component out to a production monitor since this camera is mainly marketed as a HD camera. are there any other workarounds for realtime previews from fcp to a monitor w/ component inputs? barry, you think this can be easily remedied w/ a future firmware update? i know w/ a G5 tower, purchase an aja or decklink card to accomplish this but what about us powerbook users?

Yes, that would be great, we have a high def sony monitor and I am uncertain what the correct way to hook this up would be. I can always use an S.D monitor and edit in letter box box mode, but to edit and "see" HD would be great.

noah over at the cow forum says it is possible viewing w/ a hd monitor via component out. is this true? i have a sony pvm-14L5 which shows full rez hd so i'm wondering if i can have realtime previewing from final cut pro. i don't have the camera yet. anyone can confirm this? thanks.

yes it does have a component out... the camera comes with a new color code.. instead of red, white and yellow inputs for traditional SD video, the colors come in red, green and blue inputs...

This is the only image that i could find online.. although it doesn't look exactly like this it's really close..

http://bluejeanscable.com/store/rgbhv/hd153rca.jpg