HD Monitors and Video Cards
 

Basic questions about video cards with HDTV out (aka Nvidia 7600GT and new models):

1) What are the video editing benefits of the higher end video cards ($150+). Besides dual dvi and HDTV out what advantage does a more expensive card have? Since I'm not a gamer, I want to make sure my money well spent. My primary interest is to find a inexpensive solution to monitor my HD movies.

2) I've read to monitor HDV is problematic because it takes too much processing power to convert the HDV mpeg-2 codec from digital back out to analog. So do these video cards with HDTV out overcome this problem? What advantage if any do specialty card such as Kona or Blackmagic offer over these video cards?

3) Does the codec I'm using to edit the source video have a significant impact on monitoring? For example HDV vs AIC vs uncompressed? For example, would using uncompressed video allow me to monitor it on HDTV without any expensive add on cards?

4) Do I need a special Monitor such a Sony Brava to connect to HDTV capable video card or Blackmagic card? Since these cards send out an analog signal it would seem that it should work with any HDTV? I'm not really sure what input connection I'm looking for in a HDTV set.

5) Besides the HDTV input connection is color accuracy all that important. By that I mean my primary out put will be either to DVD or a digital project, not for broadcast. I have no idea or control over what brand of TV they'll be viewing it. So is there a point to spending extra money on a better HDTV that has a fantastic color accuracy when in the end the customer won't be viewing it on my TV?

1- There are different types of ""video"" cards.

a- There are computer video cards like ATI Radeons and Nvidia Geforce (and also Matrox Parhelia). These can provide dual monitors, or triple monitors with the Parhelia, or you can use two of them for four monitors.

If your NLE does GPU acceleration, a particular brand of card may be necessary. The faster gaming video cards will speed up GPU acceleration.

b- Workstation cards like Nvidia Quadro and ATI Fire. These only make sense for very particular applications. Otherwise they are overpriced versions of the gaming stuff.

c- Hardware acceleration cards like the Matrox RTX.10. These tend to only work for a particular NLE.

d- Video input/output cards made by Aja, Blackmagic, Bluefish, etc.

These provide HD-SDI in/out and/our component in/out, possibly in addition to other types of input and output. To feed a HD broadcast monitor, it's generally best to send it a HD-SDI signal.

3- The best way to monitor 4:2:2 uncompressed HD is via HD-SDI to a broadcast monitor. You'll need an Aja or Blackmagic or similar card to do that.

4- The Bravia is a consumer monitor (and from what I've seen not that good). It likely messes with the image and delivers inaccurate color.

5- Yes. Some consumer monitors do weird things to the image. They might scale the image up to fit the screen, with all sorts of scaling artifacts.

A broadcast monitor will be far less frustrating to work with.

If you are on a budget, consider using a computer monitor for monitoring. Vegas can play HD on a secondary monitor... FCP has a feature like this too. Get a 1920x1200 computer monitor to do this with.

Glenn thx for the reply. BTW, I'm using FCP.

Since I'm coming from a SD/CRT mindset I'm confused about monitoring HD. In the old days it was obvious that CRT TV would display colors and brightness completely different than a Computer LCD so you would want to monitor it on CRT TV. But with HD your assuming they'll be watching it on a LCD HDTV so since the computer screen is LCD then why does it need to be monitored? To make things more complicated what if the person watches my HD movie on a CRT TV?

How much money is it worth if any to put into monitoring system if you don't know how some one will view it? Don't get me wrong I want to achieve the best possible product but I'm not clear on what path makes sense. When you start considering $1,000+ options to just monitor color, the cost/benefit ratio starts to get out of whack.

Ok let's say I go the budget route of using a 1920x1200 computer monitor for monitoring. What am I gaining vs watching the movie on my current 19" LCD monitor? Are you purposing that use it as a 2nd monitor that I only use to preview my HD movie or can I use it to both edit and monitor? Also should I get an LCD monitor that takes HDMI input or uses the standard computer DVI?

The computer screen will have different primaries than a broadcast monitor. By primaries I mean red, green, and blue. If you display a 255 0 0 RGB red on your monitor, it can look different than the reference standard red. (The standards specify this in chromaticity co-ordinates.)

The transfer function of the monitor may also not be compensated for accordingly. LCD monitors inherently have a s-shaped transfer function/curve... a good broadcast monitor will calibrate this away.

2- You can get a computer monitor with at least 1920x1080 pixels (e.g. 1920x1200) and with a DVI connection.

Consumer TVs tend to take HDMI in (though some have DVI in?) and do wacky things to the image. Whereas computer monitors don't do wacky things to the image (e.g. sharpening).

Hi Pete.......
 

A computer monitor (LCD) is just that, designed for computer applications, many of which do not require great (or even any) colour rendition nor accuracy. My Dell 24" is great with HD content but compared to a Bravia 46" HD telly is totally out of whack. I have tried every adjustment available and cannot get it anywhere near the Bravia.

Is the Bravia a wonderfully accurate studio monitor? Nope, it's a great LCD telly which "tells it as it is" as far as most people are concerned in the privacy of their living rooms.

When editing my video, I use the Dell to get me the content etc, but if I want to know what it's going to look like "in the real world" I watch it on the Bravia - there simply is NO comparison between the two.

As for DVI/ HDMI, most decent cards nowadays o/p DVI, which is what your primary pc monitor will be connected to. If you're lucky, a second screen with HDMI will work off a DVI/ HDMI connection and provide an excellent second choice. If you're not so lucky your DVI / HDMI link won't work ( a considerable number don't) so your big screen Bravia (whatever) is back on Component (which is good, just not as good as HDMI).

If you even have an inkling of a thought you might want to watch HD DVD/ Blu ray on the big screen from your pc, then the only choice has to be a card with HDMI/ HDCP built in. Even if you don't, the HDMI connect card has a far better chance of working with your HDMI connect telly if you just want to use it as a second screen for editing. (There are VERY few tellies with a DVI connection).

Of course, the bottom line is - if your budget really is that tight that a second screen is a no no, just get a 24" Dell etc and go for it. Don't think of using it for changeing colour (but hey, lets get real here, if you've shot it right, WB it right and not done anything daft, how much colour are you really gonna want to change?). Strangely, the camera manufacturers seem to have gone out of their way to ensure that the picture you see when shooting is pretty well the picture you'll show when the smokes cleared.

If you want to set up as a rival to the BBC, CBS, Fox, etc etc then you really need their sort of budgets to get the candy off the top shelf.

Just my 2 cents, and all subject to IMPO.


CS

After reading your replies I understand my priorities:
1. to view my HD movie full screen real time in FCP.
2. to correct for brightness.

The brightness is more important to me than color, because like you said as long as you've properly white balanced the camera you should be fine. When I film dance recitals I'm always trying to achieve the brightest output without washing out the highlights and bringing out the gain noise in the shadows and mids.

Anyways back to 1920x1200 computer monitor solution. Help me understand how this would work and what I'd need to get. Right now in FCP I can preview SD realtime via firewire to my deck then to a CRT TV. So whats need to achieve same result with HD?

edit: I just read that in FCP6 you can preview HD via firewire a long as you cpu can handle it or use a less intensive codec.

It's the desktop cinema desktop preview or something like that.

I have never heard that.

Though you should be able to preview HD "over firewire" if you have a Aja IOHD and send ProRes over it. It's a proprietary signal over firewire.

2- A lot of consumer TVs do wacky things to the image and do not tell it like it is in my experience. The colors also tend to be wacky.

There are no good LCD HD monitoring solutions for under $12-14K, "good" meaning good enough (and even these have problems) to do consistent color grading. There is a Sony HD CRT that costs $56K.

So I would not agonize too much about the best choice at the low end, they are all not so good.

The general problem with less expensive LCDs is that the contrast ratios are such that they lie about blacks . . . which could be critical to adjusting high contrast dance recital footage. A perfectly reasonable choice is to use a good quality consumer HDTV if that is what the majorty of your audience will see your work on. Of course people can look at DVDs on their computers too, but it's hard to optimise for both HDTVs and computer screens.

I've been using fcp all these years and never knew it had this feature!

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...ok_martin.html

"External HDV Video Monitoring
Two years ago when Final Cut Pro 5 was announced, you'll recall that one of Apple's marketing tent poles was "native HDV editing". Your initial excitement was soon tempered by the realization that you could not monitor HDV material on an external monitor. In version 6, you can now output an HDV sequence through FireWire."

Print to tape is different than monitoring. Can you really monitor via firewire out?

Dear Pete,

There are some new technology LCD monitors that are "good enough".

The JVC 24" monitor and the Sony LMD-2450W or LMD-2450WHD produce good color. These are individually factory calibrated and have special circuits and look-up tables to ensure that the colors are accurate.

Sony is currently offering a promotion in which you purchase the LMD-2450W or LMD-2450WHD, then if it does not meet your standards, they will buy it back.

My only problem with the Sony is the lack of HDCP. The JVC uses similar technology, and it has HDCP via the DVI-D input.

Both of these monitors are under $4,200 with the LMD-2450W (without HD-SDI) significantly under this amount.

Glenn, I'm still on FCP5, but it's my understanding that version 6 lets you monitor HDV over firewire at standard definition resolution. In other words, the monitor stream is downconverted to regular 720x480 DV.

Maybe someone else can confirm this?

I'll be getting FCP6 in a couple of weeks. So I'll know more once I have it. I can happily say that FCP5 cinema desktop preview works HD with AIC codec even on a 1.8mhz G5

Dan -

Thanks for the info. Some of the earlier Sony's were not so hot . . . don't know anything about the ones you mentioned, but I'll take a look.

All this talk about Cinema Desktop Preview needs to include the fact that the resolution is a proxie. If you want a full rez preview through it you need something like a MatroxMXO which as I understand will turn your LCD into a broadcast quality monitor after some calibration however.