Hi all,

I changed my monitor yesterday and got a 20" Samsung LCD Monitor (SyncMaster 206BW). It's a pretty nice screen and I think it will be enough for my use for now. I hesitated between getting one or two but since I mostly work on small 5-15 minutes long clips and I feel that have enough room on the timeline for now. I'll see later when my projects gets more complicated.

Anyway, I'd like to hook up a small regular LCD TV onto my editing workstation to preview my work on the "real thing". I'm using Vegas 7.0e.

My question is: How can I do that? Do I need some special hardware (AJA Video Device, Blackmagic Device, etc...). Can we just hook up the TV to the graphic card? I do have 3 ports on my graphic card (Asus X1600 Serie), one digital, one analog, I think one S-Video... I'm a bit lost and would appreciate some input as to what's the best approach before I purchase a new TV. I'm aiming at something around 20" - 16:9, etc...

Thanks for your help!


Benoit Bissonnette

Hi,

You should be able to do this with any card that supports two monitors. These instructions are for Windows XP:

1) First you need to connect whatever spare adapter you have to the input of the preview monitor. You will most likely find that during boot the output on the preview monitor mirrors what is on the main monitor's screen, and then disappears when you get to log in or the desktop.

2) Got to Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display

3) Select the settings tab

4) Click in the box marked Display: and select the second monitor in the list (it should be titled something like "Plug and Play monitor on Asus X1600 Series)

5) Check the box that reads "Extend my windows desktop onto this monitor"

6) Click "OK". It may ask you to reset, but I don't think it is usually necessary.

7) Load Vegas

8) Go to Options/Preferences and select the "Preview Device" tab

9) If you are working with Studio RGB formats such as DV and HDV ensure that the "Use Studio RGB (16 to 235)" box is checked. Colours will then be reproduced on you preview screen using the appropriate method. You will probably also want to click "Scale output to fit display" and choose a descent resolution. Then hit "OK".

10) Go to the Video Preview window and ensure that the "view preview on external monitor" button is activated (the shortcut is alt + shift + 4).

Any probs give us a shout!

Oh yeah, and I've found if you are using this mode for SD DV work, best to set your resolution to 800x600 (or as near as possible) and set the preview rendering to a "Full" mode.

Cheers,

Rob,

I tried this using vegas movie studio platinum, but it doesn't read a second monitor as an external preview device. Only as a monitor that you can extend vegas to. Is that cause it's movie studio, or am I doing something wrong? I used the DVI output to hook up my LCD tv as a second monitor, btw. If that matters at all. I tried using a tv and the s-video out as a second monitor, and the same thing. Only works as a desktop extension.

Use Secondary Monitor, not External Preview Device, if the option exists.