Hi,

I'm interested in the highest quality viewing experience driven by my camcorder. Basically, I watch the raw footage once after taping.

I'm interested in a TV that will take a Firewire input (from my camcorder output) and convert it to a progressive scan display. Some Mitsubishi rear projection TVs have this feature, but I'm not interested in their models. I'm guessing that some DVD recorders are able to take Firewire input and convert to component output as a thru function.

On another note, has anyone heard of a standalone Firewire -> DVI or a Firewire -> component output converter?

Yes, there are several on the market. Laird (http://www.lairdtelemedia.com/) makes several models that I’ve used and the quality is excellent.

I'd spring for something under $250. Most of these products are in the $1000-2000 range.

Do regular NTSC field monitors have this option. I'd hate to buy a $2,000 NTSC editing monitor only to have to run the line thru my camera and out to the display as composit and/or S-video. UGH

With a MiniDV camera you won't get appreciable signal degradation when piping your analog output to your monitor through an S-Video cable--provided you use good S-Video cable and keep your cable runs to reasonable lengths (under 50 feet). Most NTSC field monitors do not have firewire input. Those that do, necessarily also have a decoder/DA chip, which is an expensive component that will drive up the cost of the monitor. Your real question should be, do you really have a good reason for doing the digital-to-analog conversion inside of your monitor rather than inside of your camera? Or are you just enamored with the romaniticized ideal of lossless transmission between your camera and your monitor?

Even on big Hollywood productions, the HD monitor is typically fed by analog cables. Good shielded component analog cables.

Datavideo ( see http://www.datavideo-tek.com/content/product_info/dvformatconverters/dac2/dac2_page.htm) has a good and cheap convertor for firewire>components and more.
Using S-video means the original DV signal is, after decompression also being encoded (NTSC or PAL) in de player and decoded in the monitor. These two extra steps are acceptable in NTSC, but in PAL the chroma components are degraded by the encoding/decoding steps resulting in at least vertical chroma bandwidth halving and vertical downshift by one line of the chroma components. B.t.w. I still don't understand (commercially) why the better DVD players and systems run on components and expensive DV players (DHR1000...) still stick on Y/C unless one pays for a pro vcr...

Andre, I'm with you! Almost every TV and DVD player in the stores these days (even the cheap ones) have component video. That looks like a really interesting converter box, do you know where they can be purchased in the US and what they cost? Last time I looked, Promax sold some similar devices but they're pretty expensive.

>Or are you just enamored with the romaniticized ideal of >lossless transmission between your camera and your monitor?

I just want my camcorder output to look as good during the preview sessions as the progressive scan version of the DVD I make with the same footage.

The web page shows a distributor list:

http://www.datavideo-tek.com/navigation_frames/where_to_purchase/entire_frameset.htm

From a Google search:

DAC-100 for $199 (DV <-> composite)
http://www.synchrotech.com/product-1394/analog-dv-converter_03.html#part-numbers

DAC-2 $699 (DV <-> component)
http://www.dvwarehouse.com/product_info.php/cPath/170_100/products_id/483

Who knows what the analog conversion looks like !?!? That's
why I'm more interested in a Firewire -> DVI converter. After seeing loads of ghosting on a Sony WEGA RPTV with Sony DVD player and seeing a $500 Denon with/Faroujda processing blur titles (blur on bottom and top but not center) on Sony WEGA tube TV, I find I really can't trust DVD player quality by name.

For the price of a DAC-2, one can probably land a DVD recorder
with firewire inputes, component outputs and thru function to do the conversion.

Gints, don't forget that DVD recorders first convert the DV signal into MPEG2 and then output (in analog components) the decompressed MPEG2 signal(=degradation)

Gints do you mean DVI or SDI? DVI is normally computer interconnection to flat pannel stuff.

Hmm, maybe I am romaniticized with the idea of lossless transmission between my camera and monitor, more accuratly between my NLE and Monitor. So what your saying is it doesn't make a difference if it the signal runs via firewire to my camera then to my monitor via S-video. It just seems like so much is lost in the conversion to analog. But as you say it all get's changed to analog whether it be in-camera or in-monitor. But isn't there a better interface to do such a thing than standard S-video *Ack!*

It has to go analogue somewhere, crt technology is not digital, well not in the last steps. Just like audio technology, it had to go analogue before it hits the amp, just the way it works.

Zac

Ultimately the camera scene content is proportional (analog) and through the eye's retina it has to be interpreted as protortional again. Today a number of display technologies (plasma, DLP...) allow digital images to be displayed without the electrical signal ever being transformed into analog form...the eye(brains) does the job. Unfortunately digital throughout the chain doesn't mean there are no shortcommings anymore. Bandwidth stuff and grayscale(gamma) issues can be correct in these cases but all other effects still remain present (aliasing, blocking...)

I used to think s-video looked pretty good too. But last winter we were experimenting with a big 12,000 lumen DLP projector in the theatre on a 40' wide screen. I was feeding QuickTime output directly from my PowerBook's s-video port to the projector.

The projector's native input was RGB, and adaptor jumpers were used for s-video. After running some footage, we switched and used a cable from the PowerBooks VGA port to show the same video. There was a HUGE difference in quality. The contrast was better and the colors were much more saturated. The s-video looked much worse.

So do you think that was just some odd behavior of the DLP projector's interface? I assumed it was the better quality of the VGA signal, which I also assume would be like a component video signal. Elsewhere I've read that the Sony WEGA TV's will produce much nicer images when driven with component video as opposed to s-video. Haven't had any way to test this myself, but would like to hear from someone who has tried it both ways.

Outputting computer signals through a VGA port is the only right way to go for digital displays. The rescalings and color encoding/decoding proces (NTSC and for shure PAL) allways introduce severe quality losses

>Gints, don't forget that DVD recorders first convert the DV signal into MPEG2


Awwwwww. That sucks !