Does anyone edit using the preview on external monitor feature in vegas? If so how do you do it- do you leave your camera connected via IEEE and to the TV/NTSC monitor the whole time your editing or do you only do it when you doing color corrections and/or checking layout of text?
Also does the quality set in the preview window in Vegas carry over to the external monitor preview- in other words, say, if you have "draft-auto" set will the video preview to the monitor in "draft" quality. If so, I'd assume it's imperitive to change it to "full quality"...

Yes, I almost ALWAYS use the external monitor (unless I'm on my laptop). In my case, the main computer I edit on is directly connected to a DV Deck which is connected to a TV & rack of VCRs. So, I just leave the deck and TV on and view on the external monitor. When I'm done editing, I turn off the deck and TV (hardly ever turn off the computer - just its monitor)


Yes, the quality setting also affects the external monitor on CHANGED sections (i.e. if it says "recompressed"). I leave mine on Preview (Auto). If your computer is fast enough, you may be able to get by with a higher setting. You may want to try Good (Full) instead

Isn't the major point of using an external monitor to get accurate color correction- how could this be done if the picture isn't displaying to the fullest quality?

So when you say you always leave your computer connected to a TV via a DV deck do you edit the whole time only using your TV to monitor or do you switch back and forth between the onscreen vegas monitor and the external TV when need be?

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Isn't the major point of using an external monitor to get accurate color correction- how could this be done if the picture isn't displaying to the fullest quality?

So when you say you always leave your computer connected to a TV via a DV deck do you edit the whole time only using your TV to monitor or do you switch back and forth between the onscreen vegas monitor and the external TV when need be? -->>>

If I need to see a higher quality, I'll bump it up briefly. However, "Preview" seems to work fine for me 99% of the time.

Yes, I edit the whole time on the TV. I only switch to the computer screen if:
1) I need to take a snapshot
2) I need to "pick" a color
3) I need to use the deck to dub a tape while editing

That way I also don't have to worry about safe areas - I use an actual TV to determine the safe areas.

How do you monitor your audio- through the TV?

This may be opening up a whole other subject but what are your feelings regarding use of a TV vs a professional NTSC monitor? Is it really worth the money to go with the latter?

Audio still goes through the computer speakers. The TV only shows video. I just use a standard TV. I'm sure a true "monitor" would be better.

I tried the external monitor thing last night its pretty cool. Only thing is that the video is kind of choppy and I didn't have any effects going etc...is this normal. If this is common than I can only really see the external monitor thing useful for color/safe areas etcs, I couldn't get any sense of timing because the video was so choppy...it wasnt' choppy when played in the preview window on the the computer monitor.

It might not be normal though because someone up there said they only edit on the tv.

A few things to check. First of all, what setting do you have your preview on? I leave mine on Preview Auto which seems to work great. I can get a full 29.97 on unaltered video on my PIII 750MHz. The only time I get stutters on unaltered video is when the screen refreshes.

Also, look below the preview window and see what framerate is indicated.

Finally, make sure your drives are up to speed and verify DMA is ON.

Check to make sure all your opacity settings in the video track headers are at 100%. I had the same problem and couldn't figure out why a piece of footage was playing choppy despite the fact it was untouched by filters etc. I noticed the opacity of that track was at 99%, I might have accidentaly clicked it when highlighting that track. Needless to say I just bumped it up to 100% and it ran fine again.

Yep, that will do it too. It's always the first thing I check when I notice the problem knowing how it SHOULD look. Good call, Glen.

The opacity was at 100% but in some places I put a crossfade. I expect it to be choppy in those places but the whole thing is choppy and the audio is out of sync.

What do you mean by drives, like hard drives or drivers? what does DMA stand for?

Does have anything to do with what applications I might have running in the background?

Yes - the hard drives. DMA MUST be on or you will get the symptoms you are describing.

Glen,

There are a number of reasons for using a TV/broadcast monitor. One as you mentioned is checking colours as the low res of a TV produces different colours to a computer monitor. Another is to check the action safe areas. Your preview window displays 100% of the video frame, which is why you sometimes see black lines at the top or bottom of the frame depending on what camera you use. A TV only usually displays around 85-90% of the frame and is called underscan. Broadcast monitors can switch between underscan/overscan to allow preview of both. A perfect setup would be to have both a consumer TV and a broascast monitor as what looks good on the computer monitor and the 500 line res broadcast monitor could look terrible on a consumer TV. This is also useful for checking your audio as what sounds great on your Harmon Kardon or Bose studio monitors could sound like bad on TV speakers.

Jake,

Is your project deinterlaced or progressive? If so this could be the reason for the jittering/jerkyness on your TV. As for the audio being out of sync, check your project settings and make sure they are the same (PAL/NTSC/frame rate) as your raw footage

dma I don't know what that is. It was shot in 24p by a dvx100 so maybe thats why as the pulldown hasn't been inserted yet. but 24p isn't jerky in the vegas window but only on the external monitor.

I'm also mixing some 24p and 60i footage. How does one go about this as far as the properties go. Do I have to keep 60i and 24p in seperate projects until the final render? Just so you know this was for a wedding. The 24p was used during the day etc then I switched to 60i when it got dark.

how much should I expect to pay for a decent monitor. My budget is pretty low. I saw a toshiba 13"/450 lines/s-video for 250, and the same thing but 19" for 350 at BH.

DMA is a hard drive setting and not related to your video. You have to go to the hardware settings for your hard drive controller and it will indicate whether DMA is active.

However, you may have given another clue: 24p. It is possible that this is requiring more recompression than straight DV-AVI. I'm not sure as I've never worked with 24p at this point.

ok, well I will try it with some 60i footage I have and see if that makes a difference. I'll try to see if DMA is active. Is this usually a thing that is on by default?

<<<-- Originally posted by Jake McMurray : I'll try to see if DMA is active. Is this usually a thing that is on by default? -->>>

Maybe. No guarantees.

Unless you are using Win9x DMA is active by default. The reason that your footage is jerky on your TV and not your computer monitor is probably the fact that it's progressive. TVs require interlaced foortage to display smoothly where as a computer monitor is progressive scan.

but I think with the dvx100 and vegas it is shot in 24p, then it goes to interlace for editing and then back to 24p when rendered. My preview window thing says that is 29 fps.

is there a "p" after it? If so then it's progressive.

Jake, actually I thought it was quite the opposite. Shooting in the DVX's 24pA mode applies the advanced pulldown. When it's brought into Vegas and edited under the 24p template Vegas removes the extra pull-down frames while editing. During final encoding it re-inserts standard pulldown but adds flags for DVD players to idetify and remove them to display the footage in true 24p.

I have a DVX100 and have yet to edit any 24p footage on it- I know what your thinking "why'd you even get the dvx and not the dvc80?!". It's just that I've been doing wedding videography along side with my friends XL-1s and for continuity purposes I only shoot in 60i.
I'll let you guys know if I encounter the same phenomenon previewing 24p footage out to an external monitor as soon as I get a chance to do so.

Adrian, unfortuatly my budget doesn't allow me to pick up a good NTSC monitor. Ironlicly enough I had the funds to splurge on two 17" LCD monitors though! But, yeah...I'm using a standard television to do my color corrections. I figure it's no where near as accurate as a properly calibrated NTSC monitor but it's much better than judging by my computer monitor. Jeez if I hadn't taken the time to check my output on my last project I would have been in a world of trouble. It looked great on my computer monitor but terrible on my TV when previewing it. I made my adjustments and now it looks washed out on the monitor and great on the TV. Glad I took the time to check!
What determines the display characteristics of the preview window from within Vegas? Is it like Premiere where your video overlay is the defining factor in the way the display looks? If so maybe I can tweak my overlay settings to at least "better" match it's output characteristics on the television. I mean it's like night and day the way the two look!

24fps footage won't normally play on a television set. You have to apply 3:2 pulldown (looks ok on a TV) or duplicate every 5th frame (looks bad on a TV). The Panasonic records 24fps onto a 30fps format using either of those methods as far as I know.

Precisely, 24p mode is 3:2 and 24pA (advanced) mode is 3:2:2:3

well we have a nice discussion going on here but I've essentially solved the problem. there was something called record delay in the setup of the Video Device (external monitor/dv camera) I had it set at 4 and then I put it down to 0. My 24p plays back as smoothly as it does in the preview window. It only chops up where its heavy on effects. What do you guys use for an external monitor. Is it normal that my colors are SO off when I look at what I've done on the computer as opposed to a tv.

The footage does look kind of crappy...like low res. I have it set on best/full. Is this as good as my footage gets? I'll have to light better next time.

Jake, a TV has only about 200-300 lines res so it will always look much different to your much higher res computer monitor. It all depends on your target output, if it's going back to tape for watching on TV then do your colours on the TV, if it's going to the web then do it on your monitor. Sometimes you'll have to do two versions if it's going to both, one interlaced for tv and the other deinterlased for computer monitors.

I got ya, why do people buy external monitors w/450 lines of resolution? I want to buy a dedicated monitor for this somewhere between 13-19". I can't decide on whether to get a production monitor, or just go with a regular tv. What would you do given a $300 or so budget?

While we're on the subject, what do y'all use to convert from 1394 to video? Internal card? External box? Brand?

Thanks for all the good info on this site!
R

I use my Panasonic AG-DV2000 deck to convert. Others use devices such as the Canopus ADVC-100. Still others use their cameras (I've used my XL-1 in the past for this).

Correction about the DVX: advanced pulldown is 3:2:2:3 while the other 24p mode is 3:2:3:2. If you followed my message then you could have thought advanced was 2:2:2:4.

I got ya, why do people buy external monitors w/450 lines of resolution? I want to buy a dedicated monitor for this somewhere between 13-19". I can't decide on whether to get a production monitor, or just go with a regular tv. What would you do given a $300 or so budget?
What you want to look for in a production monitor is the ability to reproduce colors faithfully. Normal TV sets and computers monitors will display colors differently from each other. A production monitor can be calibrated to a standard reference so that your picture will look as good as it can get on a wide array of TV sets of varying colors.

$300 isn't going to buy you a very good production monitor so just stick with any TV set in your house. You can try calibrating it with NTSC bars and tones (Vegas should be able to generate it). There are various instructions for this around on the net. If you know the deficiencies of your TV set (i.e. which colors are over or underemphasized) then you could get away with doing basic color correction on it.

A TV set is VERY useful to check your final product. You will spot interlace flicker and important parts of your shot that are cut out because of underscan.

I actually picked up a used broadcast monitor for really cheap like $50. I don't know how good it is. Its a JVC TM-H11950CQ or something like that. It seems pretty cool its got buttons for underscan, blue only, aspect, color off,etc etc I don't know how much resolution etc. But I can't get it on yet because it didn't come with a power cord. Could I get any cord with enough amperage or whatever its called and make it work, or would I need one specifically made for the monitor.

I tried a detachable cord I had on my sony reciever it didn't power on so I don't even know if it works. I'm going to try to get a hold of JVC but I don't know how much customer support I will get since its a discontinued model I think and I bought it used at a pawn shop.

Resolution is not that important. Just use your computer monitor, it has great resolution. You can even zoom in on the computer. For field recordings the extra resolution would come in handy. But for $50 I think you got a great deal if it works... pro monitors usually run you a lot more money!

I'm still not sure if it works. I mean it all looks good to me it was manufactured about 1 year ago. I'm going to figure it out eventually.