How would I go about using my camera and TV as a monitor? I don't have a deck or kona card.

I just tried connecting my Z5U (with my firewire that I import footage with) and switched it to VCR mode, then out of the camera via HDMI into a small ikan 8 inch monitor and it did not work. The LCD on the camera and monitor displayed a blue screen with "HDVin iLink"

I went into FC and clicked on View> External Video> All Frames but nothing happened.

You cannot go in and out digitally at the same time. So you can't connect to your computer using firewire, and at the same time play back from the camera using HDMI. This is mentioned in the manual. The only solution I have found other than going out analog, which looks ugly especially on an LCD or HD monitor, is to add on a card like a Kona and Blackmagic. That works great for me and cost me less than US $200.

OH.............ok Rian how did you do it for $200? I would appreciate if you share your information.

I am looking for a way to monitor what I edit (titles, graphics, still frames, etc) so when I burn my projects to a dvd I don't have interlacing issues and other issues I see on the TV............then have to go back and re-edit, re-compress, re-burn.

Blackmagic Intensity Pro, which has HDMI input and output. Bought it here in Malaysia for 200USD. And I can vouch for the fact that it's authentic. Blackmagic checked the serial number when I contacted them for support, and verified it was legit. LCDs don't show interlacing though I believe. If you want to check interlacing and see the video as it will appear on a regular CRT TV, then using the supplied analogue cables to go from the Z5 to a CRT monitor is the best way I would think.

Are you saying that to check for interlacing issues I can't use an HDMI cable? Why?

This is very far from my specialty, but I figure you can't use HDMI to check for interlacing issues unless you have a CRT monitor with an HDMI input (is there such a thing?) All LCD and Plasma monitors deinterlace before displaying images from my understanding. This Wikipedia entry might enlighten you more than I can. Deinterlacing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing)