I'm rebuilding my system around a Dreamcolor for monitoring. I'm using a variety of apps, especially CS6 and resolve. I've not found any definitive answers yet. But here's what i think

I believe i can get a quadro 4000 and plug the dreamcolor and my other monitor into that. The display port will give me 10bit output to the monitor. Correct? Will that work with CS6 and Resolve? Is that the simplest setup?

What i do see are people using an external box/card, blackmagic or AJA which is driving the dreamcolor as an external broadcast monitor via SDI/HDMI. I would guess PPro would use that setup, but would After Effects?

In that set up with an external box, do i need a Quadro card or can i use a consumer Geforce with more CUDA cores?

The main reason for a Quadro is that it does 10bit out but if there's an external box or PCI card driving it then is that needed? The external box from BM is USB3 for example. I presume the BM drivers present the external monitor as an option for the apps that support it?

I would also like to use the monitor from my macbook pro and FCP X but i assume that would be a thunderbolt version of the above box (perhaps for a different forum)

Any advice or gotchas greatfuly received!

thanks
Paul

A lot of questions. Let me answer some.

1. After Effects will work with BM/AJA, not sure about Matrox.

2. Quadro 4000 is on par with GTX2xx series. Performance-wise you'd be much better off investing in GTX570 or GTX580, especially when using Resolve. Mind you, they require better PSU than Quadro. I'm not sure you can even use Quadro for monitoring true video signal without special SDI daughter board that is very expensive. I know Premiere can do this with any card, but I don't think Resolve can.

3. Most - if not all - AJA/BM will provide you 10-bit output.

4. MacBook Pro - Thunderbolt or USB3 version of BM/AJA in case of the new models.

The dreamcolor needs an HDMI in for 10bit HD, however i understand that the BM devices are outputting YUV over HDMI so that doesn't trigger the dreamcolor engine - is that still the case?

The thought with the quadro was that the displayport was needed to get 10bit output into the monitor (however the other approach is getting a video signal via the external card/box). So can the system be run like this - single quadro card to 2 external monitors one of which is the 10bit dreamcolor. will that set up work or does the monitor really need to be driven by a video signal?

I'm very happy to not bother with a quadro however i believe that resolve specifically needs a quadro for the UI side of things. I'm trying to find out more about that

thanks for your help
paul

Resolve does not NEED a separate card to run. It can profit from it, but even with a single GTX580 you can have decent performance without a secondary card. And I don't believe the one for the interface needs to be Quadro, any nVidia should do. Even if it is so, then go ahead and buy the cheapest one that will drive your screen res. You don't need anything more. I believe people were recommendint GT120 for the interface.

I'm not familiar enough with HP Dreamcolor to answer your questions about 10-bit signal.

However I know that for multiple reasons you don't want to color correct or monitor the program/viewer/composition window in you software, you want to monitor the actual video signal that is being output from an application. Of all the software that I'm familiar with, only Premiere will allow you to have the actual video signal put through to another monitor. Even After Effects will need a third-party card to do this.