I have an IMac, and a G4. I have a small tv for the G4 and a converter, but want to get the same for my IMac. I've read numerous threads about monitors, etc., and wondering if any can give me an update on this issue for purchasing a, say 10", just a smaller production monitor for my IMac.

I will have to purchase the converter too.

I checked a JVC production monitor that's on sale 0-inch Full-square CRT with more than 300 lines of horizontal resolution and another
JVC TMH-150CGU 15-Inch Color Production Monitor with 750 Lines, 16:9 and 4:3 Aspect Switch, NTSC and PAL System.

I'm wondering what I should be looking for in terms of a good production monitor that's not too expensive?

I don't want an lcd monitor, but rather something like the ones above.

Thanks for any help.

Lucinda Luvaas

1- Converter: I think all DV cameras can act as a converter for you.

2- If you want to use the monitor in a field, you might want to look at the field monitors (smaller, lighter, can run off batteries).

For field use, look for:
size, weight, can it run off batteries If this isn't too important, you could drag a larger monitor along.
resolution for checking focus (the manufacturers fudge their specs though, so I wouldn't rely on them) - lower-sized monitors typically have lower resolution, so you kind of have a contradiction here.
underscan (helps you spot boom or other things entering shot)

For studio use, larger monitors are better because they have higher resolution and they impress clients more.

For color accuracy, look for:
#1- blue gun/check/only - makes it easy to calibrate the monitor
#2/3 - gain (or user color temp) and bias controls - these are calibration controls that can make the monitor more accurate.
#2/3 - setting up your studio right - you don't want light hitting the face of the monitor; have the area behind the monitor lit to around D6500 color temperature. It should be grey too.
#4- SMPTE C / EBU phosphors
#5- Calibration device for the monitor, a higher-grade monitor (i.e. Sony BVM series)

Looking at your needs, you might figure out that you only need a basic field or studio monitor.
A basic field monitor would be something like:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=127285&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

Glenn, that's a great list. Now I have a goal for color temperature behind my monitor. But have you ever tried using a 300-line field monitor for editing? I have a Sony in our studio that one of our camera operators uses, and I brought it out once to try it with FCP. It reminded me very much of when I tried to do the same thing with a cheaper field monitor in school. Everything looks gritty, grainy and awful, and it's impossible to gauge color corrections and effects with it. It's basically good for framing and lighting, which shouldn't be surprising.

So Lucinda, all I can add to Glenn's list is to look for a monitor with at least 525 lines of resolution. I've never had a problem with one of those. For my personal preference, I would take a Sony monitor over a JVC any day. They are more expensive, but I find they are much easier to calibrate.

Thanks to both of you for the info! why does the 300 line screen on the monitor look so gritty and grainy? that's certainly something I don't want! I've heard that Sony and JVC are the best.

Lucinda

Glen,

This is a perhaps naive question, but since I haven't done this before...I have a couple of concerns about using the cam as a converter 1. can I use my little ZR40 instead of the Canon XL2?... 2. does it in any way tax the camcorder to use it as a converter? meaning: wear the heads out, etc.?
I assume that because the info is just passing through the cam that it won't put any wear on it?

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Using the camera as a converter definitely does not cause any wear on the heads or the tape transport.

Thanks Zach. Then I might as well use one of my two Canons rather than purchasing a new converter.

So Lucinda, all I can add to Glenn's list is to look for a monitor with at least 525 lines of resolution.

I don't think you can be sure that the monitors are rated accurately in terms of resolution. The manufacturer may be playing games with their numbers, even within a single manufacturer.

As far as the 525 figure goes, you may be confusing that with the 525 scanlines of the North American TV (scanline helps determine the vertical resolution). When manufacturers measure resolution, they do so for horizontal resolution (almost always). They almost always fudge the specs too.

As far as resolution goes, I suspect that Sony monitors are slightly higher resolution than JVC. For two reasons:
A- Sony monitors use the Trinitron / aperture grille design, which uses rectangular stripes for phosphors instead of little dots. This lets them increase the dot pitch a little bit, which helps resolution.
B- Sony monitors are a little more expensive.

Everything looks gritty, grainy and awful, and it's impossible to gauge color corrections and effects with it.
Maybe it's what the footage looks like, or some problem in the equipment or signal path??

But have you ever tried using a 300-line field monitor for editing?
Unfortunately not.
I'm not sure how well they work for studio/editing use. I might be able to do a test to see how well field monitors compare to larger studio monitors in terms of resolution. I think the difference is a lot less than the specs suggest.

They are more expensive, but I find they are much easier to calibrate.
Any reason? One JVC monitor I've seen doesn't have knobs to let you quickly tweak the controls, although it would be an occaisional pain in the rear as you don't need to calibrate your monitor too often.

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for the info...I think I was referring when I said grainy to a portable dvd player I bought which definitely was money wasted since the res was awful and this one was supposed to be a good one.

Anyway: could you suggest any field and post monitors, would like to use for both? I've been looking and I could always use a suggestion or two.

Thanks so much!

lucinda

P.S. If I had had a good monitor I wouldn't have had the shimmering, flickering reds that I got shooting last week....I mean I could have lowered the red gain, etc., in my color settings CP settings on my XL2. So, I really need this piece of equipment, for sure.

Lucinda,
Take a look at:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=search&Q=&ci=7021

Generally, price correlates with quality.
You don't need SDI, unless you have a camera that only outputs SDI.

The Sony PVM-9L2 versus the JVC TM-910SU
The Sony seems to have controls for bias and gain for further calibration of the monitor. For the JVC I think it's a service adjustment.

The Sony uses the aperture grille design, which means:
(con) Two thin horizontal grey lines in the picture at 1/4th and 3/4th picture height. This is a minor flaw.
(pro) Less specular reflections off the screen, because it's flatter. This is nice for field use.
(pro) Slightly better resolution I believe.
(pro) Slightly better contrast??

I would probably lean towards the Sony. If your budget is higher, maybe go for the Sony PVM-9L3. Sony claims 450 versus 250 lines of resolution (the difference I suspect is much much smaller).

I'd also look at buying batteries for the monitor, which will make it more useful.

Unfortunately I have experience with higher end and lower end gear, but not in the middle. The high-end monitors I've seen are all studio monitors which won't run off batteries. The lower-end stuff weren't even real broadcast monitors.

Thanks Glenn I'll check these out.

What do you think of this: I asked someone if 300 lines res was enough because I saw a JVC that sounded interesting on B&H.

are you referring to 300 lines? if so, no, that isn't good enough. you would want something that had more res than the XL2 which has a max of 525...

Should the monitor match the res of the Canon?

A little assinine, but the JVC actually specs 280 for that monitor.

The XL2 can't have more than 540 lines of horizontal resolution as that's the limit of the DV format. However, you can't compare these figures to each other because there are many ways to measure and inflate/deflate results.

Glenn,
I actually didn't know what the lines referred to, but I assumed it couldn't be scan lines because 300 wouldn't work even for DV (now I know - thanks). My disdain for 300 line monitors is subjective. The 300 line monitors I've used look bad, and the 525 line or higher monitors look good. Same thing with the JVCs. They have all the controls for calibrating, but even when I calibrated them, I wasn't happy with the results I got when I viewed the footage in other places. I also just generally don't like the look of the picture on the JVCs. I have always been happy with the Sonys. I have no manufacturing specs to prove either of these points.

Hate to keep pestering you both, but is there another less expensive alternative for the production monitors? As I mentioned, I purchased a portable dvd player and plugged that into my XL2, but the image looked horrid and it isn't much help. I don't want to purchase an on camera monitor because I want to use it for both post and on site work.

Is there another alternative? something that would give good res and picture/color, etc., that I could use in post and in the field?

Thanks so much for your imput, your a big help!

Lucinda

If Glenn says you can find a good 9" field monitor that will work for post then I would trust him over me. He clearly knows more on this subject. But based on my experience, I recommend that you demo whatever you buy. If you can avoid it, don't just pick something out of the B&H catalog without trying first.

If Glenn says you can find a good 9" field monitor that will work for post then I would trust him over me. He clearly knows more on this subject.
Hmm, I was just assuming you could use the field monitor in post too. I don't see any reason why you couldn't.

If you need a monitor only for studio use, then the studio monitors are cheaper/bigger/better resolution. But studio monitors are heavy to lug around and can't run off battery power. If I could only afford one, I'd just get the field monitor. Shooting your footage well means you need to do less in post (and fixing things in post is generally a lot less time-effective).

Is there another alternative? something that would give good res and picture/color, etc., that I could use in post and in the field?
That is definitely a good idea. You might want to bring your camera along with a miniDV tape with a resolution test pattern on it.
To make such a pattern, just use a text generator in FCP with text at various small sizes..
Or you can use the XL2 to shoot a physical test pattern, which you can print out from http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/respat/index.html#EIA1956. Use a laser printer to do that.

2- Alternatives:

Black and white CRTs, by design, have higher resolution for the same size as color CRTs. Many camera viewfinders are black and white for this reason (because a color viewfinder wouldn't be very sharp). For the old XL1 it was possible to get a better viewfinder upgrade, which was really pricey.
Of course, these devices don't show colors.

Color broadcast monitors are the best for monitoring the colors. Consumer CRTs are a bad idea as they typically have a number of cheats to make the picture look "better" and brighter. They also don't have useful functions like underscan or blue only (for calibration).

Studio monitors: Already discussed.

LCDs: I have little experience with these.
There are consumer LCDs, which aren't very good.
There are professional LCDs, which are fairly expensive due to low volume (compared to CRT field monitors).
Resolution-wise, I'm not sure how good they are.
Color/picture-wise, they may be suspect.

I think a CRT field monitor is your best bet and that the resolution is better than the specs suggest (the specs are pretty meaningless anyways).

Thanks Glenn. I agree with you, two birds with one stone, it's only that they are pretty expensive.

Glenn,

Please explain me the steps to convert the camera as convertor to display it the edit in production monitors.

regards,
Hari

Hi Hari,

The camcorder has both firewire and rca connections, so you take your firewire cable that comes with the XL2 connect to the camcorder and then connect to your processor. Then connect the rca cable, red, yellow and white to the camcorder and the other end to the production monitor. In this way, your camcorder acts as a converter.

To Everyone: I still am concerned about how well this processor will work with FCP. I will not be using Motion on this computer, just basic editing and I assume that it will work much better than FCP 3.0? I have an external maxtor 160gig drive, 1 gig of ram and an internal 80 gig drive, operating on an IMac...newish one.

I'm nervous about this purchase, since I've been a Premiere user for a number of years.......

Hate to keep pestering you both, but is there another less expensive alternative for the production monitors? As I mentioned, I purchased a portable dvd player and plugged that into my XL2, but the image looked horrid and it isn't much help. I don't want to purchase an on camera monitor because I want to use it for both post and on site work.

Is there another alternative? something that would give good res and picture/color, etc., that I could use in post and in the field?

Thanks so much for your imput, your a big help!

Lucinda

Hey, Lucinda

I think we had a thread going about something similar to this a few weeks back (few months?) at that time I said I was going to buy the JVC TMH-150CGU. I did and am absolutely floored by the resolution.
It shows me just how incredibly clean an image my XL2 produces.
I think B&H has it for $509.00.
It's a chunk of change, but if your doing studio or field work, I guarantee you this, you'll never be out of focus again.

This one looks great Eric! I'll probably get it...so you're really happy with it?

Very happy. I've bought a lot of equipment this year (too much, sometimes it's easy to get sucked in) But I'll say, next to my XL2, this has been one of my happiest purchases.
I just finished shooting a couple of scenes for my short over the last two nights and confirmed my happiness ten fold.
If you get it, you'll see what I'm taking about!

Thanks for the answer Eric.

Two more questions: do you use it as a field monitor as well as post production at your editing bay? It's pretty heavy....

Second question: have you heard anything about the Sony
PVM14L1? It has 600 instead of the 750 lines of res that the JVC has, but it's 13 inches, so I would assume a bit lighter.

Does it make much difference?

I need something I can use while shooting and editing.

Thanks again for your advice.

Lucinda

Thanks for the answer Eric.

Two more questions: do you use it as a field monitor as well as post production at your editing bay? It's pretty heavy....

Second question: have you heard anything about the Sony
PVM14L1? It has 600 instead of the 750 lines of res that the JVC has, but it's 13 inches, so I would assume a bit lighter.

Does it make much difference?

I need something I can use while shooting and editing.

Thanks again for your advice.

Lucinda

Lucinda, sorry it's taken so long to get back. You've probably already bought a monitor by now! I haven't any knowledge of the Sony so I can't give you an opnion on it. I'm sure it's a fine monitor.
Right now I have the JVC pulling duty as a field monitor.
Once my film wraps it will be seeing time in the editing room. And yes, it is kind of heavy. But I can't rave enough about it.
Good luck.

Eric,

No, I didn't buy the monitor yet..it will be hopefully an Xmas gift!

I tend to want the jvc, but I still am torn about whether to get the varizoom 7" that mounts on the XL2, or the jvc. I was told that I shouldn't use the VariZoom for post because the res isn't good enough, but I'm concerned about the weight of the jvc and the sony...what do you think? I'm sorry to be so precious about this, but I do torture myself about these purchases, wanting to make sure I get the right thing. I do need a monitor for both field and post. I have, an older tv for my G4 and want to get a good monitor for this I Mac.

Help me again Eric!

Lucinda

Eric,

No, I didn't buy the monitor yet..it will be hopefully an Xmas gift!

I tend to want the jvc, but I still am torn about whether to get the varizoom 7" that mounts on the XL2, or the jvc. I was told that I shouldn't use the VariZoom for post because the res isn't good enough, but I'm concerned about the weight of the jvc and the sony...what do you think? I'm sorry to be so precious about this, but I do torture myself about these purchases, wanting to make sure I get the right thing. I do need a monitor for both field and post. I have, an older tv for my G4 and want to get a good monitor for this I Mac.

Help me again Eric!

Lucinda

Oops. Okay, once again answering these questions waaay too late. Sorry, Lucinda. I think, ultimately, if you are doing narative stuff. Meaning you have your shots planned out, staging, blocking, etc, the JVC or Sony is the way to go. Period.
I say this because when you are shooting something that qualifies as a "controlled shooting environment"" you can tether the camera to the monitor via a BNC cable (or s-video, but get BNC if possible) and you know (for the most part) what you will be getting into concerning camera movement and settings so to tether it to a monitor is no hassle.
On the other hand...if you plan to do run and gun stuff, sports, weddings, etc. The field monitor is obviously not always going to be optimal in that environment. An LCD like the Varizoom is the way to go.
So.. the run and gun stuff can call for more of needing both types of monitors (LCD for the field the CRT for post) and for narrative just the CRT (in most cases, obviously a LCD would work well in a long, quickly paced steadicam shot)
I bought a Varizoom and have found that I am not at all using it for my narative work.
I operate the camera and use the EVF for framing only. I have a buddy sit at the monitor and lend an eye for critical framing.
Hope this helps...and...if you do do run and gun. I am selling the Varizoom!

Eric,

Thanks for getting back to me however late! my husband just ordered the JVC from bandh and I'm excited. Except I don't know what BNC is, I've only used the RCA cables......if you get this soon let me know.

Lucinda

P.S. what are you selling the Varizoom for? I probably can't get it now, but I'm curious. I did decide that I primarily need the monitor for not impromtu work, but the opposite, so this will work really well, the JVC I mean, for both post and in the field.

I want to thank-you again for your expertise. And, good luck with everything!

Eric,

One more thing...the JVC monitor you recommended doesn't come with BNC cables....does it?

Lucinda

Eric,

One more thing...the JVC monitor you recommended doesn't come with BNC cables....does it?

Lucinda


Ah! I am actually answering quickly on this one! BNC cable is going to give you the best picture quality over S-video. It has other benefits as well that someone here reading this may be more knowledgeable in pointing out. It's also inexpensive and you can order it from practically any online video supplier as, no, you will not receive it with the monitor.
You can use S-video cable, though, which is available darn near everywhere, and it will work well enough.
As for the Varizoom, I've been mulling it over and have had a slight change of heart.
I'm not sure if I may eventually use it when I get in to doing frelance video stuff for people. (everything I do now is strictly personal projects).
I figured it was time to start making money with my equipment.
Good luck and let us know how you like the monitor!

Eric,

Thanks, and I read about the BNC cables, not sure whether I can use them with the XL2, I'll have to check, but if I can I will. It does come with cables tho' doesn't it? I think I read it does. I certainly will let you know what I think of it.

If I were you, I wouldn't get rid of the Varizoom monitor. You may have need for it down the road. Is the resolution on it good in your opinion? I think I may have mentioned to you before that I bought a portable dvd player for a shoot I was doing in downtown LA and the thing was awful!!! in terms of the resolution and color....that was a wasted purchase. Is the Varizoom better? I know it has higher res...but what do you think of it?

Lucinda

Hey, Lucinda. Yes, the XL2 has a BNC connection. On my first shoot with my XL2 we used a BNC cable.
As for the monitor coming with any video cable that would be nice. I've never heard of that. Maybe they're simply talking about the power cable?
Yeah, I once went the DVD player route as well. They're good for framing and not much more.
The Varizoom is definitely nicer than a cheapy DVD player. Better res' and more accurate colors. It's certainly not the best monitor on the market but it's good for the money.

I find that a S-Video connection gives better quality than a composite connection like BNC.

*I'm not talking about a SDI signal over BNC. Or component signals over three BNC cables.

So Eric, you're saying that the JVC comes with no RCA cables, S video?...

got my sony PVM14L1...no cables.

wonder about this cable question. does't everybody has differents needs/ lenght etc?

greetings

I have the S-Video, RCA cables, but no BNC.....

I'm really looking forward to having this. I've been using a 13" RCA TV and this will certainly be an improvement.

Lucinda, you might want to pickup some BNC-RCA adapters if your equipment uses RCA plugs.

Actually you may not need to do this if you just use a S-video cable... I think the JVC has that connector. You might want to check the manual to see what it has in the back.

I prefer to use both Y-C/S-video and RCA/BNC/composite so I can monitor for chroma crawl on the inferior composite connection. Or you can have multiple things hooked up to the monitor.

cablewholesale.com seems to be a decent place to pickup cables and stuff if you're in the US.

Lucinda, the JVC does indeed have the BNC connector in the rear as well as S-video. Both will work fine. But alas, Glenn is correct! I had it completely backwards (gotta lay off the spiked eggnog!) S-video cable is superior to BNC cable. (single cable out/in)
Nice upgrade from the RCA tv by the way...how did you manage to shoot 16:9 on a 4:3 without it looking like a Sergio Leone movie! Ha Ha! Best of luck with the monitor!
Karl, greetings to you as well. Different needs can dictate different cable usage (length, type, etc) in different situations. For Lucinda's purposes she really just needs to keep it simple and use either the BNC or the S-video cable.

Drinking the ol eggnog already?! wow. Anyway, thanks for the tip about the S-Video cables, I do have them.

There's something I don't understand, I'm working in 16:9 since getting the XL2 and watching on the computer and the RCA TV. I see no elongation of the imagery on the TV.....also there are no settings on the TV for 16:9, too old a unit. How come it doesn't distort the picture more?

I want to wish you all a very Merry and Happy Holiday Season. Good for me 'cause it gives me more time to work! Yea!

Lucinda

Lot of work for me too to get the job done and meet deadlines during holidays.

Well, I have the JVC color monitor and it does have great resolution! thanks Eric for the tip!

I do have a few questions tho'. There's a white dashed line across the top of the clip in 16:9, wondering what that is.....hope it won't record out to tape or dvd when I make backups or final video?

Also, should I take my Canon XL2 and match the color bars on the color monitor to the XL2's color bars? I notice that the clips on the computer look the same as the clips on the JVC color monitor, so I'm not sure whether I need to do this with the camcorder matching or not?

Eric, if you have any advice on any of the settings let me know. I'm reading the manual and will try different things, altho' things look pretty good at the factory settings.

Thanks again and Happy New Year to all!

Lucinda

There are calibration instructions at:
http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

2- I'm not sure what you're talking about in reference to camcorder matching.

3- If you want, you can try the following tests on your monitor:
A- Put up a well-exposed black and white image. There should not be color casts on the monitor, and you should not see reflections of room lights.
Easiest way to do this is to drop the color corrector on color footage from your editing system. Then de-saturate fully.

B- Look away for seven seconds. Then look at the monitor- do the highlights appear white?

C- Look at your editing system's computer monitor for seven seconds. Then look at the monitor- do the highlights appear white?
If the highlights are not white, you'll probably find that they will start looking white after several seconds.

To fix that, you may be able to change the white points of the various monitors in the room.

Hi Glenn,

What I meant was that the XL2 has color bars and I wonder if I should try to match the JVC monitor's color bars with the XL2's to get the correct color.

You should probably use the color bars generated by your editing system.

Unfortunately color bars can be incorrent depending on how they program handles things. Usually I think you can assume a program's color bars generator is correct (maybe except for the vegas 4ish era).

Glenn,

It looks really close when I look at a clip in Premiere and then look at the monitor...looks exactly the same in fact. So, this is the default settings from the factory. Do you think I should just leave as is?

Lucinda,
You should probably calibrate the monitor. The link earlier has instructions.

2- I would also test the monitor as outlined in my previous message.

I would try to use a real world image (not a test pattern) turned into black and white.

Glenn,

Would happen to know why there are broken white dash like lines across the top of the 16:9 clip, not of course on the 4:3, it's only along the top of the clip, not the bottom. I assume it's some sort of guide...but I hope it doesn't go to tape when I record the timeline.

Don't know, sorry.

Ah, John come lately again. Sorry, Lucinda, I don't have the "post alert" turned on in my preferences anymore. The line will not be in your footage. I'm not sure what produces it or why it is there but it will not turn up on your media. Glad you like the monitor!

Apart from a converter, do I also need to buy and install a more advanced card to be used with this kind of monitor? I use a G5 Mac and Final Cut Pro but no production monitor. Many thanks.

George, the answer is no for SD. For SD (i.e. miniDV), the best setup is to use your DV camcorder to convert from firewire to analog. I believe instructions may be stickied in the FCP forum here.