Got my Panasonic LCD...here are some details
 

I received my Panasonic TC*7QMS1 7" LCD the other day. I also received my Nebtek lithium battery adapter. For those who are thinking about getting one of these, here is some info.

First, there aren't individual power/video/audio jacks on the monitor. It has what looks like a proprietary cable input. It comes with the cable which splits into a BNC male, RCA male (for audio) and two bare cables for power. I didn't even realize the LCD had a speaker, but it does in the back.

The nebtek adapter has the power connector that you see in the picture on their site.

The first thing I needed to do was purchase a cheap project box (just a plastic square box) and a female power connector that the nebtek could plug into and the LCD power wires could be soldered to. I put this all together and velcro'd it onto the back of the LCD along with the Nebtek adapter. I also purchased a 12V 1200 mA wall wart that can also power the LCD with the same connector as the Nebtek.

Once I finally got this setup, I hooked it up to the Canon. Here are my comments.

First, you won't get the zebra patterns through the BNC cable. That kind of sucks because I wanted to remove the viewfinder to save weight. I haven't had a chance to try the LCD outside, so I don't know how well the automatic dimming works. The only settings on the LCD are NTSC/PAL, automatic dimming options, speaker volume, various stretch modes, and one I didn't expect: black and white! There are no other picture settings.

The picture looks good to me, but I don't have much experience with these and I don't have anything to compare it with. Therefore, I devised a test. I downloaded a chart ( now at www.toobookoo.com/chart.jpg ) and printed it up on a full 8x11 sheet of paper. I set the Canon on 24p, 16x9, lowest f, 1/48th, no ND, no gain and zoomed in all the way. I then tried to see how far away I could make out some of the resolution bars.

I set the chart on a long side so the "4:3" marks are on the left. I focused on the bottom resolution bar all the way to the right near the "10." I moved the chart farther and farther away to see how far I could get it and still be able to make out the individual vertical lines above the "10." I guess this technically only tests the horizontal resolution.

In color, I could get the chart 44 inches away from the front of the lens hood. In black and white, I could get the chart 55 inches away from the front of the lens hood. At both of these distances, I could just barely count the individual lines.

I would assume that if someone could get farther away under the same conditions and still pick out the lines, their monitor would have better resolution. The opposite would stand if they couldn't get as far.

This may not be the perfect test and I might not be providing all the pertinent data. Let me know if there are any improvements.

It would be interesting to see what the results would be for the other LCD monitors. Anybody be willing to try?

Thanks,

Kelly

By the way, I emailed Nebtek to ask them something about their power adapter after I ordered it. They said they would have hardwired the LCD for me for free if I had sent it to them when I ordered the adapter. That is pretty cool of them. I don't know if they would have set it up like I have it (with the ability to plug into the wall), but it was still cool nonetheless.

Kelly

If you want to measure your monitor/camera resolution then you can use the EIA 1956 chart. See the section "Do your own test" on John Beale's website here: http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/respat/.

Since this chart is designed for 4:3, if you're working in 16:9 then you will need to frame differently to measure horizontal vs vertical resolution. To measure vertical resolution, frame the chart to fill the frame vertically. To measure horizontal res, frame to fill horizontally. Be sure you have your monitor set to underscan so that you see the entire video frame; the edge of the chart should be at the edge of the frame.

To measure vertical resolution, use the converging horizontal lines to the left and right of the chart center. Note the point where the lines are no longer distinctly visible. You can read the resolution by the numbers on the scale. For vertical res you will be looking at the number sequence 400-500-600-700-800. For horizontal res do the same thing (but frame as discussed above) using the vertical converging lines above and below the center target. The little circles in the 4 corners of the chart also have converging bars which can be used to measure the resolution.

These numbers will give a basis to compare with other cameras and monitors. Also, try resizing the chart JPEG to 720x480 in Photoshop. Now look closely at it. This will show you the maximum resolution possible for a 4:3 video image. I did some tests with my own cameras here for example:

http://www.greenmist.com/dv/res/