editing with a production monitor

[Josef Crow]

basic question.

how do you connect a production monitor to preview edits from Premiere (i use Aspect) or After Effects. I have a matrox parhelia graphics card, but can't get it to work. Then, I read you could output your edit to a camcorder and route it to the production monitor. Again, i can't figure it out.

anyone?

thanks

[David Newman]

Your Parhelia manual should explain how to turn the video cards overlay channel into a separate video output. We have found that the Parhelia does seem to prefer that the NTSC monitor be switch on before you startup your PC. When testing just use MediaPlayer with no other video windows open (or even minimized.) Aspect HD uses the overlay channel just like MediaPlayer, so if you can get work in MediaPlayer it will work with Aspect HD. After Effect doesn't use the overlay channel by default, but I believe Matrox has a driver for After Effects (I have never used it.) I didn't have a Parhelia at home, so can't easily advise you on its setup. Matrox's web site should provide the help you need.

With HDV you can't use Firewire for an external monitor preview. Technically it is possible but no one is doing that at HD resolutions yet.

[Josef Crow]

thanks for the reply, David.

Problem is, nothing but garbage shows up on the production monitor even with Windows Media Player. I've played with the settings in WMP and Matrox software. Nothing makes it work and Matrox support hasn't been much help.

I've reinstalled Matrox drivers, etc. Truth is, I have no idea what is the "overlay channel". I played around with downloading an updated DirectX (version 9), but haven't a clue even what this is.

any place one can read a tutorial about all this stuff?

thanks

[David Newman]

That doesn't sound too good. I guess the Matrox card could be bad, as you should get a good picture or black (depending on settings.) You shouldn't see garbage. The "Overlay channel" is the default hardware video playback window, you don't need to know about it. You probably need to get Matrox tech support on the phone.