4:3 vs 16:9 LCD monitors
 

It's time for me to switch to LCD monitors and ditch these CRT monsters hogging my desk.

My question, what is better for editing, the now popular widescreen monitors, or the standard 4:3 ones? I'm running three monitors wide, so I'm thinking the extra width is useless for me, but with more vertical resolution on the 4:3 I'd get more visible tracks on bigger projects where I need it.

Am I on the right track, or is there a reason I should definitely want a widescreen LCD monitor?

Thanks!

If you keep all 3 monitors then ... sure.

But personally, I replaced 3 monitors with one large widescreen plus a widescreen LCD-TV fed by component cables.

Are you using the LCD TV for color correction??

Actually that was my main reason for using an LCD TV, because I was confident it would use HD colorspace properly.

Maybe I havent looked in the right places, but I've never been sure how computer monitors apply colorspace maticies. Probably they do it just fine, but I've never really understood how its handled.

Interesting. I had been thinking of getting an HD monitor. In fact, I posted this yesterday in another section. I'm curious as to what your opinion is. I'll paste it below. Now I'm wondering if I could save a ton of money by getting an LCD TV.

Still, it would be missing a lot of broadcast features.

Anyway, my post was as follows:

This may sound stupid, but I want to make sure before I go and buy one.

My normal setup consists of my Mac Tower running Final Cut -> Firewire -> what used to be a DSR-11, now the HVR-M15U -> S-Video cable to a Sony CRT Broadcast monitor. This enabled me to monitor my work, do color correction, etc. Never a problem with this, except for the documented FCP corrupt preferences glitch occasionally, which would cause it to lose the video, but is easily fixable.

So I was thinking of replacing the trusty Sony monitor with the Panny BT-LH1700W because I want 16:9 and HD. I don't love LCD's, but I cannot afford a broadcast CRT. That's NOT my question here, though, and I"ll reasearch that more on my own from the numerous threads here.

I want to make sure that, if I maintain this setup and connect through the component out of the Sony deck to the Panasonic monitor, it will still work. I don't see why it would not in HDV, but I am asking you who are more experienced for your advice.

Paul, I'm on a PC, so won't be of much help.

As the previous post says, you can't pass HDV realtime via firewire for monitoring (at least without without some sort of extra hardware decoding step).

I send HD-component out from my videocard direct to my LCD TV. With Windows' multidisplay support, I can then see the timeline and monitor windows on the computer monitor, plus a fullscreen video image on the LCD.

With my Matrox Parhelia APVe I get two PC monitors plus on HDTV. I like it. I just wish they would come out with a version that worked better with After Effects 3D stuff.

I currently use two wide screen LCDs for my setup. I think they give me the area of 3 crts. I would definitely look into the native resolution of what your buying.


Dylan: May I suggest...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824116065


Looking now, this is what I bought. Got 3, two for this comp and 1 for my audio machine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824254005

It's a GREAT screen!

I'm going to start chucking beer cans at everyone who derailed my thread!
Full ones!
But of PBR so you don't want to drink it!
:)


If we can get back to my original topic for just a second (and so I don't have to delete all your posts)...

GIVEN A MULTIPLE MONITOR SETUP, DO YOU PREFER WIDESCREEN OR STANDARD LCD COMPUTER MONITORS FOR EDITING???

I would definitely go wide screen.

I use one monitor for my premiere tools/effects/timeline, the other screen just has my preview window/source window tabs. So I get as much space as possible for my 16:9 video on one screen, while comfortably fitting everything else on the other.

Go widescreen, look into that Hanns-G, I bought 3 and would recommend it.

Wide screen, it's a no-brainer. It's 2007. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary, etc.

If I had it to do over again, I would probably go widescreen. But I would get the kind that can rotate so I could work on some of my stills in the "proper" orientation.

I am going with two HPLP3065 wide screens driven from a Nvidia FX4500 dual link card. Boy is it great. :o)

I have do dump my matrox apve cards since they dont do dual link. :o(

Dave

What resolution widescreen monitor would one want in order to edit HD captures? The widescreen monitors on newegg are either 1920 x 1200, 1680 x 1050, or 1440 x 900 (i.e., all of them are 1.6:1, not 1.78 which is 16:9).

If you get a 1920X1200 the HDV will not fill up the entire monitor, but so what? You get all of the pixels. That is all that counts.

Thanks, Steven. :)

So what's the best widescreen monitor then to use as your preview window?

The new 24" Benq? The Dell 24"? The Samsung?

Or maybe an Eizo. Dylan have you made any progress in this dept. yet?
Thx.

Recently got rid of my two 19" 4:3 LCD monitors and replaced them with one 30" Ultrasharp Widescreen Dell LCD - 2560 x 1600 (coupled with a Palit 7900GS Dual-DVI card).

I probably haven't increased my screen real estate - but the fact that I don't have the plastic sides between screens makes a huge improvement. Editing with PPRO2 on it would be an absolute joy if it didn't keep crashing.

Pretty darn nice and just cost me $1800AUD.

I use a ColorVision Spyder2 Express to get my colours kosher - I don't have a separate monitor to preview.