Getting zebra stripes on Monitor?
 

Is it possible to get the zebra stripes displayed on the camera viewfinder to show up on an external monitor?

Is there some special hardware to do this, or is it even available on some cams?

Not on any camera I've used. There was some discussion in the XL1S forum months ago regarding intercepting the video signal to the viewfinder and sending it to an external monitor. But I don't know that anyone's actually done this.

Zebra stripes are not that accurate that any mfg. would go to the cost of making it available. They are intended for more ENG or run & gun style shooting. If you need a bigger size and, of course accuracy, get a waveform monitor.

On another note, if you are using a NTSC monitor for output, then in some ways, you don't need the zebra, because if it's calibrated properly, you will quickly see what will be blown out on any television anywhere in the frame.

I find Zebra's misleading, and depending on the look you are going for completely useless.

They come in handy to find hot-spots when you are running and gunning so that you can quickly ask subjects to move away from a light source, or reposition your camera at an event to crop out that burn. Great if you do event shooting or weddings.

On the slow delibrate setups, which is the type of shoots I am primarily involved in, I ignore them.

I use monitors for framing shots, but monitors can lie. You never know when your careful calibration gets thrown off by a crew member adjusting the brightness, contrast etc. When I'm doing critical work I use the zebra bars or ideally a waveform monitor/vectorscope. But i do not trust monitors for critical work by themselves. I've seen too many people get burned trusting just a monitor.

thanks for the input, guys. Does anyone have a good source for a primer on using a waveform monitor?

What about software waveform monitors? is the one included with FCP decent? would it be better than an ntsc monitor?

Software waveform monitors and vectorscopes are fine. I still use monitors to check framing, color and luminance on less critical work. Try a search with Google and you should find a link to a waveform tutorial. A link to a tutorial was posted here sometime ago, but it might be worth a search also.

Blip,
See my post in this thread concerning that color correction book. It will fill the bill on illustrating the use of vectorscopes and waveform monitors.