1 + 1 CRT + External Monitor = Works?
 

I have an ATI 9600xt card. I was wondering if I can hook up an external monitor on the svideo out as the card supports it. I currently have 2 crt monitors hooked up to the vga and dvi out puts. So in theory what I want to do is have both crt's working and then use the external monitor setting in vegas. I have vegas 4 btw. Thanks in advance for your input.

You connect the external preview from Vegas via FIREWIRE. That is the ONLY supported method for a variety of reasons. The best reason for you is that the firewire connection will give you a TRUE representation of the colors that will be printed back to tape. If you try to go through the video card, IT'S colors will be used instead.

Two follow up questions:
 

And thank you ahead of time;

I've seen external monitors at B&H for between 400.00 bucks and the ones that are several thousand. At this time, i'm not planning on taking over Hollywood, could I get away with one around 400 bucks or so.

Secondly, so Vegas is going to understand the whole firewire out put?


Thanks.

I picked up a somewhat used (Still working great after 3 years), NEC2000 video monitor for $150 on ebay. At 20", it's kinda large, but my eyes aren't what they used to be either ;)

Vegas previews great over firewire. NOTE: The audio will still go through your speakers! When you PTT, both will go over firewire.

Just connect the firewire to a convertor/camera/deck and then S-Video/RCA to the monitor.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Vegas previews great over firewire. NOTE: The audio will still go through your speakers! When you PTT, both will go over firewire.

Just connect the firewire to a convertor/camera/deck and then S-Video/RCA to the monitor. -->>>

Hi Edward... a little more on the process of the firewire -> External monitor as I'm very new and I do plan on also doing the same type of setup. Most external monitors only has RCA or SVideo right? So the Firewire to a convertor/camera/deck is to use the convertor/camera/deck as a D-A converter? That means I can just use any camcorder that has a Firewire and D-A passthrough and connect from my Camroder -> External monitor?

Do you have any converters that you can recommend?

Thanks in advance

A cheap camcorder is probably your best bet for a convertor as you can also use it as a deck (saves head hours on expensive cameras). Look for the analog-digital passthrough feature.

Some of the off-brand camcorders may have poor deck control so avoid them (i.e. my Samsung SCD55 is terrible).

Thanks glenn for the response.

That is a great idea. Another excuse to get a cheap camcorder. My current camcorder is a panny 3CCD entry level and for some reason it has audio issues when playing Sony recorded tapes.
I tested 2 other similar models and same issue.

People say it has to do with alignment and tolerances of the head between the brands.

Thanks again.

Yes, any device that does the A=D conversion will work fine. That's the reason I recommended "camera/convertor/deck". Any of the three would work fine.

My deck does a great job for this. The multiple outputs on the deck lets me feed both an external monitor AND bank of VCR's at the same time.

Edward - if you don't mind telling - what kind of deck are you using. I'm going to be in the market for one and would prefer one that has Mini-DV and SVHS along with flexible inputs and outputs. Your comments about your deck piqued my interest...

jc

I have a Panasonic AG-DV2000. It uses both MiniDV and full size DV tapes (no SVHS). Two separate inputs and outputs plus firewire. All kinds of flexibility.

JVC makes units with mini-DV and SVHS in the same deck. It gets really confusing since there's multiple inputs and multiple directions the signals can be travelling. It should be a better idea to get a seperate SVHS deck and a patch bay or switcher if necessary.

The Panasonic decks looks much better than the JVC on paper (headphone jack, audio metering, DVCPRO, reads DVCAM, 7.5IRE setup, easy to use?). Unfortunately they are a little more expensive. With the JVC deck however you might as well get a cheap camcorder + SVHS deck + switcher, unless you need the faster transport mechanism the JVC deck provides.

I had read some bad things on the board about the JVC deck reliability. Does anybody have any observations about that? Any owners who love the JVC or hate it (not trying to hijack the thread here)...

"Many" users on the DV-L mailing list report problems with their decks. A refund is likely a good idea if you encounter that, although you may have to pay shipping fees.

Where I used to intern apparently the JVC deck there spent a lot of time in a repair shop. Not too sure on the details on that. The SVHS part of it is really confusing and makes it hard to make the deck convert analog-firewire on the fly. A seperate SVHS deck would be better.

One of the reasons the JVC deck interests me is that it reads and writes MiniDV, SVHS and regular 'ol VHS. I do a small amount of business that still wants product on VHS and it would be nice to be able to just burn straight to the VHS at what would essentially be master quality (no copy of a copy process).

Also my available real estate for gear is limited so a single box Vs: two separate boxes, a video switcher and a fire wire hub sounds pretty attractive. My only hesitations are price and the few negative comments I have seen around some of the boards...