on set monitoring - video village

[david_winters]

In the ad / spot biz what is everyone using? For my jobs I always need the following, directors monitor, client land monitor, plus the sound mixer typically wants a composite (NTSC) feed. I do a lot of director / dp gigs and hate working from anything smaller than 14".

Is the Panasonic 17" LCD the way to go - 1700W via HD-SDI?

http://tinyurl.com/2c4fyl

Thanks

[Dylan Reeve]

The Panasonic 17 is pretty common I think. Certainly the HD monitor I've seen most in the field. It's pretty good, although I find the viewing angle a little problematic I think.

Problem with current build is lack of SDI and LCD concurrent output, of course. For SD output the AJA downconverter seems to be the de facto standard, although I think Miranda have a product that'd do the job too.

Another option I've considered but not really tested is a Dell 24" widescreen monitor and a Blackmagic HD-Link converter. Should be a reasonably decent option.

[James T Mather]

Is there any monitor option that doesn't cost 3,500 - I'm not sure that I need waveforms etc - will a standard LCD work?

Thanks

[Wes Printz]

Have you looked at the TV Logic line? Have used the 24" quite a bit. I'm unsure of the cost. Much better viewing angle than the Panasonic 17".

http://www.tvlogic.co.kr/eng/products/mf_lcd/ml_index.php

TVLogic monitors all come standard with 2 x SD/HD autosensing/ autoswitching SDI, Component, Composite, S-Video, RGB, & DVI-I (or VGA) inputs.

Support of NTSC, PAL, SECAM & virtually all SD/HD digital formats is standard. This includes support of PsF formats as a standard feature and support of 1080p60 and 4:4:4 sources over the password enabled Dual-Link option.

[david_winters]

The TV Logic products looks interesting, but 1920x1080. I was thinking the 17" Panasonic would be ideal as it is 1280x720 image display, which prevents an additional pass of scaling. Is there any additional visual trade offs by viewing 720p out of the camera scaled to 1080p?

Going the DVI LCD route with a HD-SDI to DVI converter is too much of a hassle, with the added converter box, two wall warts, mess of cable, and lack of decent rolling stand hardware. I've worked with these DVI LCD setups on F900 jobs and moving video village always causes something to get effed up loosing valuable time.

For most of my jobs the "pro video" type of LCD is preferable, internal power supply, HD-SDI, 12VDC (for battery power), mental enclosure with third party mounting options for rolling stands.

Thanks

[Hans von Sonntag]

Is there any monitor option that doesn't cost 3,500 - I'm not sure that I need waveforms etc - will a standard LCD work?

Thanks

In the moment I would go with the brand new TVlogic LVM-071W. It has all video flavours, including HDSDI 720p plus DVI which can be adapted to HDMI, great for RED. A wavefom is included as well, not that important for RED since monitoring is not WYSIWYG. Price: 2.500,- €

Hans

[Joel Kaye]

Another option I've considered but not really tested is a Dell 24" widescreen monitor and a Blackmagic HD-Link converter.

I just did the HDMI to DVI on a 24" Dell last night. Looked great and all the menus come through. Actually, scaling up to fill the screen looked good.

Oh - and for everyone whoever hooked their HVX up to a DELL and believed that the Dell was causing the noise... I've got news for you. It's the HVX. RED's preview is clean on a DELL.

I'm going to get a Dell 1708FP. Same thing, but it's the native resolution RED puts out with menus. $250 or so. And they are killer little monitors. I wonder if there are HDMI or DVI splitters out there so you could send to several of those monitors? Must be.

Spending a fortune for this task doesn't make sense to me really... RED's putting out a raw preview off the 1k stream. Like you need a $3k monitor for that.

Actually, I hooked up my $3500 monitor via the Preview to HD-SDI in and the menus didn't come through. So the inexpensive monitor with HDMI to DVI cable was a superior solution in my case.

The key PROBLEM is I need EVF/LCD and HDMI outputting at the same time. They've got to fix that.

[James Press]

The key PROBLEM is I need EVF/LCD and HDMI outputting at the same time. They've got to fix that.

I thought it might just be us, but is it correct that you can't currently monitor with RED LCD AND HDMI AND HDSDI? I'm wanting to use all 3 but am struggling to get an image from the HDMI??

[Brian Broz]

You absolutely should be able to view RED LCD, RED EVF, HDMI and HDSDI out at the same time. Double check your output resolution and 50/60Hz settings in camera if you haven't already.
Now you'll only get menus in the RED LCD and RED EVF (no clip numbers, no record-red timecode display) to the external monitors, but you should get a signal.
The beta build 18 should solve any HDMI issues you may be having (but is still a beta build of course). Hope B18 is near release myself...

[david_winters]

I forgot all about this thread. I ended up buying 4 Dell 24" monitors with HDMI in. The colors are better over the HDMI input vs DVI. The DVI has a slight green cast to the highlights. In general the monitors are a bit over saturated and skintones look hotter compared to the 17" Panasonic HD-SDI. However, for the money, they are fantastic. I actually prefer having color and exposure which is even further away from actual. Now when the clients hassle me about flattening out my lighting or wacky color I can just blame it on the "tap" and keep the lighting were I want it.

Still not a replacement for a reliable HD-SDI setup, these things are still quite temperamental when re-patching. I've got a HDMI DA to feed multiple monitors and sometimes we get in this confusing loop of re-patching and re-setting DA power until all the monitors display picture.

The rotating stand is nice for vertical display. However, it only rotates the wrong way, so now the camera is on the "wrong" side for the operator.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3339/3502463176_e7a9f5d71c.jpg

[ericyoung]

I forgot all about this thread. I ended up buying 4 Dell 24" monitors with HDMI in. The colors are better over the HDMI input vs DVI. The DVI has a slight green cast to the highlights. In general the monitors are a bit over saturated and skintones look hotter compared to the 17" Panasonic HD-SDI. However, for the money, they are fantastic...

What's the model of Dell you got, and what price did you get them for?

Thanks
Eric

[david_winters]

I think I paid $550 USD / ea
DELL ULTRASHARP 2408WFP

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=320-6272

[ericyoung]

Thanks David.

[Alexander Alexandrov]

just double-checking: there's no menus cropping on this monitor?

[david_winters]

No cropping. DELL ULTRASHARP 2408WFP same view area as Red LCD.