HD monitor for FCP

What are you guys with home set-ups using to preview HD?
I have a good SD Sony, but an HD version is probably out of the question
at this point.

Three options for me...

AJA Kona 3 with SOny PVM-14L5 HD CRT
AJA Kona LH into...well, the same monitor. If I need to swap it around.
Matrox MXO with Apple 23" Cinema Display.

You will need an HD capture card and an HD monitor. Unless you do the MXO/ACD thing.


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Thanks, Shane! It's interesting how Kona has taken over from
Decklink, which was the only way to go a few short years back.
I have to get back in the loop.

Quote

It's interesting how Kona has taken over from
Decklink

Just to put this slight misconception to bed - that statement is waaaaay off.

Blackmagic outsell AJA by a looooong way not least due to their reasonable pricing as well as reliability.

Back to your question:

For true HD monitoring your only choice if you want Grade 1 at present is the Barco RHDM-2301.

Sony, JVC or Panasonic don't make Grade 1 CRTs anymore (you might be able to get a good deal on a used one though) and their LCDs are all variable and only close approximations and are NOT Grade 1 so anyone selling you this is either lying or misinformed.

I personally think the LCD broadcast monitors seriously suck and despite what they say you can never truly see/check interlaced video correctly on anything other than a CRT so if doing SD you should definitely keep your Sony.

For HD at home I have a JVC DTV 19" HD CRT via SDI and a 42" Panasonic Veira HD Plasma (VERY nice) hooked up via component and HDMI to a Blackmagic Multibridge Pro on the MacPro and Decklink Pro 4:4:4 on the Dual G5 PPC.


As Shane said the Matrox MXO with Apple 23" Cinema Display is an excellent option.

A cheap alternative for HD monitoring would be an Blackmagic Intensity [www.blackmagic-design.com] to a good quality HDTV via HDMI.



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You asked what we used. Those are what I use. Decklink is a very good company with quality cards that aren't expensive.


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I'm using a BMD Intensity Pro running out to a JVC DT-V20L1U.

Someone in another forum recommended the JVC as well.
The price looks good!

I don't have any experience with the JVC, but I understand it's similar to, and maybe slightly inferior to, the Panasonic BT-LH1760 I mentioned ? somewhere around here. I wanna elaborate on something.

The 1760 is a budget broadcast monitor. It's not great. I think this one set me back about $5,000, which is a steal. But it comes at a price. It's only a 720p display; to see pixel-for-pixel, you have to turn on zooming and pan around the display with the front-panel controls. It's an LCD, and even though it does an admirable job of faking interlacing ? jitter frames do, in fact, jitter ? it's still just a simulation of an interlaced display. The color is also quite flat compared to your garden-variety consumer CRT. Of course, garden-variety consumer TVs are becoming less and less common, so that's less of an issue now than it was. But I still have to keep a composite-fed SD CRT in my room just for a sanity check.

That said, this guy has dual SDI inputs, onscreen waveform and vector scopes, and a variety of configurable markers and safe guides for both 16x9 and 4x3. Plus it's really compact. So it's a good budget choice, as long as you're acutely aware of, and willing to live with, its limitations.

Most of those caveats will probably apply to the JVC as well.

Man, I miss my old BVM-D24, though.

(Slightly OT)

Shane, wanted to ask you this because you have both AJA and Matrox products: are you running both at the same time? Or at least, you have both sets of drivers loaded on the same machine?

I uninstalled my MXO when I got an IoHD, been hesitant to reinstall the MXO software since it registered in the AJA Conflict Checker. Would be nice if I could keep using the MXO for display purposes since I don't have a good HD monitor yet...

Thanks!

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

I don't use them both at the same time. The AJA drivers have SO MANY presets that it pretty much takes over. I use the MXO with my Laptop...the Konas with my G5 and my MacPro.

I would not recommend having the AJA I/O HD and MXO drivers installed at the same time...they will conflict.


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Jeff Harrell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most of those caveats will probably apply to the
> JVC as well.

Not really. The JVC's have pretty incredible black levels for LCD displays. It's upscale of SD and display of interlaced material is really at the top of this price range.

depending on price range, you can get a 20" or 24" with or without HD-SDI... they go from $950 to $3300.

Keep an eye on the HP Dreamcolor 10bit LCD reference monitor HP developed in a partnership with Dreamworks. It's not getting much attention yet in the video world. I asked Scott Gentry over at ProVideoCoalition if he could get one of his writers to get their hands on one for a review. He is looking into it.

It comes with preset gammas for HD and SD as well as film and print. You can find videos with various Dreamworks people discussing it if you just google it. Model # LP2480zx

When it came out late June it was going for close to the list price of approx $3500 but can now be had at many internet retailers for over a thousand less.

It would be interesting to see HP invited to the monthly LAFCPUG meeting for a demo.

I was looking at possibly buying the JVC and saw a demo of it but the salesman started backtracking when I asked if it was really usable as a broadcast reference monitor. Since then they have release free calibration software that you can download from JVC, so maybe there is some improvement there.

I've been looking at that display, but unless I totally lost the plot, it has no SDI input. Component only. Which makes me wonder just what the hell it's for.

Inputs are Display Port 1.1, HDMI 1.3, DVI, component, s-video.
So obviously you would need a converter if you wanted to go SDI.

The Dreamworks guys seem to rave about the color accuracy.

So it's worth having some broadcast experienced editors or engineers get their hands on it and put HP's claims to the test.