I have a 24" monitor and am considering a 30" LCD monitor. If you have had experience going from a 24" to 30" and if you use Vegas on it regularly, I'd like to know if you felt the added real estate was worth the premium price. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I was looking real real hard at a 30" monitor. Lost a bid cuz some guy wanted to spend over $1000. I set my limit at $999. I then picked up a 28" for $500. I"ve been very happy with it. I went from a 24" also, the difference is significant. No doubt the 30" is bigger, the day it drops down to below 1 grand is when I'll spend. I am pretty sure you'll love the 28".

30 inch is great, but still too small if you have a bunch of stuff going on. 60 inch would be about right:) Not sure it would be that much of a improvement from a 28 - but it ought to work as a second monitor alongside the 28 quite nicely.

I'm probably going to add a second 30 incher this year.

take note that 30" is usually 2560 pixel and requires a dual-link DVI card. (a dual-link DVI card is NOT a card with two DVI output.)
up to 28" it is generally only 1920 pixel, so regular cards are ok.
28" is great if you think that 1920 at 24" is difficult to read.
you will not get more pixel, but just easy to read.
with 30" at 2560, you will get the same as a 24" at 1920, so no enhancement for reading, just more pixels.

Jeff, I went from 20" to simply plugging into a 32" Samsung LCD TV that became redundant when i replaced it with another. Vegas on this is wonderful to watch. I sit around 3-4 feet away from it and its pin-sharp, and gives me 720P when i need it. I certainly think it was worth it, and editing is easy on the eyes.... But my neighbours think i am over-indulgent. :-)

The problem though is that it is poor for colour grading, well even colour accuracy...

...its a damn shame Matrox dont do the MXO2 for the Windows platform as that now offers any Mac user the ability to use an LCD (as opposed to an ACD) and colour grade on it....so the blurb goes....

I should have stated said that my primary desire for moving up to 30" is for more width, so that I can see more of the timeline. That should be the case moving up from a 24". I wonder just how much more would be visible.

Nice layout John.

If you have a dual-head video card, then you should consider a second 24" monitor. Assuming that your single 24" is 1920x1200, then two of them would be a total screen real estate of 3840x1200. Here is screen grab of my default Vegas editing layout using two 1920x1200 24" monitors.

www.johncline.com/cline3840x1200.jpg

I agree with JC above. If you go 2 bigger monitors, you're likely going to have to up the video card to match it. Kinda like, you cant just buy bling...you gotta have the ride to go with it.
Yeah.

If you have a dual-head video card, then you should consider a second 24" monitor. Assuming that your single 24" is 1920x1200, then two of them would be a total screen real estate of 3840x1200. Here is screen grab of my default Vegas editing layout using two 1920x1200 24" monitors.

www.johncline.com/cline3840x1200.jpg

John,

How do I do the screen capture?

Thanks,

Hi John,

Are you running Vegas 8? If so how did you get the timeline on top? I like having it on the bottom but with this new version it seems stuck on top.

I also agree that having dual monitors is much better than one large one.

I can answer that for you. Go to Preferences then Display, you'll see it.

You can get a screenshot by simply pressing "Print Screen" which places the current screen on the clipboard. Then open your paint program and paste.

Thanks Jeff,

I've was going crazy trying to drag things around in the window. Now why I didn't think to look at the preferences I don't know. Duh.

I understand, even after I knew where it was I forgot the first few times and had to hunt for it...

I very much appreciate the feedback on this topic. I have reversed course. I realized that while a 30" monitor would be tons of fun, etc., the practical purchase for me is a JVC NTSC monitor that was recommended months ago to me by folks on this forum.

You can get a screenshot by simply pressing "Print Screen" which places the current screen on the clipboard. Then open your paint program and paste.

Is "paint program" a generic description for any photo editing application? If so I have Photoshop and Jasc. Also, how do I access the clipboard in Vegas?

Thanks again Edward,

Yes, "paint program" is generic for PhotoShop or PaintShopPro or any of the others out there (even Microsoft Paint that comes with Windows).

If you're wanting to paste the image from the clipboard into Vegas, you can't. You have to paste it into the paint program, save it, and then load that saved image into Vegas.

I run a dual monitor setup, have for many years. I edit on my main monitor and preview on my secondary, a widescreen LCD. Works great for me.

Yes... I have been using dual monitors now for a 4-5 years and I can most definately vouge for this being the ONLY way to go. I simply couldn't imagine editing without having two monitors. I would *definately* go with 2 - 24" monitors over 1 - 30" in a heartbeat. Makes your job easy because all you need to do is pickup another 24" monitor identical to the one you have now.

Jon

Another plus to dual monitors is that with MCE I can watch TV on one while "working" on the other. :)