Looking to add an HD color reference monitor to my CS3 + Aspect HD setup, but it doesn't look like Cineform supports the Blackmagic cards.

Editing HDV so no need for SDI. Current video card is an Nvidia GeForce 7600GT - has DVI digital (taken by 23" LCD) + open DVI analog port; doubt that a DVI analog to component cable into an HDTV would magically achieve this... if I could be so lucky.

Any Aspect users find an affordable external monitoring solution? Must I upgrade to Prospect?

If so, would the most affordable solution be the AJA Xena LS ($850) (+ Prospect upgrade)?

Thanks all!

Great question. I would also like to know what options are out there.

Steve

One solution that will definitely work is the XenaLH plus Prospect. The LH is a more expensive HiDef version of the LS, and has both component and SDI outputs in HD and SD.

A totally different method that MAY work would be to use AspectHD's video overlay option with a regular video card. Nvidia disabled this feature on all of their cards ever since the 8800 drivers were released, but ATI may still offer this functionality. Getting a new GPU card is a way cheaper option, and if you get a new one that supports HDMI out, you may have a pure digital connection all the way to your HDTV. I am not an ATI fan at all, so once Nvidia removed support for the variation of overlay that Cineform had implemented, I considered it totally gone, but I believe it will still work with ATI hardware. Native Premiere uses a different type of overlay, that still works on Nvidia cards, but not with the smooth performance that Cineform's overlay provides.

Also calibrating the colors on an SDI output from a Xena card should be much easier and more consistent, but should also be possible with the GPU output.