Hi all,

I'm thinking about getting 3 monitors eventually. What are your thoughts on a 3 head video card? I know nothing about them, thanks.

Matrox APVe works for me.

Thanks Bart. It's pretty pricey. Are they all that expensive and is there any competition? I was looking at the triplehead2go. Which is about the same cost. A breakoutbox might work better for me since I'm going to stick the PC in the closet to cut down on fan noise.

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is a pair of reasonably priced graphics cards. You wouldn't be able to run in SLI or Crossfire, but editing software doesn't make use of this feature anyhow. What editing software are you using?

Also, sticking the computer in a closet? Unless you have a plan in place, you may be in for a disaster. Video editing systems tend to be high powered and to cool them adequately requires a reasonable amount of airflow.

Hi Devin,

Thanks for the response. I use Vegas and I like the idea of the breakout box. I could use it with a laptop in the future, especially if it will run off only 1 input! But are there any downsides? I think I read in a review something about resolution limitations increase with multiple monitors. I don't know anything about it though.

I'm guessing the closet will be ok. But I have Everest to monitor it if it gets out of hand. It won't always be running full tilt. Also, I live in an area where it's pretty moderate temperature wise.

What about this stuff? IOGEAR (http://www.iogear.com) Is that useful or just to control multiple computers with?

I've never used one of those USB to VGA devices you mention, so I cannot say whether it will work or not.

It is good to keep in mind that if you use one of those devices, that is one more set of drivers - and if my experience has taught me anything - NLE systems are picky about the graphics drivers.

Getting two graphics cards will probably be a lot better for most NLE work. The USB items have limited bandwidth, and I believe the splitting options have lower resolution limits. Are you using large monitors. There should be little need for more that 2 24" LCDs, although the simplest addition to that would be a dedicated fullscreen playout monitor driven by a professional I/O card.

Note this posting: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/attend-world-premiere/138540-what-videocard-choose.html

the Matrox APVe card no longer works with Premiere Pro CS4.

I'm going to investigate the two card solution...

Thanks everybody. I'm going to look into buying a card soon. I'll start with a 2 monitor setup. I think triplehead2go at 3 monitors requires a dual input to work. Need to confirm with Matrox though.

I can confirm that the digital triplehead2go only requires a single input to output to 3 monitors.

I have one and am considering using it to support two monitors out of one of the ports from my 9800GX2 card and use the other output to go straight to my third display, which would act as full screen preview.

Does anyone forsee issues with that?

Sorry to dig up a 10 month old thread - I can't track down any other discussion about it.

I would use a conventional card fro two of my displays and somehtn like an AJA or Blackmagic with HDMI out for my third monitor - two monitors dedicated to the normal computer stuff and a third for displaying video (normally over HDMI).

I know this works with my BMD Multibridge Pro, and it also gives you conventional PAL and NTSC outputs for a CRT if required.