What I'm trying to achieve: monitor the video timeline in real time, over HD-SDI.

Currently I just expand the application (PPro, AE) to the 2nd monitor so the video window of that application is sitting on the 2nd monitor and showing me the playback.

Instead, I'd like to have the signal out via HD-SDI to the professional video monitor I have, so I could see calibrated colors, and check waveform in real time.

How to?

Currently have the following setup:

- Win XP Pro 64-bit, Intel Quad processor 3Ghz, 4Gb memory, mobo NVIDIA EVGA Nforce 790i Ultra SLI
- Video card ATI FireGl V5000, dual head driving two Dell 2405FPW monitors over DVI.
- Cineform Prospect HD v 3.4.0
- Premiere Pro 2.0 and After Effects 7.0

So... what should be done to provide HD-SDI monitoring?

Please suggest hardware/software changes (HDSDI card? PPro upgrade? Cineform upgrade?) to be made if needed, thanks.

AJA Xena LHe or LHi is the way to go. It should be compatible with you current toolset.

1. What is the diff between LHe and LHi?

Googling did not render any direct comparisons.

Price difference is $400 higher for LHi, why?

2. Since I will only need HD-SDI playback out, wouldn't these cards be a bit of an overkill for my case, with their capture + all their Analog circuitry features? maybe there are some simpler (and cheaper) monitoring versions - what do you think?

Found Xena HS - $800, HDSDI only (no analog parts that I don't need).

PCI/PCI-X only (no PCIe) - does it matter?

Does it work well with Cineform?

Says it was designed for PPro 2 and AE 7, which is exactly my setup... but what if I upgrade eventually to CS4 suite??

Have you looked at the Matrox mini??

We support the Xena HS card in our tools also -- if you PC has PCI-X (the older workstation bus.) LHe is HS + Analag and uses a PCIe slot. LHi adds HDMI.