Any recommendations on a lightweight, battery powered field monitor?

If you are looking for a true broadcast monitor Sony has several
models for field use and battery power. They are use a lot in the
TV world.

Any recs?

I can't help you with more detailed specifics. I would suggest you
do a search on this board on "broadcast monitor" and see what
that turns up. The matter has been discussed a couple of times
in the past.

The Sony PVM-8045Q (8 inch 450 lines) has an optional battery systems. I don't have it, but as I remember, it was almost as much as the monitor. I know Sony makes a couple that run off battery power as well as AC/DC. You might look over there.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rhett Allen : The Sony PVM-8045Q (8 inch 450 lines) has an optional battery systems. I don't have it, but as I remember, it was almost as much as the monitor. I know Sony makes a couple that run off battery power as well as AC/DC. You might look over there. -->>>

You can use any battery, as long as the voltage is correct and the battery amperage is highe. That data is printed on the back of any monitor.

Don't be limited to Sony products, because they should be awfully expensive.

Important: current demand should be high, so lithium ion batteries are out. Only gel, nicads and NiMHs can be used.


Carlos

charles p once recommended a portable lcd monitor with harddisk recorder on this forum. maybe you can do a search on this subject matters.

ed

Also take a look at this thread that was just started:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39193

consider a laptop computer running DVRack from Serious Magic. It provides you with a host of quality control tools. It requires firewire out from your camera.

I guess you could also use VideoViewer on the Mac. It will allow you to run the Firewire input and view it on the desktop. No big frills like DVRack but it does have a little waveform/vectorscope etc. and it's super cheap. Actually I guess you can try it out for free. Otherwise it's $19. (yes that says NINETEEN dollars)

Video Viewer (http://www.schubert-it.com/videoviewer/)

Rhett,

Thanks for that link! I'm giving it a try.

And it looks like the cost is only $9! So you can get lunch and the Video Viewer for $19! :)

You know, I thought it said $9 but I went back and checked and thought it said $19. Either way, it's really cheap, not quite as powerful as I would like, but a cheap and easy way to get an external viewer for framing and such.

I highly recommend DVRack from Serious Magic. (www.seriousmagic.com) I sold my battery powered LCD field monitor in favor of it. It does a heck of a lot more than just allowing you to frame shots.

DVRack is a cool looking program but unfortunately if you look at Michael's profile you'll see that he uses FCP which means he's a Mac user and Serious Magic isn't interested in developing for the Mac platform. Unfortunately he would need to invest the $500 for the software on top of the purchase of a PC laptop which would put him well within the range of buying a monitor, and that could be used for much more than just DV work.
I, personally, really would love to see something like DVRack for the Mac but it doesn't look very promising.

I've heard mention of DVrack before, and finally clicked the link.

wow.

I want!

My laptop will be underpowered tho, I wonder if it might get away with it because its Intel not AMD (they don't state chipset, and a P3 will be better at 900mhz than the AMD equivalent for video at a guess) so I might just scrape it. It looks excellent, and so much more convenient for people like me who have limited space and limited amount of equipment I can keep anyway.

Again.. wow.

Wow is right! This thread finally put DV Rack on my radar scope...I wonder what's driving them to offer a deep discount right now? Perhaps an impending new version and/or an upgrade to HDV support?