If I get the new MacBook pro, is there a way for me to output to a CRT monitor without the Decklink card that would normally be in the PowerMac?

I'd like to stick with the new Intel boxes and don't want to purchase a G5 when the Intel Power Macs are coming out in late 2006.

Use a DVI to VGA adapter. It might even ship with one. The Mac Mini does.

My setup that I really wanted was two LCD monitors and one CRT output. I'm assuming then that I would be able to do one LCD and one CRT then with the MacBook?

#8 External Monitor Viewing.

Shane's Stock Answer #8:

A simple path is mac > firewire > camera or deck > rca cables > tv

Then start up your camera and tv, then open fcp.

Then go View > External video > all frames
Video playback should be Apple firewire NTSC (If you are using an NTSC set)
Audio playback should be Audio follows Video

Techinially, this should send synched video to your TV

If for some reason you can't view your timeline on your external monitor, there are a few things to try:

1) Make sure that the camera/deck is connected and powered on BEFORE you open FCP.

2) In the Final Cut Pro menu select AUDIO/VIDEO Preferences and make sure your signal is being sent out thru Firewire DV.

3) Go to the menu and select VIEW>EXTERNAL>ALL FRAMES.

4) Click in the % box above the image and select FIT TO WINDOW.

5) Go to VIEW->refresh A/V devices

6) Make sure the Log & Capture window is closed

If you want it to play in both the canvas and the external monitor you need to go to the FINAL CUT PRO menu and select AUDIO/VIDIO settings and make sure MIRROR ON DESKTOP is selected under the PLAYBACK OUTPUT section

is there a way for me to output to a CRT monitor without the Decklink card that would normally be in the PowerMac?

Since you mention Decklink I assume that you want to edit HDV and view on an external monitor. If so, then firewire is not a substitute. You cannot use firewire for an external monitor while editing HDV since the computer can't compress the data fast enough on the fly.

You could use the powerbook screen for the timeline, browser, canvas and viewer and an external monitor in "digital cinema desktop" mode to view your footage however. But the quality of the external display in this mode is very compromised. I've noticed that dark footage appears to be very noisy, but really it's just a reduced quality display. It works and is better than nothing, but not at all like viewing at full HD resolution.

So at the current time I think you need a Powermac with a card slot if you want high quality HD on an external monitor while editing. However we have not yet seen the new version of FCP which will run on the Intel Macs. Perhaps Apple will address this issue in an update? Or maybe someone will come up with a firewire box which can somehow provide previews? Seems unlikely, but who knows...

You could use the powerbook screen for the timeline, browser, canvas and viewer and an external monitor in "digital cinema desktop" mode to view your footage however. But the quality of the external display in this mode is very compromised. I've noticed that dark footage appears to be very noisy, but really it's just a reduced quality display. It works and is better than nothing, but not at all like viewing at full HD resolution.


I'm not sure about "reduced quality"... it's more like a good pair of monitor speakers - the LCD display tends to accentuate problems in the footage, rather than present it in the most flattering way. All that noise IS there on the TV or CRT monitor... it's just smoothed over. "Full res" and "high quality" are not the same as "best looking."

Hmm... I don't have a decklink card so I don't know how that would compare. But in this case I watched the footage while playing back the HDV tape on my Z1 connected to a 23" Samsung LCD HD display via component video. It looked very clean with no visible noise in the dark areas. I then captured the tape in FCP and viewed the unedited clip on the same screen using digital cinema desktop via DVI input connected to my G5's graphics card. It appears to be lower resolution with a huge amount of noise in the black areas - a veritable snowstorm! This really surprised me because I've seen other footage in that mode which didn't look so bad.

My other datapoint is editing regular DV in FCP5. Again, I used the same LCD screen connected via component video to a DVD recorder which was fed video via firewire. The image looked great. I then switched to the same screen's DVI input and changed FCP's external video settings from firewire to digital cinema desktop. The same footage looked very noticably worse. So bad, in fact, that I didn't want to edit that way.

Your mileage may vary, but this was enough to convince me that digital cinema desktop really isn't good enough to make serious image judgements....

Damn I really nope native intel FCP studio and intel macs clear that up.