Hello,

I am using AE7 and have connected my preview monitor to my Firewire via a Canon XM2.

It works but there seems to be some delay between what I see on the laptop screen versus my preview monitor.

1, Is it possible/better to use an external box (like a DATAVIDEO DAC-100 Y/C-Composite Dv Converter. If so what benefits would I get?

2, Is using the YC input ok on my monitor?

4, Should I consider any other USB2, FW or PCMCIA convertor options?

Thanks in advance

i would agree that the bult-in preview function in after effects is a little lacking. i had a canopus dvstorm that allowed me to preview after effects on a monitor in realtime. i think the matrox rtx100 will allow you to do this as well. there is also an after effects plugin by cyberzeka that claims to give you realtime wysiwyg preview with ati and nvidia cards, but i have no experience with it:

http://www.cyberzeka.com/czk/lang~en~pID~20~gID~52~product.html

Thanks Henry,

Sorry forgot to say I am using a laptop so I guess I am limited to FW or USB2.

Alex

alex,

sorry i misread your initial post. external hardware aside, the after effects realtime output to monitor, as it is in premiere, is probably cpu and hardware dependent if i'm not mistaken. i don't know the specs of your machine, but my guess is you would probably get better realtime preview performance from a faster computer.

Does your laptop have an S-Video or Component video output?
Many laptop boards have these with the idea of using them for presentations, but if AE recognizes the board and the output, you may be able to preview directly from the existing hardware.

If not, you're probably limited to the delays of DV conversion->firewire out if you're on a laptop.

For desktops, DeckLink cards are pretty popular for video enabling video monitoring, but that doesn't really help for a laptop.

Hi Nick,

It's a Dell Inspiron 510m and it does have an S-Video out.

I always assumed that this would not be any good. Do you know how I might tell AE and Premiere to use this?

Sorry, I won't be of much help with a Dell laptop question. :(
Might be best to check on a Dell forum for that.
... or ....
you can look up the model of graphics board in the laptop and do a google search on "Premiere with [board brand & model here]".

For one, make sure the output is activated in the video driver, which you should be able to access by right-clicking the desktop, select Properties, then click the "Advanced" button in the lower right of the Settings tab.

With the output activated, you can see if the video board is available as video output option in AE or Premiere.

Honestly, not sure if it would work or not, but that's what I'd be trying while running a few searches around the net, anyway. ;)

Good luck.

Thanks - I wil try that later.