Okay, I was curious to hear about the setup some of you are using for an external video monitor. I'm trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to do this now, since I had thought I was going to be able to playback edited video under Vegas back into the HV20 (connected via firewire), and then connect the HV20's A/V jack to my TV...but this doesn't work.

If I'm understanding the manual correctly, it appears that video coming into the camera via firewire is output to the HDMI port...and I don't have an HDMI compatible TV yet.

I know that my ASUS motherboard came with it's own digital video out (s-video and component) card that attaches by cable, and I can supposedly make use of that output with the NVIDIA display software setup under Windows, I think I may be able to do this since I have a dedicated PCIe video card I used with my LCD monitor.

Anyway, I was wanting to know the setup you guys use for an external / TV type of monitor when editing your video and be able to see it as it would be seen in the real world on TV or HDTV.

My video card has a 2nd output. This works better than the video output on my mother board. I bought a DVI to HMDI cable and a 26" LCD Sony HDTV. It works great.

I debated between an LCD HDTV and computer monitor. Since my final output will be meant for HDTV viewing I decided against the LCD computer monitor and I have no regrets.

On an update note: I did actually get the HV20 working for firewire video preview with Sony Vegas. Seems that you sometimes need to turn the camcorder off (then on) so that the driver loads correctly under Windows. I guess Vegas was just having a driver connection issue the first couple times I tried it, but it seems to work now.

Hey Ron, I've got a 22" widescreen LCD monitor I use for my primary display (connected to the DVI) and then have a 19" widescreen as a secondary display (connected to the VGA w/adapter). But like you, I'd really like to output to HDMI via DVI, so I would do this by using the DVI on the motherboard...or put in another graphics card on the shorter PCIe x1 slot.

But, I've got to get an HDTV and I've been looking at the 32" Phillips LCD ones, but that money I've got to save for. But I'm really getting tired of 4:3 aspect ratio TV and really welcome the world of HD widescreen...all the time.

I went with a 26" because 32" would have been a little too big for my desk.

If I was to go 32", I'd look at the Toshiba.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/482817-REG/Toshiba_32HL67_32HL67_32_LCD_HDTV.html