Studio Monitor (and setup) help

[Brendan Pyatt]

I have been using a V1U and now using Vegas 8 to edit. I am editing on a Lacie electron 22 blue IV CRT monitor (calibrated) but I am aware that this does not have the same colour space as a tv.

I would like to check my footage to see that it looks good on a tv. I understand this done by using a Studio Monitor. I have no experience in this. I would like recommendations on a decent budget studio monitor and how it is setup and works. ie do i hook it up to my pc video card as a 2nd monitor?

Do i have to render my footage and then play it back (say using WMP) on the studio monitor? Or can i use the preview pane in Vegas?

thanks.

[Glenn Chan]

An example broadcast monitor:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...roduction.html

List of monitors on B&Hs site:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=&cltp=&clsgr=

For SD work, a CRT broadcast monitor is your best choice.

2- In most/all NLEs including Vegas, you can monitor material by sending it over firewire to your DV device, and setting that device to do DV->A/V out to your monitor. Use either composite or S-video for monitoring... get RCA-BNC adapters if your monitor has a BNC connection for the composite input (check male/female). If you monitor via composite, you can/should (IMO) adjust the comb filter setting in the monitor to give you more resolution at the expense of more cross-color artifacts. This will let you see any cross-color artifacts that your video might be prone to. However, most professional QC work doesn't check for this so... who knows.

3- In Vegas, use the video preview.

Also check that the preview levels are correct. You need to manually wrangle levels.
http://glennchan.info/articles/vegas...lorspaces.html

[Brendan Pyatt]

Originally Posted by Glenn Chan

An example broadcast monitor:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...roduction.html

List of monitors on B&Hs site:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=&cltp=&clsgr=

For SD work, a CRT broadcast monitor is your best choice.

2- In most/all NLEs including Vegas, you can monitor material by sending it over firewire to your DV device, and setting that device to do DV->A/V out to your monitor. Use either composite or S-video for monitoring... get RCA-BNC adapters if your monitor has a BNC connection for the composite input (check male/female). If you monitor via composite, you can/should (IMO) adjust the comb filter setting in the monitor to give you more resolution at the expense of more cross-color artifacts. This will let you see any cross-color artifacts that your video might be prone to. However, most professional QC work doesn't check for this so... who knows.

3- In Vegas, use the video preview.

Also check that the preview levels are correct. You need to manually wrangle levels.
http://glennchan.info/articles/vegas...lorspaces.html

thanks. I am trying to do HD work so i assume i just get a higher res monitor than the ones you recommended?

I am still a bit confused as to how i connect it to my setup. are you saying that i 'preview' it in Vegas out to my cam via firewire and then out to the monitor? Why do i need the cam in the loop - why not just go from Vegas to the Studio Monitor?

[Glenn Chan]

1- HD is a different story.

A HD CRT won't do full 1920x1080 HD resolution, and will tend to hide things like noise. But its colors are very good, black level is good, and they are good at displaying different formats, and they show interlacing right. They are getting hard to buy now.

For flat panels, only buy something with at least 1920x1080 pixels. LCDs have a different set of flaws than CRTs... and their quality is getting better pretty fast. Historically they weren't as good as CRTs.
The depreciation on flat panels is fairly high... so that's something to watch out for.

The price for these monitors is a lot higher than SD... an entry-level CRT is something like $600 while HD monitors are more like $4,000.

1b- To hook up a HD broadcast monitor, you'll need the right Aja or Blackmagic card with Vegas. (Do your research here regarding driver support and hardware compatibility.)
You can either go HD-SDI or HD component to your monitor.

2- If you're on a budget, just get a 1920x1200 computer LCD and use it as a preview device in Vegas (Windows secondary display).

Why do i need the cam in the loop - why not just go from Vegas to the Studio Monitor?

It's a real-time preview. Your DV device can convert from DV to analog on the fly.

[George David]

Hi Glenn,

I have a dual DVI card that connects to 2 Dell LCD monitors. The card also has an s-video out that I connect to a Sony PVM Monitor. There's an extra VGA out that I want to connect to a consumer Samsung LCD TV. I only do 720P using JVC camcomders. Video preview in Vegas 7 is used.

My question is, am I outputting color correct images using my video cards (s-video and VGA) or do I need a converter of some sort to get correct colors? Is VGA output to LCDTV vs Decklink/Aja/etc output to LCDTV drastically different?

End product is usually SD-DVD widescreen. I'll also be doing broadcast journalism clips soon for local news (web and TV).

Thanks.

[Glenn Chan]

George:

1- It's usually better to post different topics into a new thread, it's much easier for people to keep track of things. 1 topic / thread makes things easy.

2- Why not use a DV device as the external preview device?

Computer --> firewire --> DV device (e.g. camcorder) --> analog --> monitor (e.g. Sony PVM).

This will avoid some of the issues of going out through the video card (e.g. video overlays that you don't want).

[George David]

Sounds good. Thanks Glenn.

[Shari Dyer]

Hello -
I just bit the bullet and bought a DT-V20L1D Multi Format LCD Monitor so that I could edit and color correct HD as well as SD. I hooked it up to my Intel Duo Core Power Mac (8 GB RAM) via a Kona 3 card. The hook up was with SDI 1 and SDI 2 in, and SDI 1 out. Then I went into Final Cut Pro and opened up one of the projects I'm working on. Right now, FCP is configured for Kona 3 SD at 29.97 fps. Turning on the JVC monitor, all I got was a readout of 480/60i and 6500K - which I believe refers to the size, resolution and color temp (which is right for the project), and a green screen. No image from FCP.

Puzzled, I hooked up RBG analog RCA plugs and indicated that connection on the monitor. The screen turned red. I know the difference of color on the screen refers to the YUV/RBG difference. But where is the image? What am I missing?

I had previously used a small Sony SD pro monitor to color correct, and all worked well. At that time I was using the K3 break out bar of the Kona 3 card. This time I used the Kona squid. (The analog connections are no different whether you use the K3 or a squid connected directly to the card.)

I very much want to use YUV for color correction and not RGB, but I'm not getting either. Thanks for your help.

[Shari Dyer]

I fixed it.
Shari