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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy Broadcast monitor, HDTV or computer display for monitoring?

  • Broadcast monitor, HDTV or computer display for monitoring?

    Posted by Ben Beasley on October 4, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    Hi All

    I know there are similar posts however not sure if any exactly like this..
    I’m putting together an edit suite for a university department.

    We’ll be running a new MacPro with Final Cut 7 and an i/o card- possibly Matrox MX02?
    We’d like a large wall-mounted monitor for monitoring our video output.

    We can’t really afford a proper HD broadcast monitor. I’ve heard talk of calibrating a high-end HDTV with reasonable results with the above card or similar. Could the same not be done with a high-end computer monitor? So my question perhaps is, what’s the difference between an LCD HDTV and an LCD computer monitor? Is it just the former is interlaced and latter progressive? Which would give us the most colour accurate picture?

    By using another computer monitor we would be able to switch to computer input which may be useful for teaching. Our budget for the monitor is about £1000 ($1500).

    Excuse any ignorance about this! Thanks for any help in advance.

    Ben

    Jeff Greenberg replied 14 years, 11 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Shane Ross

    October 4, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    Good HDTV will cost as much as a good computer monitor. But a TV can be BIGGER! Get a good 42″ Panasonic Pro Plasma…or a decent 42″ HDTV. HDMI from the MXO2 and boom…nice big monitor. Try finding a 42″ computer display…

    HDTV is better than Computer Display for showing video…

    Shane

    GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
    Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

  • Ben Beasley

    October 5, 2011 at 9:03 am

    Thanks Shane

    I’m looking at the Panasonic range – is plasma preferable to LCD?
    I’m also a little concerned about 42″. Is this too big for a 11′ x 11′ room – how would SD video out of the Matrox look on this?

    Many Thanks
    Ben

  • Jeff Greenberg

    October 5, 2011 at 11:51 am

    Ben, doing this affordably is an ‘issue’ – and I’d argue that as a compromise – it’s ‘okay’ but not idea.

    The broadcast monitor would have to be connected to either the matrox or another monitoring device (such as firewire)

    Anything directly connected to the mac is in the wrong color mathematics for the display to be accurate.

    Consumer devices can be tweaked – but their response/color temperature is wrong for monitoring.

    IF it’s just to ‘show’ to students – yeah a big screen TV will be cheaper than an HD computer monitor – more bang for your dollar – but if you’re going to use the TV to share your computer display, I find that the large screen are difficult to read text.

    Best,

    Jeff G

    Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
    ————
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