3 Monitor System for Premiere Pro

[Jeff Brown]

Personally, I use a JVC 24″ monitor(V24L1D). No DVI/HDMI, just SDI and analog inputs. The more recent models may be different, but none of them will be cheap. Same goes for Flanders, Panasonic, and Sony*. I can say that it (the JVC) does absolutely show you if your interlaced stuff is right (or wrong!). I bought mine from a large online retailer that had the initials of “B” and “H” in the name…
The issue with using a consumer LCD-TV is that there is typically a lot of processing to the signal to make it look “better.” Frequently, this includes line-doubling to get rid of interlacing, among other dynamic adjustments.

*Sony had a bad rep a few years ago with their initial LCD “pro” monitors. This too may have changed.

hope it helps,
Jeff

[David Payne]

great Jeff thanks a lot, seems a no-brainer to steer clear of commercial LCD tv’s that are going to try and pretty up my footage

[Tim Kolb]

I can second the endorsement of the JVC Verite monitors…they’re quite good.

If you’re looking at displays in general, typically an LCD with an LED backlight is a good starting point. Even on my (relatively) inexpensive laptop, the LED backlit display is rated for 95% of visible spectrum (75% should be better than almost any cold cathode LCD panel, thought the JVCs and the Flanders displays do a hell of a job of getting a visually accurate image).

Having a video I/O device from AJA, or BlackMagic, or Matrox is a must if you need to get to videotape as well…

On the source panel question…you can either route the video frame out to an output device (like a video I/O card, or even a display on the system…I have four displays). You can also drag the program panel to a system display, not making that display the “video output” if you will but maintaining it as desktop with the program panel and have it live there if you’d like…sometimes nice if you want action safe marks up…that sort of thing.

Lots of options…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[David Payne]

hi all I hope you don’t mind me coming back to this thread so late. I didn’t purchase in the end, but recent changes in my business have meant I can now opt for a 3 monitor solution so I’m after the hardware and the monitor.

Firstly the hardware..
When looking at Matrox MXO2 there seem to be quite a few different versions and a lot of people talk about the portability of them as an advantage but I simply wouldn’t benefit from this so a PCI card would be fine for me in that respect, but at what cost? I lose the SDI output by the looks of it meaning I can’t use the monitors that you guys recommended (I was somewhat surprised by the price at £1700!). My question is would it still be worth getting the PCI card version (or matrox if there’s any other advantage other than portability) and 32″ LED TV or would the quality be no better than just using a large monitor?

I initially wanted to do this to gain desktop space for editing, but the idea of seeing the film how it’ll look on a TV instead of on a PC monitor also appeals to me, but will using an LED TV instead of an SDI Input monitor put me at a huge disadvantage?

thanks in advance
David