Dell 24″ for SD? Bob Zelin will think I’m crazy…

[Shane Ross]

It’s great as a computer monitor…and does a “decent” job with HD via the component inputs. But SD looks like crap on a stick.

These are good computer monitors, but in no way good as reference monitors. Perhaps with the Matrox MXO, but really the Apple display is better with that.

Shane

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[Walter Biscardi]

The video will look flat out terrible on that display. Our Panasonic Pro Plasma displays don’t display SD well.

You have to get pretty expensive displays, like the TV Logic 24″ model, to get good SD playback on LCD.

LCD’s are progressive HD displays and are good at that. Good SD playback requires a very good display. Get a cheap TV at your local electronics store and you’ll be better off.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Marc Brak]

Thanks guys. I’m still a bit confused though. Most broadcast is still SD, DVD’s are SD, web video of course is much smaller even. You’re saying all of that would look like crap on a HD screen? So what about all those people watching dvd’s on their apple cinema display?

I’m sorry if these are dumb questions, but i’m new this whole ‘reference monitor-Matrox-AJA-Blackmagic-HD’thing. I used to just edit video on my computer and it would come out just fine.

Thanks for your time!

[Walter Biscardi]

[Marc Brak] “Thanks guys. I’m still a bit confused though. Most broadcast is still SD, DVD’s are SD, web video of course is much smaller even. You’re saying all of that would look like crap on a HD screen?”

Yep, that’s what I’m sayin’. Go to your local electronics store and have them show you some regular Cable TV broadcast on an HD display. I have 20 channels of HD on my cable service and about 250 regular SD channels. The regular channels look like crap on the 50″ Panasonic Pro Plasma HDTV display.

[Marc Brak] “So what about all those people watching dvd’s on their apple cinema display?”

If you’re watching from the internal computer DVD player, it’s not so bad. But if you feed in a regular video signal from a DVD player, that looks much worse.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Marc Brak]

OK, and what if I shoot and edit SD or HDV, then render it as SD (pal 720×576 4:3 or 16:9) and play it back with quicktime – that too will look crappy?

Ater all, my biz is mostly web video and video presentations (you know, laptop to beamer stuff). Sure there’s the occasional promo dvd or commercial, but those I’ll just monitor on a regular tv.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Marc Brak] “OK, and what if I shoot and edit SD or HDV, then render it as SD (pal 720×576 4:3 or 16:9) and play it back with quicktime – that too will look crappy?”

Probably. It’s your business, you do what you want to do. I’m just tell you I would never use that monitor, or any computer monitor for that matter, for SD video playback.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Marc Brak]

Thanks a lot Walter, i really appreciate it. Gives me a lot to think about.

I wonder how other folks in my league handle this. Obviously I’m not the only one working with both SD and HD who cannot afford to whip out a couple thousand for a monitor.

[Chi-ho Lee]

[Marc Brak] “Most broadcast is still SD, DVD’s are SD, web video of course is much smaller even. You’re saying all of that would look like crap on a HD screen?”

I think I’m confused by your confusion! What are you asking? Do you want to use this Dell as a computer monitor to edit with, meaning – using it with FCP?

or are you asking if you can use this as a SD presentation monitor for clients?

If you mean as a computer monitor to edit inside FCP, it’ll be fine.

If you mean as a presentation/online SD monitor, it won’t be too good. If you want a good SD presentation monitor, you can get an used sony PVM for less than a grand these days.

CHL

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Video Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
http://www.chiholee.com

[Marc Brak]

Not as a presentation monitor, i do my presentations at the client’s place on a macbook.

I will use it for FCP, after effects, photoshop, etc. Whatever I need to get a video done. So i do need a good, accurate monitor. Just not broadcast quality.

But why would it be okay for editing but not for client presentations? Either it looks good or it doesn’t, right?

Thanks!

[Chi-ho Lee]

[Marc Brak] “I will use it for FCP, after effects, photoshop, etc. Whatever I need to get a video done. So i do need a good, accurate monitor. Just not broadcast quality.

But why would it be okay for editing but not for client presentations? Either it looks good or it doesn’t, right?

“

It’ll be fine as a computer monitor to edit with. I use one for editing, both SD and HD. If you playback a QT movie with QT player in SD in normal size, it’ll look fine. But once you zoom in double size or fill the screen, you’ll see breakup. Cuz the pixels aren’t there in the first place to size the bigger size.

It’s different inside FCP cuz you’re not really seeing all real size of the media inside FCP. It’s a proxy more or less.

That’s not a very good technical answer. Someone else can prob give you a more accurate technical answer. But as a computer monitor, it’s one of the best.

CHL

Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Video Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
http://www.chiholee.com