Dual monitors with HDTV

[Scott Gifford]

Anyone available for help???

Scott Gifford
Scott Gifford Studios

[Scott Gifford]

I can’t believe nobody has answered this post, where’s the love?

Scott Gifford
Scott Gifford Studios

[Ted Snow]

I can’t positively answer your question but I would suspect that you can only have two separate views per video card. I have a duel setup using two 28″ monitors, but I would think that if you tried to use all three outputs on your video card, two of the units would be cloned…still giving you only two separate views. I don’t know this for a fact, but that would be my guess.

I do have a third monitor which is actually a 27″ CRT monitor for video monitoring…but it’s connected to a Canopus ACEDVio card via s-video.

————————————————
ASUS P8P67 Deluxe MB
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1 GB DDR 5
Intel i7 2600k 3.4 Ghz
Corsair HX750 power supply
Two Seagate Barracuda 500g SATA III drives
16 Gig G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600
Canopus ACEDVio card
Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition case
Xigmatek Dark Knight CPU Cooler
Win 7 Pro
VEGAS 8.0
VEGAS 11.0 32 & 64 bit
Sony VX2100
Sony HVR-Z7U
Sony HDR-CX130
Alesis HD24

[Stephen Mann]

I haven’t ever connected to the HDMI port on my video cards, but I suspect that a dual-head video card will only output two video streams at a time. In other words, no.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Scott Gifford]

Thank you for your input. My post is really two questions. The 2nd part was not answered. The second part of the question is how are people setting up two monitors for the timeline environment and a third monitor as a preview monitor. I’ve been researching this now and believe I have an answer. I need something like a Black Magic Design Intensity Pro card. What I don’t know is this compatible with Sony Vegas and will it support this scenario?

Scott Gifford
Scott Gifford Studios

[Chris Brunner]

Hi Scott…

I will preface my answer by saying that this is an educated guess, but here’s what I know.

Most medium to high end video cards will support two independent monitors. I have a 2003 vintage XP machine running Vegas 7 and it has two independent monitors. I have read online that the OS will support many more monitors. I have also read that there are high end video cards that will support 3, 4 and more independent screens off one PC.

I just recently did some business with ADK in Kentucky to order a new work station for Vegas. It hasn’t arrived yet, but it will have Windows 7-64 and a GeForce GTX570. I will be running two monitors. The tech guys on the phone treated this as very routine.

I had a buddy who has a thriving video business. He can afford to pay for the best machines, and wants THREE independent monitors. My buddy had me call the ADK guys and configure his machine. It’s a total monster machine with the top end CPU, 32Gb Ram…blah blah blah. It’s also coming with the high end Radeon 6970 video card. I asked the tech guy at ADK how we implement a third monitor, and whether another video card was the way to do it. My buddy wants a “preview monitor”. The tech guy at ADK says a Black Magic Intensity Pro video card is the way to go. They are also installing his Vegas 11 and configuring it. So I assume they know what they’re talking about. I think you could do it with a second video card or even one video card if you can find the right exotic video card. Not sure what to tell you there. Anyway that’s my two cent amateur contribution.

Chris Brunner
Rock Cove Productions

[Stephen Mann]

Get another GTX-465.

I have four monitors on my editing workstations, each using two GeForce cards. Windows will support as many displays as you have display adapters installed. Some extreme gamers have videowalls with 12 or 15 monitors.

To avoid conflicts, I *strongly* recommend that all display cards be the same. At least the same manufacture. This way Windows only needs to install one copy of the device driver.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Jim Greene]

Here’s my experience. I have a GTX-570 with 2 monitors. This card has 2 DVI ports and an HDMI. When I hook up the HDMI it seems to look worse than the DVI, so I use dual DVI output to span my desktop. I haven’t tried it, but I also suspect that the HDMI is just a clone of the DVI port for the 2nd monitor.

Instead of a 3rd monitor, I just make the Vegas setting for “Video Preview on External Monitor” be my 2nd monitor, so I get full screen full resolution on my 2nd monitor.

-Jim.