External Monitor Usage

[Stephen Mann]

I am partial to Dell monitors.

Calibrating—-
First, it is impossible to calibrate a consumer LCD monitor to broadcast standards (HDTV Rec. 709) because white depends on the color of the LCD backlight. But you can come close. You will need an external calibrating instrument. I use the X-Rite Color Munki but there are others.

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

[Dave Osbun]

An IPS monitor is the way to go. They are more expensive than your typical flat screen LCD but they are BY FAR the best monitors for those that work in media creation.

Regarding your video card question: it all depends on what’s in your system now. If you have a higher-quality laptop it should have an nVidia or Radeon GPU, and it’ll power any monitor fine. If your system has Intel integrated graphics it’ll still work fine for video editing but it’s not the best if you like to play video games on it.

Dave

[Ron Whitaker]

I have looked into X-Rite i1Display Pro. Have you used that one?

How would you go about calibrating a monitor so that it is broadcast safe?

[Stephen Mann]

“How would you go about calibrating a monitor so that it is broadcast safe?”

You would start with a monitor that can be calibrated to broadcast specs. Here’s a couple from Sony

Unless your are editing product for broadcast, then just get a good mid-range LCD monitor.

If you want to buy a CRT reference monitor there’s many Sony PVM series monitors on Ebay that will work just fine. You can get an almost new 14-inch monitor for $100 plus shipping. Many TV stations are replacing them with $6,000 HP or Sony LED backlight reference monitors. LED backlight monitors – the high priced ones – have a tri-color LED behind every pixel of the LCD. No color matrix filter. They can be calibrated. Consumer LDC displays can’t because white is whatever color the backlight is (usually a CFL), and black is only almost black. (Put up a black screen and turn off the room lights and You will see what I mean.)

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

[Simon Laidlaw]

Another thing to consider it that the monitor is the same resolution as the screen on your lap-top.

Otherwise if you are using it as a duel monitor set up the monitor will default to the resolution of the lower resolution screen.

Most good external monitors are at least 1080 but many laptop screens are still sold with 720 screens

http://www.cutmustard.tv

[Bob Peterson]

What does it take to connect the Sony PVM monitors to the computer?

[Stephen Mann]

Bob, my Sony PVN-14U only has analog video inputs and I don’t use it live on my editing workstation. I use it on my DVD player for final checks. Even though it’s analog video – typically the worst connection available – the picture quality is absolutely amazing.

Simon – this depends entirely on the device driver. I plug a 12-inch 640-pixel monitor into my laptop’s video port to drive a teleprompter and each displays at its own resolution. The laptop is a 1080 display.

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