HD monitor to MBP

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Jim,
For a pro monitoring on a MBP 17″, you have AJA, Matrox and MOTU devices.
Not sure if BlackMagic has anything.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Jim Edds]

I take it I would have to hook my drives to the FW800 port since those options appear to need the express card slot on the MBP? Is this what folks are doing?

MBP I7 2.66 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD, FCS 3, OS 10.6.4, 27in Apple Cinema display ExtremeStorms.com

[David Roth weiss]

You got it, that’s what most people do. AJA IOHD uses the FW800 port, but it’s a pretty expensive solution, especially one that maxes out with ProRes.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Richard Harrington]

Io express nice if you gave express slit

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: From Still to Motion, Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques

[Shane Ross]

Yup…I use the Matrox MXO2, and a FW800 Caldigit VR. This works for one or two streams of ProRes 422. If you need any more serious horsepower…3 or more streams…you should be looking at a MacPro anyway…

Shane

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

[Rafael Amador]

I Agree with Shane.
Perhaps the, in theory, faster option could be an AJA (FW800) with an eSATA RAID (Express).
The bottleneck would be your processing power.
Probably for some tasks could work faster than the Matrox option, but not when the computer really needs to “think”.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Shane Ross]

The main reason to get the AJA IO HD over the MXO2 is if you want to CAPTURE to 1080i ProRes. Because the IO HD does all the ProRes processing inside the box, it can be captured by a laptop. But the MXO2 doesn’t do it…it relies on the computer to do the processing to ProRes, so a Quad-core Mac or more is required for ProRes. Fine for a Tower, but not for a laptop. It can do 720p ProRes, but not 1080i.

I’ve tested. I can get a max of 4 min of ProRes 1080i with my laptop and the MXO2. And Matrox acknowledges this.

Shane

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

[Shane Ross]

BUT! The AJA IO HD doesn’t work with Color in HD. Firewire is the issue. Color cannot transmit HD via firewire for proper monitoring. That’s one reason I went with the MXO2. That and it works on my Tower and laptop… And cap captre to other formats. The IO HD is limited to ProRes only.

Shane

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

[Jim Edds]

Thanks very much for all the feedback. I think the more I get into editing in FCP the more I want a Tower with the latest hex core 32nm processors. Also many more hardware configurations available with a tower – like the faster RAID 0 configurations with a dedicated PCI card. One firewire 800 port and one express card slot is just bare bones editing.

MBP I7 2.66 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD, FCS 3, OS 10.6.4, 27in Apple Cinema display ExtremeStorms.com

[David Roth weiss]

[Jim Edds] “One firewire 800 port and one express card slot is just bare bones editing.
“

Absolutely!!! Good thinking… Wish more people here would develop the understanding that the minimum hardware requirements are far from the suggested hardware.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.