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Kona Lhe and monitoring
Dear Aja Community,
I am building a small editing suite for editing and finishing my underwater HDV videos. Actually I do not earn money from it, but I would like to submit my films for uw film festivals at the highest quality I can afford. Currently I have a mac pro 2,66, a 30 inch CD, FCP, Shake and a Z1E camcorder.
I was reading a lots of posts recently about AJA (and BMD) cards, monitoring issues (TFT vs CRT), downconverting etc.
To my actual knowledge I can not decide what to do next. Unfortunately I can not afford the 17 inch panny TFT (and a Kona Lhe simultanously), but I am afraid to buy the card and a cheap JVC broadcast CRT monitor for monitoring (for accurate colors) because the support and production will be stopped in 1,5 years from now. (Last year I bought a small LMD1410 Sony TFT monitor, but I was not satisfied with its quality.)
But I could buy a Kona Lhe as the next step. For using its HDV acceleration features DO I need an extra monitor for playback, or the card can help in that case when I use the main display for previewing the edit? Or can the card help when I play the edit on the timeline and watch the edits in the Canvas window?
I would appreciate all opinions and experience.
Jules
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2 Replies
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Hi Jules –
I work on both systems – one at home without a Kona card, and one away from home, with a Kona 2 card.
A Kona card will give you more realtime HDV effects and a signal that you can send out to a real monitor so you’re not constrianed to viewing it soley on the desktop, as it were.
However, that said, I have been working very comfortably at home on a G5 system using two Dell 24″ monitors, one of them dedicated to display the footage fullscreen in “digital cinema desktop preview” mode. While it isnt a true broadcast montior I have found that it is entirely sufficient to edit with and looks fantastic.
I have almost always found that what I have been able to do at home holds up in the real broadcast suite with a true Sony HR Triniton broadcast monitor. As far as it goes, I have been very happy with the performance of the HDV codec. I have almost 80 hours of footage spread between two external Firewire drives (one 800 and one 400) and have been editing for a year on this project with no significant problems. While it does take longer to render HDV footage, I get the realtime dissolves and titles that I need, enough for editing. (and most of work is pretty straight-foward documentary editing with simple effects)
In short I would say that unless you are delivering for broadcast and attempting to meet some very specific technical requirements for color, levels, etc….you could consider editing your project with a good 24″ monitor like the Dell, for example. You might find that is enough for what you need.
Sterling Noren
WideWorld HD Productions -
Hi,
thanks for the answer. Finally I ordered the Lhe card and a 15 inch JVC broadcast monitor. It was cheaper than the dell 24 inch, and I have more trust in crts than is tfts.
Jules
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