Laff Me Off the Forum

[Aaron Neitz]

JVC has some decent monitors for the price – we had rented one on evaluation not too long ago – the 24″. Color balance and contrast were well calibrated. Get it with the HD-SDI input and feed it from the Kona card – problem solved.

[Michael Sacci]

The MXO would take up one of the already used DVI ports. A cost effective thing to get would be the Decklink HDLink ($450 or so) That takes the HD SDI from the Kona and converts it to DVI for something like the Apple 23″ and you get a pixel for pixel display. With that being said it is not for color correcting. For Color Correcting the debate rages on but CRT still rule.

[Aaron Neitz]

We use an Eizo monitor on our Flame….. have to say it’s mind blowingly accurate for an LCD. So much so that, really, you almost don’t need a $60,000 sony CRT for color.

[John Fishback]

We have a Panasonic BT-LH1700W broadcast monitor (which has received very positive reviews from the pasture) and a MXO with Cinema 23. Side-by-side they are virtually identical.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.8 QT7.1.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.1.2, DVDSP4.1.1, Comp2.3, STP1.1, Motion 2.1.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neuman U87s, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[David Donnenfield]

I like this solution. Maybe pairing the Decklink, Kona along with an Eizo LCD I can get a system that also serves for color correction. But with your suggestion, I’m only out a Decklink and not needing to install a $500 graphics card in my only remaining slot.
JUst let me ask, do you have this arrangement for your system? How is the performance? No stutters, delays, or other annoyances to picture?
Thanks,
David

[David Donnenfield]

But John, do you also have two timeline/bin monitors running simultaneously with the Cinema Display and MXO? Is it no problem to have all three monitors running, or is there a DVI port limitation somewhere in this configuration limiting you to two monitors?
Thanks,
David

[Chris Poisson]

David,

You have everything you need already, except for maybe the Cinema display or a nice Dell. Your Kona card will downconvert to your Sony and you can pretty well trust that for color. If you get a Cinema display or a Dell, just use that to see a pixel for pixel image from your HD stuff, you don’t need an MXO as you can just send your picture to the display via DVI.

[David Donnenfield]

Thanks everyone for the great input, without even a hint of derision. Here’s what I have decided to go with (maybe it will help someone else):
Apple 23″ Cinema Display $854 from ProMax
Aja HDP mini-converter that takes the SDI signal from my Kona LH card and pumps it into the DVI interface of the Apple display. $680 with power supply from ProMax.

I can, as someone suggested, continue to use my Sony 8045Q 13″ studio monitor for color checking, albeit with a downconverted image, also through the Kona card.

Not quite as sweet as a 24″ JVC HD monitor, but not $4,000 either. Thanks for all the assistance in helping me make my room HD functional. Once again, bovine to the rescue.

[Chris Poisson]

David,

If you want to save some money, the MXO is redundant, especially if you are checking color on your Sony.

FCP will send the DVI straight to the CD from the view menu, the pictures would be identical. The only thing the MXO is buying you is calibration and extra outputs. My 2 cents…

[David Donnenfield]

Chris,
If you look at my previous post, you’ll see that I blew off the MXO as a solution. I’m taking the signal to the CD from my Kona card, that way I can still keep my two timeline monitors active through the graphics card. Just needed to purchase AJA,s HDP mini-converter. Still cost $350 less than the MXO and doesn’t use up a card slot on the Mac. Apparrently provides an excellent image, Promax says better than the DeckLink product. Thanks for your two cents — priceless, as they say.
David