monitor

[Jeremy Garchow]

Why not get the Panasonic?

[Noah Kadner]

The Panasonic rocks if you can afford it. 🙂

Noah

[Gerret Warner]

I was going to but I 1. the monitor’s resolution is far above that of the 200 and 2. AFAIK there’s no way to get HD out/in; just component. And then, of course, there’s the $4k or thereabouts. But I’m very interested in other’s experience & opinion.

GPW

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Gerret] “the monitor’s resolution is far above that of the 200”

What? That makes no sense.

[Gerret] “2. AFAIK there’s no way to get HD out/in; just component.”

The 900 has Hd/sd SDI, Hd/Sd analog component, and composite.

We use it for all Panasonic cameras, SDX900 (SD SDI), HVX200 (analog component HD) and the Varicam. It looks great on all cameras.

[Noah Kadner]

Yeah the resolution of the BT-LH900 matches the HVX perfectly- both 1080 and 720p both with support for interlace and 24p. And it has HD-SDI in/out. It’s only the price I could see being a sticking point but this monitor is perfect for the HVX.

Noah

[Gerret Warner]

Thanks for the feedback. I’m anxious to figure this out asap, before an upcoming shoot.

I don’t have my HVX200 manual available right now but here’s what a sales person told me: the HVX resolves at about 540/500, the 900 is 1,024 x 768, so you pay a lot for the monitor, and you can’t take advantage of either its higher resolution or SDI interface. But I didn’t realize it would take component HD.

So I wondered whether there was an alternative, like the Nebtek Marshall combo. It isn’t only price for the 900, it’s also that they seem to be in short supply.

GPW

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Gerret] “I don’t have my HVX200 manual available right now but here’s what a sales person told me: the HVX resolves at about 540/500, the 900 is 1,024 x 768, so you pay a lot for the monitor, and you can’t take advantage of either its higher resolution or SDI interface. But I didn’t realize it would take component HD.”

Okay, but that’s all internal tech talk on how the imagers work. The output of the camera is in standard specs and that’s 720p, 1080i, NTSC, or PAL depending on your version of the camera. Trust me, you will not be disappointed with the monitor, unless you are looking for something cheaper. The 900A is sweet. Rent one for a day if you don’t believe me. We did and then we bought one.

Jeremy

[Noah Kadner]

Yeah- that kind of talk is really oldskool and outdated salesman malarky. You will never regret a monitor of that quality but if it’s budget it’s budget.

Noah

[Gerret Warner]

Thanks, Jeremy and Noah. That’s a great help.

GPW

[Rennie Klymyk]

[Gerret] “here’s what a sales person told me”

Unfortunatly sales peoples’ advice is very often based on manufactuter incentives (like your distributor tells you “if you sell $20,000 worth of xyz name goods in a month and you could win a trip to Honalulu”) This is common practice in sales. Other times it may be based on markup %. xyz brand has 100% mark-up wheareas sony, panny, jvc and canon only have a 10 or 20% mark-up. These are common reasons sales people guide you to certain products.

You are doing the right thing here by getting yourself informed from users of equipment and don’t let sales people tell you different. Most of us have gone out to purchase a certain item only to come home with something different. We then have to live with the inferior product for years to come.

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[Noah] “You will never regret a monitor of that quality but if it’s budget it’s budget.”

It may be worth paying 50% down on a great monitor and having a good dealer finance the other half rather than getting something that is inferior that you are stuck with for the next several years worth of work.