What’s the value of using a second monitor?

[Rafael Amador]

If you can afford a 30′ monitor, you don’t need two.
For me a 24′ is not enough to work comfortable with FC.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Gary Askham]

You’ll find that most professionals use 3 monitors.

2 good quality computer monitors (one for your canvas, viewer and timeline and the other for your bins, your effects and maybe other tools you use) and then you have a 3rd monitor which is fed the output of your video card (such as a Kona).

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[Eric Pautsch]

I use 3 on my Scenarist authoring system and get all pissy if I work on a system with only 2 🙂

[Bret Williams]

I use two 20″ monitors. Once you use two monitors you won’t want to work any other way. In video editing, it’s always been the standard. One monitor for resources (bins). The other monitor for ediitng.

In After Effects, I use one monitor just for my canvas. Since in AE you don’t usually have bins and aren’t making editorial decisions you don’t need a monitor dedicated to viewing and sorting all your media. But you do need a large workspace to lay out all the paths.

In Photoshop you can have your palettes on one screen or two documents open at once and use the clone stamp tool intelligently.

In a normal work environment, I often have Photoshop or Word on one screen, and email/internet on the other.

Two screens can wrap around you at an angle. A huge 30″ monitor requires a good rolling chair if you sit too close.

Get a good monitor for the main monitor. And a cheap one for the extra/internet/bin monitor.

[Dave Johnson]

In case you weren’t just talking about computer monitors, the primary reason for outputting video work to a broadcast monitor in addition to the computer monitor(s) the editing software is on, when you’re doing work for TV, you can see what viewers will see, which is rarely what you’re seeing on a computer monitor (in terms of color, gamma, etc.).

If you were just talking about using multiple computer monitors, whether to use one large or two medium-size computer monitors is really a personal preference and others have already covered the reasons they prefer one or the other.

[Patrice Freymond]

All of the above…plus:

REDUNDANCY!!

When one craps out you can finish your job on the second (and last) monitor you have.

Depending on time and/or location, it is not always easy to just go to the shops to get a new monitor…

Patrice

Patrice Freymond

Senior editor
FCP Certified Trainer

patrice@monteur.tv

[Kai Cheong]

Definitely more productive with 2 monitors. As a preditor, I often have to track my own changes, do guide tracks, refer to notes that are often updated via Dropbox/email handle clients… while editing.

So I could edit with my left monitor while doing the ‘other stuff’ with the right one. And if I’m doing a long render, I can monitor the progress on one screen while doing some work on the other [no excuses for long tea breaks, unfortunately]. If I need a bigger view – I’ll just toggle Command+F12 for a quick Digital Cinema Preview.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
https://kai-fcp-editor.blogspot.com
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