[Daniel Griggs]

Thank you both of you for your input.

Richard, I know that it may sound totally obscure, but I’m in a situation where I am totally unemployed and have no form of income. I’m a self-trained editor, sound designer & DVD author and that’s certainly not paying for itself. Editing and the above listed skills, are what I’m naturally good at. And while I’m not professional in any sense, post is my desired career path. I’m only 23 and studied 4 years in Film and Television Production.

I have a reasonable editing setup but its not fantastic hence minus the capture cards, which I know I desperately need to resolve some of the problems I have. Technically and in practice I’m a proficient editor, but my equipment lets me down. I was a Premiere editor although I can work with any OS, and most professional editing systems I used to be PC based and invested in building a system to do it right. But that was before being forced down the Apple route, because I was given footage that contained proprietary codecs only readable by FCP, and format conversion is out of the question because of quality reduction. So i sold pretty much everything I could to afford to buy an Apple set up. I have most things i need except capture i/o card, which will be my next purchase.

If I was working and drawing in an income I would happily purchase the equipment that I need, I have no problem with that, but back to my original question I was looking for another way to get video out of my mac to a HD display. I know that there are inexpensive solutions out there to do what I need to do, but right now there is no way for me to get the gear that I need.

From a professional stand point, someone such as yourself who’s likely had many years of experience in this industry and worked on countless jobs, I am someone who’s only starting out and who is a basic freelancer at best. I will admit that I’m likely going about things the wrong way, but I have no guidance to go by. Obviously the internet is a wealth of information, and sites like Lynda.com and TotalTraining.com offer instructional training videos where one can learn ‘advanced’ post methods, but that’s just one side to it.

I highly value your comments though, because I know that you’re perfectly right about things and I do need nudging in the right direction if I am to be successful at all in what it is I want to do. If i could get work in, and I mean small work so i have something to start on, that would be no problem. But right now I am working on my own projects to develop my skills, understanding and expertise, because I fear I am not good enough to actually work on anyone else’s projects, and neither is my kit. In a professional sense it’s junk because it IS uncal’d.

But anyway, thanks for the input, it’s really appreciated.

Kindest Regards

Daniel Griggs.

[Daniel Griggs]

I will make just a note, the monitor i have here has Composite BNCs S-vid, and its RGB/Component BNCs are R/R-Y, G/Y, B/B-Y

[Daniel Griggs]

I understand your point, I was just exploring any ‘alternatives’ when I really don’t have very much money at present. I’m a small-time local editor that tries to do a professional job on whatever material someone tosses my way to have a look at. I’ll be frank, I’m trained in most of FCS, but when it comes to interface hardware for preview or capture, I have no idea. Maybe i should just stick with my FCP and Color scopes like i always have, but as i was just given a B/C monitor and have it at my disposal, I thought I would try and make use of it, or at least that was the idea. All the advice i have been given has been much appreciated and I may just save hard and get the Matrox Mini.

But any other comments would be most welcome.

Kindest Regards

[Daniel Griggs]

Although I do work with HDV and XDCAM, my monitor is only SD. (800 TV lines) – At the moment I capture HDV via a Sony GV-HD700E HDV deck which I borrow from a friend right now, as I don’t have £900 for a decent capture deck. So while i understand the benefits of having a capture card that allows for conversion, I don’t have the money to grab that kit yet. I realize the B/C monitor i want to run is outdated now, but as I have it at my disposal I was looking for a relatively ‘cheap’ way of connecting it to FCP without signal and color degradation, and although the monitor isn’t HD, it at least will provide me with a reasonable output while working with the scopes in FCP and Color.

My budget is £250-ish. I could spare more if really necessary, but at the moment, if i could get some kind of component or composite out put to the monitor from the Mac that would be helpful.

[Daniel Griggs]

The monitor apparently can be upgraded to SDI, but I am yet to see any SDI cards for it, so analogue is probably the only way for this monitor and with myself being pretty strapped for cash, isn’t helpful.

I had a look at the cards you suggested, although expensive it certainly would be well be worth the investment for the added features as you describe but for a simple video output (which is all I would like right now) such a card seems overkill.

Previously, I was looking at the Grass Vally Canopus ADVC110, https://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc110 a set-top-conversion box if you will, based on the IEEE1394 (Firewire) interface, that would provide the analogue output i need, which i could patch through via s-video or composite in. However, on testing my monitor just now with a composite input; I am getting THIS very worrying output on the screen:
https://mediascape-productions.dynalias.com/servs/files/PVM14M4E_Col_Err.jpg
since when did Blue become Red? – Any ideas?

Kindest Regards.