Dave Haynie
Forum Replies Created
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Decent site for testing monitor issues is here: https://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php
-Dave
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I’m still happy with my out-of-production Westinghouse monitors. But I think most of their recent stuff has gone very low-end (mine were a great deal in an MVS display, I think using an AU Optronics panel, 4-5 years ago, but not the uber-cheap stuff you see from many vendors today).
As for specific monitors still made… you’d really have to check them out in person. You want to anyway, just to make sure you’re going to be happy with it. I’ve heard very good things about some of these, but have not used them, so take this as a place to look.
The first I’d look at … and it’s so new, I haven’t seen one yet, is the BenQ VW2420H (they also have a 27″ model). This is the first VA panel with LED backlight on the market. The panel itself delivers 3,000:1 contrast, and with the dynamic LED modulation, the effective contrast in dynamic mode is off-the-chart. You get black blacks, and as with mine, I think VA has a slight edge over IPS for video. Also a bit cheaper… these should be under $500.
Dell’s U2410 (I think they use a Samsung IPS panel) is pretty well regarded. This is 1920×1200 (your first clue this was made for computers, they’re not using a TV panel), and offers extended gamut and 80,000:1 dynamic contrast. These are about $550… you’re definitely in the higher rent district with IPS. In general, I’m not a big fan of Dell, but I have been hearing very good things about their monitors for years.
HP also sells a 24″ IPS monitor, the LP2475w, for the same price ballpark, also with extended range color. They have a few other IPS models. The ZR24w also gets good press, that’s a slightly lower price (newer model, maybe) S-IPS display.
NEC still makes some great monitors, too. But sadly, all the screens in the $500-or-so and under range are TN; you need to spend about a grand for IPS.. PA241W for example.
If you have way too much money to spend, you can’t go wrong with most EIZO monitors, but that’s higher rent than were I live… plus, I need two, I’d always have to double the price. The S2433W looks like a great VA panel, but it’s nearly a grand in price… also offers extended color gamut.
As for accessories, the built-in USB hub is common, but wasn’t a deal breaker for me. I went for the large variety of ports in mine, even if that left out DVI (DVI to HDMI is just a cable, however). The new thing is DisplayPort, which hasn’t caught on everywhere, but being an Intel thing, probably will at some point, so that’s another thing to consider.
-Dave
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Usually, you get the effect you’re after by using two video segments, one as “introductory media” (aka “First Play”), which then links to the first menu. Oddly enough, that has exactly the same effect, too.. the First Play media has no menu items — the user has to watch it, to get to the first interactive menu. Makes me wonder if DVDA was just smart enough to do this for you.
In general, though, menus can be used to add all kinds of transitions between other menus… you can enter a menu, play its contents, then chain directly to another. DVDA seems to optimize the DVD layout to keep menus together, so this is often a bit better looking than chaning to a random video asset, then to a menu, though it ought to look the same.
-Dave
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LCD is pretty much the answer.
The good news is power… if you used your monitor on a normal work schedule, you can actually pay for the LCD monitor in power savings over the course of a few years.
There are two concerns for video/photo and other art people. The first is color…. most LCDs have crappy color resolution. Many twisted nematic (TN) displays have an effective 6-bits per color.. not good. And not all the same, from panel to panel.
My dual 24″ monitors are both Westinghouse L2410 monitors… over four years old. These were $350 each when new. I chose these because they were tapping into some digital TV technology — the monitors support HDMI, YPrPb, Y/C and CVBS inputs… I could get video out of any camera or other video device up on these screens. The other reason is that these use MVA panels. VA technology (vertical alignment) generally offers full 8-bit color per pixel, more stable colors than TN, and very good video performance.
Top of the line these days is the IPS (inline planar switching) display. They also offer full color, even a bit more stable than the VA-type. The downside is that they require two transistors per segment, so they eat more power than the alternates (and yet, Apple uses these in all of their devices these days). And IPS displays can sometimes display weird effects when driven fast, as with video or gaming.
Just to add to the confusion, virtually every LCD panel manufacturer has their own spin on each of these technologies… various proprietary improvements. But TN, VA, and IPS are the three main kinds.
A few other concerns. LCDs are historically slow. TN displays are now reasonably fast, VA and IPS less so. Most of the time, not a big deal, but you may see some smearing in 60p video, depending on the display.
Viewing angle is also an issue. You can easily spot a TN display.. when you view off-center, it gets dim pretty quickly. IPS and VA are pretty viewable at any reasonable angle. Unless you’re wearing polarized sunglasses… polarization is part of the LCD tech, so if you need to look cool while editing (as if), wear non polarized shades.
Next issue is contrast. Many display technologies make their own light: CRT (electrons excite phosphors, which emit visible light), Plasma (hot plasmas excite phosphors, which emit visible light), DLP (programmable mirror reflects or deflects light from some kind of projector bulb), etc. But LCDs don’t make light… in fact, in all of these displays, you’re using “transmissive” LEDs. All they can do is block light or let it pass. So contrast is an issue.
A typical CRT delivers about a 15,000:1 contrast… blacks look, well, pretty black, whites pretty white. At least if you’re viewing some non-NTSC video source (SVHS, DVD, digital cable/satellite, etc). The native contrast on most native LCD panels is usually between 500:1 and 3000:1, depending on the technology. So most current displays (not my monitors, but I also have a 32″ LCD “TV” in my main computer room, which can also be driven from my PC) have some kind of “dynamic” contrast. The best dynamic contrast is on TV/monitors with dynamic LED backlights. Older/cheaper panels use a single CCFL backlight.. some newer displays use LED edge lighting, and the best use actual LED backlights.
LEDs are fast… really, really fast. So these dynamic displays use them as part of the picture generation. Each LED lights just a small section of the display, and both the LED and the LCD are modulated to deliver much higher contrast. Which on most video looks great, but, kind of like compression artifacts, it can break down on very high contrast scenes.
You’ll find that “convergence” is real… nearly every cheap monitor uses an HDTV panel these days. The PC industry largely backed the 16:10 aspect ratio for displays, the TV industry backed 16:9. But there’s such volume on 16:9 displays, that’s all you find until you get kind of spendy.
Another reason LCD is the right answer today is that most new consumer televisions are LCD. The market has spoken, and thin is a the win. That means plasma or LCD, but plasma is power hungry, and has the same phosphor issues that CRTs have (burn-in, etc). And this is after LCD had already taken over the computer monitor world. So it’s a pretty safe bet that most consumers will be viewing your video on LCDs. Most of the issues with LCD back ten years ago no longer apply, both based on the improvements to the tech and the mass migration of the consumer to LCD display technology.
-Dave
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I have dealt with flash banding with the following kludge.. works ok if you’re fighting only one flash, lots of work if you have crazy flashes going on all the time.
First, find your banded frame. Cut it out, then duplicate the previous or next frame… if there’s heavy motion, you might blend the two, whatever looks best. If it still looks weird, you can apply a flash effect to the blended frame.
There are plug-ins that can reduce the “jello” effect, but with the HMC40 I’ve never seen it pronounced enough to be an issue. Maybe a different story with DSLRs and other large-sensor cameras. You can, in theory, narrow the flash band by going to a higher shutter speed, but chances are, if people are using flash, you’re in the dark, so that’s probably not an option. An on-camera light will help, too, just by reducing the contrast change between flash and no flash, but you’ll still see the banding.
Bottom line is that you want it look natural… no bonus points for making it look exactly like it would have without the flash, since no one knows what that was.
-Dave
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I love my HMC-40, but if he’s dead-set against CMOS sensors (eg, rolling shutter potential), that’s not the camera for him. The HMC-40 does everything else he’s after, and even with the XLR module, still below $2000. That leaves money to buy a decent mic… I’ve got the Rode NTG-1 on mine, and it’s a great match.
The HMC-150 doesn’t suck either.. that’ll get you the CCDs rather than CMOS sensors, more weight, but with it more buttons, less need to navigate menus. And more low light capability.
-Dave
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I’ve shot a bunch of bands and other stage productions over the years, various venue conditions: professional concerts, folk festivals, High School Bands, school and community theater. I would never recommend establishing a white balance in the foyer… you have no idea if that’s any closer to your stage lighting than the lighting in the rest room or the popcorn stand.
If it’s a modest setup using room lights, you can probably lock in a decent enough white balance. One key, though… if you do have multiple cameras, set ’em both the same, whatever that setting happens to be. Never on auto-white, never on auto-focus, and even auto-exposure is a thing to use sparingly.
Sometimes, you have to wing it a little. In a situation where there’s going to be lots of changing stage lighting, I lock it on whatever makes sense based on the white lighting on-stage, during a performance. If you can’t get an ideal white reading, you can “eyeball” the color … your eye’s view of the stage and your camera’s viewfinder/LCD need to match…. that’s the best definition of “correct” when the colors don’t resemble anything found in nature. Even if it’s off a bit, you can tweak the color a bit later. The worst option is to leave it on auto white balance, which is very likely to make the shoot insane at best, useless at worst.
And by all means, learn to use your tool. The last thing you need is to panic and go fumbling to find the white balance button (up on the left side, not far from the focus ring) or any other feature in the dark. The HMC-4x, like many Pannys, speak in enough code words and symbols that it pays to spend some quality time with the camera before using it.
As for sound, a board feed is your absolute best bet. I always have an extra digital field recorder or two, cables of my own that’ll let me hook the device to RCA, 1/4″, or XLR outputs from the mixing board, etc. Without the board, I’ll set up the field recorder in the best possible location, on 24-bit, to hopefully not distort when the high SPLs kick in (some concerts are too loud for such devices’ built-in mics at any recording level… it’s not the preamp, it’s the mic itself that’s distorting). You also want the camcorder mic set up properly… I set my HMC-40 to duplicate the mic input to both channels, then set one very low and the other where I actually think the audio’s going to peak. That way, when I’m wrong, I have that second track to deliver the undistorted version.
If it’s really, really loud, you might leave the camcorder mic home and use a couple higher SPL mics. The Rode NTG-1 I use on my main camcorder claims to support levels up to 139dB(spl). I’ve had camcorder mics overload due to loudness, but never this particular one. Then again, if you’re actually experiencing 139dB(spl), you have more concerns than the video… like the fact your ears are starting to shut down (I think I got close to this at a Raconteurs concert once… it was painful, even with the Hearos in my ears).
-Dave
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It should just be an OS thing… either your OS had a driver that supports SDXC or it doesn’t.
FCP or any other application is working at a higher level.. it shouldn’t care if the card has FAT32, exFAT, HPFS+, ext4, or NTFS as long as the driver’s there to support it. Assuming FCP works with SDHC, there’s virtually no chance it would fail with SDXC, if the OS otherwise supports SDXC.
Should be easy to check, anyway. I’m not a Mac user, but I assume that the OS normally auto-mounts a memory card when you put it in the slot, and there’s a way to get the Mac Finder looking at that memory card. When you can examine the exFAT card this way, but can’t see it in FCP6, that’s the time to start thinking the problem is in FCP6. Otherwise, I would make sure I had all of the very latest OS updates. As that link I posted suggests, it seems kind of random whether SDXC is supported on any given Mac. But definitely not on older versions of the OS.
-Dave
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In theory anyway, the difference between SDXC and SDHC is only software. There are some very small differences in the SD card’s ROM, and the standard also requires the use of exFAT rather than FAT32 as a file system (>4GB files! Hurray!).
Most supported computer OSs have been updated to support SDXC within the last year. Apple’s usually kind of slow at adopting new technology other than the stuff they’re pushing (eg, brand spankin’ new Thunderbolt port in the new Macs, but no USB 3.0 or Blu-ray from Apple yet), but they have added support for SDXC. In places. Here’s an article from last fall on the subject:
https://blog.fosketts.net/2010/10/01/sdxc-exfat-apple-mac-os-imac-mini/
Every Windows 7 computer with an SD card reader supports SDXC. If you have access to such a machine, that might be one option.
-Dave
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[Jordan Wolf] “Not to be pedantic, but balanced wiring is kind of a misnomer. Whether or not an input/output is balanced is completely independent on the wire used in connecting it. A balanced connection is made by having the same impedance (Z) on each leg of the circuit.
Kind of. The term “balanced” actually means that you have an impedance match between source, cable, and sink. But in nearly all use, implied by the term, as well, is that you have a differential signal pair run across balanced twisted pair cable. The ground can be a DC reference and a shield, and doesn’t hurt, but it’s the differential signalling that’s largely responsible for the noise rejection. So a “balanced” cable is certainly part of the system… the twisting and impedance match is necessary. The cable on its own, though, does not make a system balanced.
For those unfamiliar with the details, a singular signal is made differential by a differential driver, which has matched amplifiers producing inverted and non-inverted copies of the signal. When run across impedance controlled twisted pair, any external noise that’s accumulated will be nearly identical between the two wires. At the terminal, the two signals are subtracted from one another… the common mode signal (all that noise) goes to zero, the differential mode signal (the original) is restored.
-Dave