[Jason Porthouse]

Bob,

The PH9 is the Panasonic pro plasma panel. They’ve made incremental changes and each year a new one comes out, but essentially they’re the same panel – there’s very little difference between a PH7, 8, 9 or 10. Please bear in mind that these are panels – no speakers/tuner module – and as such you need to make sure (especially if you buy secondhand) that it has the correct input modules. Mine came with the component module (my primary input) as well as HDMI. As standard AFAIK it has a composite in. You can always get the boards but it’s good to have them included.

Also – the suitability of one of these will depend on the room you house the suite in. Mine is about four feet away on a back wall. I wouldn’t want it any closer, and ideally I’d move back a couple of feet if I could.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

I use a PH9 as a client monitor, and IMHO properly calibrated they’re 95% of the way to being ‘reference’. Certainly good enough to give a client (and me) a good idea. I use my secondary JVC DTV1700 HD CRT as ‘reference’ but the PH9 is very close.

Fed with good material, SD is very good on it too – surprisingly so for such a big panel (I have the 42) but if it’s under par (cruddy DV for instance, or a mutli-generation artefact riddled dub) it can be ruthless. personally I don’t mind that, it can show up poor material and make the client realise why good stuff is important!!

HD is great too, with the caveat that you aren’t seeing full 1080. But again, I’m happy with the compromise. You can pick up some bargain secondhand PHs from AV buffs who’ve junked them from their home cinema setups in favour of full HD panels.

Jason

(Still scared of BOB)

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

A capture card will work well with the JVC via Component. It’ll also give you the ability to run 2 computer monitors (bin and timeline) rather than the MXO solution.

Second the BM range for price/performance, but also check out the MXO2, a very different beast from the MXO.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

[Bob Zelin] “Now, if you don’t buy some video card (from AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, MOTU, etc.) and attempt to make a living with a bare bones MAC, I will fly out to your location and beat you senseless. “

OMG, Bob, I’ve just realised who you are – you are BOB!

Jut when I thought I’d gotten over Twin Peaks. Seriously, has anyone here seen them in the same room together?

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

I’ve heard good reports about this

Alpha Track

Probably the smallest, cheapest option for FCP.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Thanks for that Matty, I don’t know who their original dealer was but QuadLogic in Bristol have the card at the moment, they’ll have a look and if it’s faulty I’ll get them to get in touch with Danielle.

Many thanks for all the help and advice, I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Thanks Bob, you’ve echoed my feeling about this. Fortunately a friendly local reseller (not the one the kit came from) has offered to test the card, so it’s going up to them ASAP so we can rule it out. Double fortunately they still have AppleCare for another couple of months.

We’ll see how it goes!

Cheers,

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Andrew,

To fully answer your query I think we need to know a little more about your workflow. You broadcast from DV, correct? And you’re going from your Mac to DV via firewire, correct?

Walter’s advice is, as ever, sage – but I think reading between the lines the Kona might be overkill for you and introduce a whole layer of complexity and expense you don’t need.

If you are going to master to DV via firewire the Kona is overkill. I’d be inclined to edit native 720 and when locked, export a reference movie. Open a new DV project, import said reference and copy in to a DV sequence. FCP will resize accordingly – and then lay this off on to DV via firewire.

If you have a DV deck with SDI in, or even component in, then you could go the Kona route, providing your deck has RS422 machine control. it all depends on your deliverables and what deck you’re using.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Josh,

All PAL video is 720×576, (ok not all but for these purposes) there is no such thing as 1024×576. Hold that thought… for PAL VIDEO…

So your choice is anamorphic or not. As you’ve found out, this will display as tall and thin when looked at in Quicktime – so, if youe final deliverable is a computer file the best way is to manually create a 16:9 (1024×576, 512×288 etc) quicktime/avi/flv

If you’re authoring DVD keep it anamorphic (720×576) for your encode and make sure your DVD project is 16:9, it’ll be fine.

If you’re getting interlaced artifacts, I’d expect that looking at an interlaced QT on a computer monitor. Again, what’s your end deliverable? DVD? Live with it, or create a de-interlaced copy QT for client approval if you need to. The artefacts won’t be seen on a television screen played from the DVD.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

[Will MacNeil] “1. Convert PAL Anamorphic to PAL square 1024×576. I know this isn’t really a ‘format’ but I’d like to able to do this.”

There is no such thing… you’d be looking at a software conversion to do this. SD video is 720×576 (in PAL land), either anamorphic or not. The only way to get 1024×576 is to convert to a file – QT for instance. The Matrox (and Kona, Blackmagic et al) won’t do this as it’s not a video signal that any kit (monitor, VTR) would recognise. Use Compressor.

As to the upconversion – I know it can do it, but I am surprised to hear that the drivers aren’t available yet. Certainly not the impression I got from the Matrox engineers on the Broadcast Forum stand.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*