Lu Nelson
Forum Replies Created
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The MXO setting that you choose in the External Video submenu in FCP has to match your sequence settings. In other words if its NTSC DV Anamorphic you choose that. If its DVCPROHD 720p 23.976 then you choose that. It has to be exactly the format your sequence is in, so that the MXO can interpret it properly for display on the monitor. You don’t need to think about what resolution the monitor is running at, the MXO takes care of that, as long as you’ve got it running at a usable resolution, like the one I mentioned.
What resolution did you get it running at by the way?
Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
Hi Bill,
for clarity:
-1. The Dell *should* work, because the MXO is capable of supporting 1680×1050@60Hz. Try setting your monitor control panel to this setting. If the Dell cannot see or show this, then either the monitor or the MXO’s DVI output are bad.
-2. In any case, I use a Dell 2007fpw revision A04, which is quite a bit later model so it may not compare.
-3. The question of panel types is touchy. With Dell 200x series, all the way up to the revision I have, there was a bit of a scandal about the fact that they were reviewed and quoted in the press as having S-IPS panels, but many users ended up with TN panels (much less good). You can find info on this by Googling “Dell Panel Lottery” although Dell erased all this stuff from their own user forums. My own model is an S-IPS panel and is quite nice; but I also have an Apple 23″ and I can say although the Dell is good, it is still less good than the Apple. It is less bright and contrasty, for example.
-4. As a final note, the 2408 (and probably 2008) may actually now be better than the Apple, because they supposedly have a wider color gamut (specifically, the 2408 has a so called “HC” model which is supposed to cover over 100% of the NTSC color gamut). You might also look at the 2708 which is the same resolution but a bigger panel. However, Shane’s point about the LUT (Look Up Tables) is correct I think. Theoretically the MXO is at its most accurate with an Apple Display.Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
I bought a Turbo.264 from Elgato and have been keeping an eye on their software development hoping they’ll soon make it viable for Pros. The potential of it is that it would offer hardware acceleration to a simple “Export via Quicktime Conversion” command directly out of FCP and other apps; but the problem is their Quicktime Component currently only supports 3 pre-built export profiles and they are not very “Pro-oriented”: they all crop the TV-safe area and crush the blacks, among other drawbacks.
However, even if they manage to improve that, their H.264 output cannot compare with the file-size/quality ration of using an x264 based tool like Handbrake, despite the longer encoding req’dLu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
Yes, actually the Dells are up to the 2408 series by now I believe, and with each generation have been expanding their color gamut. I believe they are the superior hardware now as Apple has not updated their panels for something like 3 years.
Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
Yes, actually the Dells are up to the 2408 series by now I believe, and with each generation have been expanding their color gamut. I believe they are the superior hardware now as Apple has not updated their panels for something like 3 years.
Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
Yes, actually the Dells are up to the 2408 series by now I believe, and with each generation have been expanding their color gamut. I believe they are the superior hardware now as Apple has not updated their panels for something like 3 years.
Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
I’m an MXO user too.
Indeed it does not seem to accelerate, at least with my workflow, although Matrox says it offers some kind of acceleratio for HDV and DVCProHD Timelines, which is not you I guess, nor me.
The output is good, but I often switch my external monitor back to Digital Cinema mode because it is more responsive when I am shuttling around a lot. In other words, I use MXO mastering mode to check how the images and cuts really look, but I mostly edit in Digital Cinema because otherwise you have a 4-5 frame delay in responsiveness. 5 actually, says Matrox.
Also, the MXO preferes that you have your playback settings on “Dynamic” or “High”. It does not like “Medium” quality mode in my experience, which might be a turnoff for some ProRes users as this was one of the ways suggested to alleviate CPU load when cutting.
But yes: the output is correct color and in the 23″ monitor range I think you are best to stick with Apple’s 23″ in all cases because it refreshes at 59.97Hz (which is MXO’s maximum refresh rate at that resolution). Higher resolution monitors do not work at all but lower resolutions do, and sometimes at higher refreshes like 60Hz or even 75Hz i think
Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
I have a Dell 2407 and a 2007. For me the important difference is the 2007 is an IPS panel, which among other differences from the SPVA type in the 2407 is a bit *faster*: i.e. the screen keeps up with your input (your mouse, for example) more instantaneously. The SPVA has more consistent and neutral color I find though.
Perhaps Dell has improved this with the 2408. Usually it’s an issue you’ll only see talked about on gaming forums because they play so fast; but it bothered me. Otherwise I’m sure the 2408 is excellent.
Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany -
Hi there,
The PanZoomPro plugin works well. It is more precise than MovingPicture, and though it renders slower when you have it on “full quality” the render quality is better.
However your description also suggests to me you are using the MovingPicture plugin incorrectly. You do not apply it to pictures and there is no need to import your pictures themselves in to FCP with that workflow. You just need a dummy clip, like 1 minute of black (you can create this by laying down a minute of slug in the timeline and then exporting this to a file), to which you apply the effect and then when you launch the MovingPicture interface you import the picture you want to animate. Your FCP timeline will look like a bunch of instances of the same “dummy” clip laid one after the other. It’s only in the plugin that you choose the picture and set up an animation. If you try to import the still picture in to your timeline and then apply the effect to that you are not passing the right information to the plugin. The clip in the timeline is what defines how the frame size, rate etc.
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Hi Mike,
another thought with unifying these two, if you want to have something consistent and have to scale up the 4×3 footage to match you 16×9 sequence, is that you can also get away with distorting your 4×3 footage a bit to gain some vertical room.
In Final Cut Pro, the optically correct way to scale 4×3 in a 16×9 sequence is at a scale of 133% and a distort value of 33. However it will also fill the screen horizontally at other values such as: scale 130/distort 30, scale 125/distort 25 etc. I find you can even go as low as scale 120/distortion 20 before it starts to look odd. This reduces the ‘blow up’ effect a bit by recovering some vertical resolution, and also helps reduce the cutting off of heads in your 4×3 stuff. If consistent throughout the project the audience will not notice the distortion.