[Mike Brownstein]

Thanks for explaining it, Luke. Before I got the PVM L1, I spoke with tech people from not only ProMax & B&H, but also a tech person from Sony, who felt that for my purposes, currently, the L1 would be fine. So I was pretty surprised to read Bob’s comments. Down the line, if I ever end up making tons of money, I’ll get a bigger, better monitor, but for now, it’s good to know it wasn’t a total waste of money.

[Mike Brownstein]

Ok, I understand why I should get a monitor that has component inputs, but why do I need SDI, either on the monitor or card (you mentioned the extreme vs. the sp) if I don’t have a deck, output everything in a post house and generate all the images I use on my computer, ie, don’t use film or dv for anything?

[Mike Brownstein]

Thanks, Bob. I don’t have clients and most likely never will. I’m an independent 2D animator. Don’t work with film. Just uncompressed animation in AE and Flash. Don’t have a deck here for outputting. The only reason I need a monitor is to check the colors for NTSC so it doesn’t cost me a fortune in post. So I’m pretty much currently not concerned with HD or even SDI. And price, for me, is a determining factor. If anything ever changes for me, workwise, I’ll start exploring better cards/monitors. Right now, the concern is simply being able to view animation on my monitor.

[Mike Brownstein]

thanks, Kristian.
If I use the SP PCie and ultimately upgrade to a PVM L2 (like I said, I’m currently on a budget and got my L1 for dirt cheap) will the SP PCi e still work? I’m never planning on getting a deck in here–have a really good bargain post place to do outputting to–the decklink will just be used to monitor production (mainly color since I’m doing animation)

[Mike Brownstein]

Yeah, I know about the L1, but what decklink card will work with it on a dual core g5?