Is my Mac screen too big for HD?

[Chris Southern]

Hi everyone, I am new to HD editing as I only recently got a Canon 600d and FCPx. In the olden days of 2008 I was used to using Avid Xpress DV, panasonic DVX100, and a regular SD 19' LCD monitor.

However, now that I have upgraded a lot for my masters degree, I am noticing considerable loss of quality on images from my canon to my Mac. I was wondering if it could be due to the inflated resolution of the Mac compared to the canon. Could anyone help me figure this out please? The canon is shooting in 1920x1080p (PAL) 25fps and the Mac resolution is 2560x1440.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Chris

[daihard]

Errr...well, look at the numbers there. Clearly you can see that the camera's footage is being up sampled to fit full screen on the mac.
Dont forget, the Canon's dont actually resolve the full 1080p resolution. I dont know the exact numbers, but higher end HD cameras are like 1000+ lines of res, and the Canons are like somewhere around 500 lines.
Thats why the images tend to be a bit softer.
Anyhow, compared to your older monitor... yes this is a huge step up in image quality, so of course with most video your gonna see... what appears to be a loss in video quality.
If you really want to see the final result, plug in another screen (a 2nd screen) with a more average resolution.... 1920x1080 and have a look at the video.
When your editing, dont forget though that usually your video window is much smaller then 1080... so yes at full screen your gonna notice some problems... but at a more normal size it should appear fine.

[Chris Southern]

That's great, I was getting worried that I was either going (more) blind, or that there was a camera issue. For some reason it wasn't until this morning that I even contemplated the difference in resolutions! Thanks for confirming this for me! Unfortunately, the 2011 iMac doesn't have a monitor output, so I guess I'm just going to have to have faith! Yikes. Thanks again daihard!

[daihard]

Actually it does, 2011 iMac uses a "Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter".
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB...ode=MTY1NDA5OQ

I use the same one on both my late 2010 iMac (dual core 3.06) and my new Thunderbolt iMac.
frankly i cant edit video using just 1 screen :P
If you look around, you can grab one for like $10.