External HD Monitor while editing in FCP

R

robotx21

Active member
I have a macbook pro that I do all my editing on, be it HD or SD footage. My question is, if I buy an off the shelf HD LCD/PLASMA screen from say best buy or circuit city, how do I go about hooking it to my macbook pro to view my edits in real time? I'm looking towards proabably a 1080p monitor, would that be able to playback 720p as well? Thanks!

Mike
 
Use a Matrox MXO attached to the DVI port of your MB Pro. That will give you pixel for pixel YUV colorspace with outputs to DVI, SDI with embedded audio, composite or component video. You could then use the component output of the MXO. I have not tested the MXO on the DVI (or HDMI) input of a consumer TV.

You could always use a DVI computer monitor as that second screen (that's what most people do with the MXO). I am using a Dell 2405 (very cheap at Dell outlet) or you could use an Apple Cinema Display.

Check it out at www.matrox.com. List price $995. Since you are in Irvine, you can probably just shoot down to Irvine Spectrum area and pick one up at ProMax.

Ned Soltz
 
Thanks for the input. I was looking at the MXO. How is the Dell screen? I'm mainly looking for a relatively cheap monitor for Color Correcting. Also, what's the difference between using MXO and just going straight from the DVI port to another DVI on an external monitor?
 
Going straight from the DVI port gives you essentially a second Mac desktop and therefore mapped to RGB colorspace. I would rank the Dell monitor as adequate-- you get what you pay for. I found one at the Dell Outlet as well as an on-line code to drop the price a bit more. I would say it definitely gives me a good enough perspective of my DVCPRO HD timeline. If I had the budget, however, I would definitely go with the Panasonic LH1700 and have a true SDI monitor which I could calibrate to bars.

Ned
 
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