Apple Powerbook as field monitor?

evolvnyc

evolvnyc

Well-known member
I wanted to know if anyone has experience (or if it's even possible) to use a powerbook g4 as a field monitor, mainly just to check focus (I would assume it's not accurate for color, which is fine) and is there any software I would need? Also wondered if nayone can reccomend the cheapest digital projector that will plug into the dvx and project exactly what the dvx is recording onto a wall or screen?

Thanks!
 
Have a 12" Powerbook. The capture window in FCP is pretty little.
Dunno if I'd use it for checking focus.. Seems like a lot of gear to carry just to check focus.

There used to be a freeware program called VideoCapture1.0 for Mac that had a bigger
capture window.. maybe you could try that. Just don't capture with it though.. The files
it produces are very unfriendly for editing, playback, anything. U get what U pay4..
 
This idea is a little scary. I just broke my display by having a G4 on set. Much cheaper to rent a monitor.

As for projectors, that changes almost daily. Check out bhphotovideo.com for some low prices.
 
You know, I was asking myself this same question today. The purpose is that you might be shooting anamorphic 16x9 and you want to see a full 16x9 image live on a cinema display. I was thinking of getting a powerbook for editing, but it would be cool if I could use it as a monitor also.
 
Enable Univeral Access Zooming. Then you can zoom in on the 100% capture display as large as you like to check focus. You can also bring up the various scopes. Not as complete as DVRack but useful.
 
scott: now i'm confused, i don't need any software other then osx and like imovie? how do i operate the zoom and in what application?

thanks.
 
It's a feature in the system preferences to zoom in on an image -
It lets you assign shortcut keys to basically enlarging parts of the screen (as in what a magnifying glass would do for you in real life).
All the info on it is in the system preferences (the apple in the upper left), under universal access, the "seeing" tab.
So yes, any program that lets you view what the camera is showing (however small) you can zoom into.
Note that you'll always want your monitor image to be full size - the zoom simply electronically stretches the pixels for you it's not staying true to the source file (or in this case the source itself).
Seems like there'd be a straighter way to do it...
 
I also didn't realize that I had that function. What a great tool for demo purposes and power point.

Thanks guys,

eric
 
Well it is in fact showing the true pixels (you can turn off interpolation in pref settings)
Any ibook/powerbook display will show more than video size image. You can set your monitor prefs to be smallest size but I'm not even sure PowerBook supports sizes as small as video these days. The nice thing with the zoom is you can be in 'normal' mode to get things setup and then zoom it in large enough so you can adjust the focus across the room at the camera.
 
evolvnyc
The prefs provide the option to use a keyboard short cut to zoom into anything being shown on your monitor in any program. If it's a live iMovie or FCP video feed then you can zoom in.
It's also nice when you're playing a small video on a web page and want it to fill most of the screen.

The other options also make it great. You can display a negative image, a gray scale image and you can adjust the contrast. Once again this is all good stuff if you want to tweak the focus.
Also worth knowing the other universal access (hearing, moving mouse using keyboard, etc)
 
You can set the resolution as low as 640 x 480 even on the current PowerBooks; there's even a 720 x 480 mode on mine. But with a higher resolution, you can also show the tool bench, which gives you nifty tools like the waveform monitor to keep your scene exposed properly (if you're not using the zebra stripes on the LCD or EVF).

The screen zoom feature is quite slick, and you actually can turn off the interpolation, as Scott mentioned, which is really handy for close-up inspection without squinting at your screen. :thumbsup:
 
Here's a little known quirk in FCP. The size of your log and capture window is completely dependent on the size of your canvas window!

BEFORE you open log and capture, resize your canvas to cover the whole screen if you're working on a powerbook (I have saved a custom layout for the task). Then open your log and capture window. It's not full screen - but it's close.
 
there's a full screen DV live input Video viewer for OSX with 16:9 and 4:3 modes:

Also there's a real time video analyzer for OS9 and PSX called Videoscope.

Go to Versiontracker.com under Mac OSX and look for Videoviewer and Videoscope
 
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