Connecting a calibrated monitor to a 2006 Imac

[maltess2]

Hello, is there any possible way to use a calibrated external monitor with an imac from 2006?, no thunderbolt in the imac, only usb and firewire connections

The problem is I want to grade some red one footage, I tried first calibrating the Imac screen with Spyder pro 3, a calbrating screen tool to work with photographs. But, when I play the DVD on a TV, the footage looks very bright compared to what I see in my imac screen. So I guess, I need to do this color grading using a real calibrated monitor. I am out of budget to go to a post production facillity etc.

 

[Michael Carter]

There may be earlier versions of the Black Magic Intensity box - the current one is USB 3.0, so an 06 iMac may be out. There are thunderbolt solutions, don't know if there are USB or Firewire to thunderbolt converters. But with a 7 year old iMac, your best bet may be to plan on upgrading soon. Or see if you can afford a used mac pro and get a black magic card - they're under $200. A Matrox mini is a good solution if you can get hold of a mac pro, too.

There may be simple adapters to take your external monitor output to HDMI, but your signal will be affected by the mac's gamma and color shifts. As far as I know, that machine may not have an easy way to get an uncorrupted stream from your NLE/After Effects etc. out to HDMI or SDI. A mac pro and a bottom-of-the-lime Matrox or similar solution may be your best bet.