DV Rack as monitor

finn_mccool

finn_mccool

Active member
I attended Walter Graff's lighting seminar yesterday (fabulous, by the way), and a number of folks had questions about DV Rack. Walter said he hadn't used it, and was skeptical (but, I would say, not cynical) about using it as a monitor. I know DV Rack's literature says it compensates for the weaknesses inherent in a laptop screen to present the video as accurately as would a pro monitor. Can anyone verify this? Barry, you have lots of good things to say about DV Rack. Have you, by chance (or anyone else), compared a properly-calibrated DV Rack and a good monitor side-by-side to determine if this is the case?

Thanks,

Keith
 
If you just think to the huge differences there are from laptop screen to laptop screen, it's clear this doesn't make sense. how can this software adjust the output of the screen in order to emulate a video monitor? knowing all the laptop screens around and adjusting the parameters accordingly? even in that remote case, i think it is extremely unlikely you are able to instruct a laptop monitor to deliver the same depth of tones of a video monitor.

if they claim that it is able to "present the video as accurately as would a pro monitor", they probably restrict the concept of accuracy to just certain aspects of the video signal, like aspect ratio, or underscan option / margins.. stuff like that

Andrea
 
I too was at the seminar - it was fantastic.

Walters biggest issue came from the progressive nature of LCd and th interlaced nature of video. I am not sure if that would be an issue. Even with a pro monitor, you dont always have the same resolution being sent from the camera.

I think it is prob safe to say that the lcd will not have the depth of tone etc of a pro monitor. But what i would like to know is if it is good enough to get a fairly accurate color representation so that you dont balance the heck out of the image in post.

My guess is that yes it does - because you can calibrate it like a pro monitor with color bars.

any other opinions? Barry?
 
Smelni,

Which one were you? I was the guy who stood in front of the green screen. I think DV Rack should do a very acceptable job, given that you can do not only the color bars, but it also has a vectorscope and waveform monitor.

Keith
 
The LCD does a pretty good job of emulating a production monitor. But obviously there are limitations. My CRT is much, much brighter and more vibrant than my laptop's cheap LCD. A better LCD may do a better job. In any case you can tailor it so it's reasonably accurate, but it'll never be identical.
 
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