need a 5 inch external monitor for under $500

PegLeg Media

Well-known member
so i have switched from panasonic to sony a6500 and the monitor sucks. I also have a gimbal now and would love to be able to mount the small monitor on top of the gimbal. I also need this for framing myself when on camera which is also why i want a smaller portable monitor.

The two i see now are these two monitors, any advice on them or know a better option?

Ikan 4k monitor (http://amzn.to/2o816Pb)
Black Magic assist (http://amzn.to/2oZf9py) - i wasnt going to spend $500 but this has an internal recorder as well and since i mainly shoot my gimbal at 1080 60fps instead of 4k i could use this for 10 bit 422 video. I also heard this overheats?

advice or better options would be great! thanks guys
 
I haven't used our BM 5inch very much, but it sucks the batteries down really fast. Mostly I use it to track down cable problems in our studio, it was the cheapest HD-SDI monitor I could get to track problems down. It looks good but not sure about longer use heat.
 
I've been using the BMVA for about a year now. The monitor is sharp enough for focussing for me. The 5" screen is a good compromise between weight and size. The recorder is handy but I don't use it much. The one thing I have found is that it can eat batteries fairly quickly: when it's cold out, say around 32ºF, I get roughly an hour out of 2 batteries. Being able to swap out one battery while the other works is handy. The build quality is robust. Not had any overheating issues. I've been satisfied.
 
I come from the rental realm- nobody would touch plastic monitor because it would not last a day in the field.
Obviously personal use is a different story. Good to have choices...
 
i already have a 7 inch lilliput but its too big for personal stuff. Def want a nice small 5 inch i can clamp on my gimbal.
 
BMVA all the way.

I'm using it as an alternative to my 7" for my F55 and especially when mounting on DJI Ronin. The 5" fits nicely on the top bar and the fact I can run it with spare LP-E6 is great - it means only one thin SDI cable back to camera.

I find the monitor sharp, you can pull focus from it no problem, it can load LUTs too if you are shooting with LOG camera's, equipped with ProRes recorder as you know, and I've never had overheating issues.

You won't regret it.

Did a bit of a write up here - nothing scientific.

BMVA-DJI-Ronin.jpg
 
I use a client's 5" BM Video Assist whenever they specify 1080p ProRes, & never had any issues with overheating. The firmware upgrade that added LUTs, & False Color, has really improved it's feature set.
 
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