Out to Production Monitor

C

cmus

Active member
I am about to upgrade my editing system. I have been editing exclusively on my laptop and want to add a production monitor to the setup. How are you guys doing this? I have been messing around trying to get the picture out to a sd TV and am having some problems. The closest I can come to getting this to work is to connect my old Sony VX2000 to the laptop via firewire and run the composite out from the camera to the TV. I can get this configuration to work, but only with SD projects.

I can't get any picture sent via firewire to my HVX200 or on to the TV in this manner, and with the Sony camera, it only works in 30i NTSC projects.

I have also been messing around with setting up the s-video out on the laptop to make the sd TV be used as a dual monitor straight from the computer. This has not gone real well, as the picture quality is pretty poor.

How are you guys connecting to HD production monitors from laptops?

Aloha,
Craig
 
Since im assuming your on Avid your gonna need some sort of a breakout box. Firewire wont do for HD anymore. Something like the Mojo box that has component out. Run those to your HDTV and you should be getting a realtime full res preview. Due to the fact that your on a laptop, going external with a breakout box is going to be your only option as far as I know.
 
How does the Mojo work? It says on the Avid website it connects via firewire. Why can't I use my HVX as a "breakout box" just like I used to use my VX2000 for SD?

Does everyone here have a breakout box to enable full res production monitoring?

Also, why do you ask if I am on Avid? I am, but would consider alternative software if they offer better alternatives as far as real time HD monitor output.

aloha
 
I am still searching for a better monitoring solution for color correction. Anybody have suggestions or details about how their Avid systems are set up?

aloha
 
heimpel said:
Since im assuming your on Avid your gonna need some sort of a breakout box. Firewire wont do for HD anymore. Something like the Mojo box that has component out. Run those to your HDTV and you should be getting a realtime full res preview. Due to the fact that your on a laptop, going external with a breakout box is going to be your only option as far as I know.
Click to expand...

The mojo will NOT output 720p HD period.
Some people have got it to output 1080i but it scales it somehow so it's not full quality.
You have to use DVI out to a DVI monitor (or you could adapt the DVI to VGA or even S-Video if you have to).
 
carlone said:
The mojo will NOT output 720p HD period.
Some people have got it to output 1080i but it scales it somehow so it's not full quality.
Click to expand...
Actually, that's not entirely true. For 1080i footage, you switch your project settings in your 1080/30i project to 480/30i (Avid calls 60i projects 30i, but they're the same). The Mojo does a real-time half-frame downconvert of the HD footage so that it displays on an SD monitor. This works because the time base of the video content is the same (60i). The 1080i HD has an 480i SD analog. The Mojo does scaling on the fly quite smoothly, because it doesn't have to do anything like pulldown insertion.

In a 720p project, you'll see that you don't have the option to switch the project to any SD settings, because 720 is inherently progressive and 480 SD is inherently interlaced. So, in order to monitor 720p footage the way you do 1080i footage with Avid and Mojo, is that the Mojo would have to scale down to an SD frame size AND insert pulldown (I'm talking about native 720/24p, here) for it to be successfully viewed on an SD monitor. As you can see, you don't have this choice. So what's a hapless Avid editor to do?

Simple.

Close your 720/23.976p project. Create a new 480/23.976p project--this is the project type you'd use if you were ingesting DV25 media shot in 24PA. In your project window, click on the hamburger menu, and select "Open Bin". Navigate into your Avid project files repository, open up the folder for your 720p project, and select the bin that contains the sequence. Once the bin is open, open your sequence in the source or program monitor, and you'll find that the Avid is indeed outputting your HD sequence as downconverted SD! It's scaling the frame and inserting pulldown at the same time. Now, why this doesn't work directly in the HD project, your guess is as good as mine.

In fact, you'll find that you can capture/ingest all your footage into your 720p HD project, and then open up those footage bins in your 480p SD project, and edit right there with the downscaled clips. Then, when you go back to your HD project for export, your sequence will match what you did in the SD project. Pretty cool.

Another fun fact is that when in the SD project, you can use Transcode to convert the HD clips into SD--this isn't available in the HD project (you can only transcode to DNxHD files, no SD files). This is just about the cleanest way I found to create an SD master from an HD project using Avid.

Note that this only works with footage shot in either 720/24pN mode or 720/30pN mode--720/60p users are out of luck. The first two work because there are SD frame rate counterpart project settings in Avid, but not for the latter. I thought that maybe you could open up a 720/60p (or 720/24p over 60) sequence in a 480/30i project, but Avid won't accept those files--says something about incompatible frame rates, which I guess is to be expected.

So there you have it. Near as I can tell, this is an undocumented feature of the Mojo, but I could have just missed it somewhere. I'm curious to hear if any other users have discovered this functionality, as well. If not--try it out! It's pretty cool.

Good luck!
 
cbrougham -

Thanks for that great response. A couple questions.
1. Since Avid handles 1080 footage from the HVX in a 59.94 timeline, will this same workaround work for 1080 24pa projects?
2. Since the monitoring will be done with an SD project, can I simply use my old mini-dv camera as my firewire breakout box and avoid the extra expense of the mojo?
3. Are there any other potential problems using the SD project to edit and color correct? Am I losing color information that would limit the capabilities of the color correction process by going SD.

Thanks a bunch.
cmus
 
I had a little spare time to try this workflow out and wanted to post answers to my earlier questions:
1. Yes, this approach does work with a 1080/59.94 project.
2. Yes, this approach does work without a Mojo.
3. I would love to hear opinions on this one from people better versed on colorspace. Is Avid still going to use all the information in the original footage to analyze and adjust color using this workflow?

Cbrougham - I think you may have just saved me about 2 grand - hope I can buy you a beer sometime. Biggest mahalo to you.

Cmus
 
Glad to help Cmus! Any bit of hard-won Avid trickery I can share, makes me happy to do so. It also makes me miss that I won't be cutting on Avid again for the foreseeable future :(

On question number 1: you shouldn't have to change projects when you're working with 1080i footage. If you click on the (I believe) "Info" tab in your project window (where there is also tabs for Bins and Effects), there should be a project type or project setting pulldown box. You might have to expand your project window a little bit, because I think it's kind of hidden. At any rate, it should say "1080/30i". If you click that button, you'll get a couple other options, another one of which will be "480/30i". Once you do so, the software should realtime scale the clips to SD for monitoring purposes. Though... now that I think about it, that might require Mojo. Our Avids always had Mojos on them, so I never thought to check this feature without. At any rate, give that a shot, and it should at least save you the step of creating a whole separate SD project and opening up your HD project bins there.

As far as question 3: that's hard to tell. Any way you slice it, you're not looking at an HD image on your output monitor. I think with a properly calibrated broadcast/production monitor, you're probably pretty safe using it as a judge, but I'm far from an expert in those sorts of things. I believe that if you applied your CC in the SD project, and then reopen your original HD project/timeline, as long as you render and export from that HD project, you should maintain the HD colorspace. That's all guesstimation, though. It's a question that would be better answered by an official Avid type.

I'll take you up on that beer. Let me know when you're in the shadows of the Mackinac Bridge :D

Good luck!

colin
 
It works! Great find cbrougham!
I got a chance to try it out today and my 720pn project plays out of my MOJO to my Sony Monitor. It's better color correcting this way it the end result is DVD. This is a great find - please don't tell AVID about this - they may turn it off :)

You're also right about the downconversion or transcode to SD using your method above. It seems like the end result is a little cleaner than using QT ref and Compressor or Sorenson.
 
carlone said:
This is a great find - please don't tell AVID about this - they may turn it off :)

You're also right about the downconversion or transcode to SD using your method above. It seems like the end result is a little cleaner than using QT ref and Compressor or Sorenson.
Click to expand...

Glad you find it useful! And I had the same fears that if this is something Avid found out about, they might turn off. As I said, I've never found anything in product literature or marketing materials that suggests this as a possibility, so it might be something that either "just works" or somehow slipped through the cracks. I seem to remember something similar happening with the multi-camera editing feature, where you used to be able to group an unlimited number of clips. Apparently, it was a capability that was never supposed to make its way into Xpress Pro--it was reserved for Media Composer users. Then, somebody at Avid decided it would be a good idea to cripple that feature, after many end users began relying on it for their productions. I think that was somewhere around the v5.5 release, if I recall. Needless to say, many were throughly non-plussed with the new restriction, and I'm not positive but I believe it was reintroduced shortly thereafter. Hopefully, this feature sticks around--Avid would not be wise to take it away, now that the ol' cat's out of the bag!

Excellent to hear that the transcodes look good to your eye, too. Avid has plenty of stumbling blocks, but one of its major strengths, in my experience, is the quality of its codecs across the board. I think this is why that the internally processed transcodes look much better than if you were to run the downconvert through some third party application. But what do I know? I'm just a lowly pixel jockey...

Enjoy!
 
So does this work with HDV footage from a Sony FX1? I think you are saying that Avid down converts for you making an SD footage file from a HD footage file making it easier to edit? My computer chugs with HDV footage but edits 720 footage from the HVX just fine. The Sony can downconvert through fire wire when capturing but then you have to re capture later after you finish editing. If what I think you are saying, Avid does this for you also without the recapture?
Was that clear?
 
cbrougham,

You da man!!! After spending a long time trying to figure out how to view my HVX200 720 24pn footage from my AVID to an SD monitor, I came across this thread. I'm not even using a MOJO. Just firewire out to my DSR40, looped svideo out to my SD monitor. You have easily saved me over a grand, so I too owe you a beer! Terrific!

I love this forum!!!

Tom
 
Another satisfied customer :) Seriously though, I'm glad this works for people. Frankly, I find it interesting that there isn't a "project toggle" like there is when working in a 1080i/p project... but many things Avid does tend to be a little strange. Happy editing!

PS: I like stouts and porters :D
 
Thank all of you for sharing the information about the monitor.

I have the similar problem before when I started my current project. However, at the end, because of my budget and time, I am now just using my Sony 9" production SD monitor to tune the color.

I remember that I posted around this issue to ask about how to get HD resolution out from my HD Avid project to a monitor. To my surprise, even the new Mojo SDI doesn't support HD resolution out to a monitor. (please correct me if I make misatke, for it was already almost a year ago.) One of the experts either from here or Avid forum told me that in order to get HD resolution to a monitor from Avid Xpress Pro, we need a graphic card from Martox, and it is quite expensive for me and only for Apple.

As it was quite long time ago, so don't take my information as final. I may forget something. Also, things may advacned already.

But do post it if anyone find out the lastest inforamtion.

Thanks.

King
 
No, you're right--the Mojo SDI is an SD-only device. In order to monitor HD with Avid hardware, you have to step up to Media Composer with the Adrenaline BOB and HD option. This workaround is not for true HD monitoring--it's downscaled/down-rezzed HD-to-SD. It works, but it's not 100% accurate for doing real HD color correction and what-not.

I seem to remember on the Avid forums that someone had found a way to use the Matrox MXO combined with the "Full Screen Preview" functionality in the Avid to actually monitor pixel-for-pixel HD out to a production monitor. Of course, you're talking about $1000 for the MXO and that might only be a Mac option, as well, but if you really need HD monitoring, then it's worth it.
 
cbrougham said:
No, you're right--the Mojo SDI is an SD-only device. In order to monitor HD with Avid hardware, you have to step up to Media Composer with the Adrenaline BOB and HD option. This workaround is not for true HD monitoring--it's downscaled/down-rezzed HD-to-SD. It works, but it's not 100% accurate for doing real HD color correction and what-not.

I seem to remember on the Avid forums that someone had found a way to use the Matrox MXO combined with the "Full Screen Preview" functionality in the Avid to actually monitor pixel-for-pixel HD out to a production monitor. Of course, you're talking about $1000 for the MXO and that might only be a Mac option, as well, but if you really need HD monitoring, then it's worth it.
Click to expand...

Thanks you for confirming about Mojo SDI.

But I would like to make sure if I completely understand what you say.

Are you saying that if I am using Windows, I have no way to have pixel-for-pixel HD out to produciton monitor? It is because first, the Matrox's way is only for Mac, and second, Media Composer's way is just a workaround, and it just has SD output.

Am I correct? If so, then how can we have HD monitoring for color correction?

Thanks.

King
 
C3Kings,

While researching a way to monitor HD footage from the Avid Xpress Pro HD, I talked to Jan from Panasonic. You can use the new P2 Gear which can receive a firewire input from your PC and output either HD-SDI or Component HD to an HD Monitor. Or course it cost's about $3,500! Here's a link to a recent discussion here.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=110358

Tom
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top