PowerBook as monitor?

S

SteveSturm

New member
Hey All,

Long time lurker, first time poster...love the forum.

So my Pannie's on its way, & I've already got a PM G5 (with the FCP suite) to do the heavy lifting. I'm thinking about adding a PB for mobility and I got to wondering if it's OK (feasible, efficient, worthwhile, etc) to have it pull double-duty, in lieu of a "standard" field monitor. I've looked around some but have yet to find anything concrete before I make the move. I've seen it done at still shoots, so...

Anyway, what say you? Is it smart? Would I need more SW, or anything else?

TIA
 
Re: PowerBook as monitor?

well, a laptop simply cannot replace a good field monitor IMHO. But, you can do a pretty darn good job with a program called "DV rack". It has a field monitor in it, which although low resolution, can be calibrated for more accurate color viewing. It's a really great program. For me, it would be the only way I would use a laptop as a monitor.....
 
Re: PowerBook as monitor?

I wouldn't recommend it, nothing beats a CRT monitor that can be calibrated. While you can run various calibrations on your monitor, you will never know it's right like you can on a well calibrated CRT (blue only gun and SMPTE color bars are a must).

But using FCP's waveform/vectorscope in the log and capture can be very useful. The camera has to be hooked up via firewire. Once you learn how to use these scopes it can help to make sure that you don't miss judge your exposure.
 
Re: PowerBook as monitor?

i was going to say the same. I am pretty sure you can real-time preview anything you're shooting through the log/capture window in the final cut File menu...

not sure if it drops frames or not... but, if your'e hooked into your laptop, if you had another firewire external HD hooked to your powerbook, you could record to that hard drive instead of your actual tape... but, you'd select Log Now... and just have to tell the log/capture window when to stop recording...

two uses of a firewire port isnt permitted tho on a powerbook, cos you only have 1 FW port, but, if you got some type of firewire hub, you'd prob be aiight.
 
Re: PowerBook as monitor?

Every External HD have an extra fw for you to plug the camera to.

While the color of the previwed image might not be great, you can see the full frame and the waveform/vectorscope, so it's still a great tool. Since I don't trust DV Rack's colors as well, I'd say it's a very good choice to monitor through your PB. You can capture now your material perfeclty too. Just run a tape backup. Afterall, computers are not 100% reliable...
 
Just use a program called "GCam" to capture. It is quicker than FCP, it doesnt have vectorscopes, but it captures any firewire input, and you can set your Aspect Ratios w/ it too.. oh yeah, it's FREE, and only 51KB. so... i use it, and dont even bother w/ fcp...

that is unless you want all the waveform and vectorscope stuff..

dont forget to set your Pixel Dimensions each time u capture tho... !!!!!!!!


here's the link.


http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21870
 
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