FS7: Side by side monitoring of two cameras

[Vintegreo]

I've had a number of shoots lately where the client wants two cameras. When this happens, I rent another FS7 MII just like mine, match settings and rent an FSI (Flanders Scientific) monitor that allows me to monitor both cameras simultaneously. The wider shot is a lockdown, so it seems to work pretty well from that standpoint.

My question, though, is that I'd like to know what other monitors are out there that allow side by side monitoring? The FSI I rent is a CM171 17" monitor. I may end up buying one at some point, but would like to know what else folks are using when they want to be able to see more than one input on the screen at a time.

Thanks!

Tim

 

[Run&Gun]

Buy a Decimator Quad or Multi-viewer. That way you are not locked into a specific monitor. You can use it on a 17" or 70".

I have an older Decimator MD-QUAD that is fixed at 4-boxes and a few years ago I bought one of their DMON-6S units that can display from 1-6 boxes and you can customize the box layouts to suite your needs(I use 2 & 3 split layouts the most). It has a loop-out for each input channel, two SDI OUTS of the multi-viewer, plus an HDMI OUT of the multi-viewer. I usually use it on my 17" Sony OLED, but I was on a big five camera shoot earlier in the year and we used it, via HDMI, on a large 30"+ consumer set so the DP, director and producer could easily see all the shots.

This is the 6 channel that I use the most:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1091834-REG/decimator_dd_6s_6_channel_multi_viewer_with.html

 

[Vintegreo]

Buy a Decimator Quad or Multi-viewer. That way you are not locked into a specific monitor. You can use it on a 17" or 70".

I have an older Decimator MD-QUAD that is fixed at 4-boxes and a few years ago I bought one of their DMON-6S units that can display from 1-6 boxes and you can customize the box layouts to suite your needs(I use 2 & 3 split layouts the most). It has a loop-out for each input channel, two SDI OUTS of the multi-viewer, plus an HDMI OUT of the multi-viewer. I usually use it on my 17" Sony OLED, but I was on a big five camera shoot earlier in the year and we used it, via HDMI, on a large 30"+ consumer set so the DP, director and producer could easily see all the shots.

This is the 6 channel that I use the most:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1091834-REG/decimator_dd_6s_6_channel_multi_viewer_with.html

Very cool. I wondered about the possibility of a multiviewer. When you use it with your monitor, have you come up with a way to keep it physically tidy?

 

[OnSet]

Buy a Decimator Quad or Multi-viewer.
I usually use it on my 17" Sony OLED

Do you worry about (or have you experienced any) burn-in on the OLED -- particularly from the decimator frame lines or from the individual ID's for the inputs?

 

[Run&Gun]

Very cool. I wondered about the possibility of a multiviewer. When you use it with your monitor, have you come up with a way to keep it physically tidy?

I guess as tidy as you can get it. I have it set-up to velcro to the side of the monitor and a short piece of BNC going from it to the monitor.

 

[Run&Gun]

Do you worry about (or have you experienced any) burn-in on the OLED -- particularly from the decimator frame lines or from the individual ID's for the inputs?

In normal use, I don't use any frame lines or ID's generated from the Decimator. While you do have that option and they are great options to have, I usually don't need them(used the ID's on a big shoot earlier this year so the DP, director and producer could know what was going on and know who they were talking to on heads). So, I can't really answer your question about burn-in. BUT, my normal on-camera monitor is the smallHD DP7Pro OLED and it is usually fed by one of the monitor outs(on-screen overlays ON) on whatever camera I'm using and I haven't noticed any burn-in with that set-up.