Broadcast/production monitor

What is the best type of sd/hd broadcast/video production monitor to use with FCP, matrox max capture card, Mac pro to get for under $1700 or is it possible? Thanks

For that price range, I would probably recommend the HP Dreamcolor.
Do your homework before purchasing, however; it's a fabulous monitor for the price, but has a lot of requirements in terms of signal input.

Similar Messages

Pro color profile (i1xtreme) vs broadcast ref monitor

OK, I've had the privilege of working in production long enough that I know the importance of using a properly setup broadcast ref monitor, but is there a better way today for those of us doing web only delivery? In what little I've googled I'm guessing there is not, but here are my thoughts.
We've just switched to the Production Premium suite of software and I'm wondering if using our photojournalists i1xtreme monitor calibration system if I can get a decent setup on a DVI/mini display port connected monitor. He's pretty sure he can hit the REC709 spec, but then not sure how I would do the other adjustments. I understand that the max I could get is 8bit. We had considered the MXO2, but now I read on the Matrox site that there is a lag from computer to MXO2 monitor that their engineers are trying to figure out. Seems like I read somewhere that AJA is having some problems with some codecs also lagging from computer to ref monitor.
MacPro 5,1, dual quad-core Xeon, 12gb mem, 2 Dell 2407WFP monitors, editing HDV, but switching to H.264 via Panasonic AVCCAM camcorder (want to edit natively)
We do have an old Sony CRT SD broadcast monitor & LHe that was pulled from the Mac due to unresolved crashing issues editing HDV natively in FCP7.

Premiere Pro could really use your help in getting a proper monitoring solution implemented - without third party cards/codecs.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/900221?tstart=0

Setting up a Production Monitor

I'm looking to add a production monitor to my FCP setup in addition to two monitors. I have access to a Canon XL1 but don't actually own a camera or deck yet. My question is, how can I have a production monitor hooked up to my computer without a camera or deck involved? Is there a video card that I need to purchase? Am I going about this whole thing incorrectly?
I'm thinking of getting:
JVC TMH-150CGU 15-Inch Color Production Monitor with 750 Lines, 16:9 and 4:3 Aspect Switch, NTSC and PAL Systems
Does anyone have experience with these monitors? Are there any special considerations I'm overlooking?
I work on short to feature length movies - nothing for broadcast right now but of course I'd like to do things as professionally as possible. I'm learning. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Just to say that we originally had an Aurora card and had HUGE problems.
We work in PAL and often in the DV codec but when we monitored in component there were horrible quality issues. The dealer told us that things had been missed in development with the card. (Ouch...)
Also we had quite a few stability problems and they only went away when we took the card out. Snag was that there was no uninstall programme and it was a major pain to get the Aurora software off our system.
Now running an AJA Io and everything looks great and our system is as solid as a very solid thing.
Just done a 10-bit uncompressed project and it looks fantastic.
As we're filling up our PCI slots with firewire and USB things it's actually quite nice not to use one up with a video card.
That said, I've an editor friend who uses Decklink and speaks very highly of it so those would be the two choices for me...
LEE

Motion playback on production monitor through AJA Kona LH card looks nasty.

Okay, so here's the deal.
We have recently invested in some shiny new things to equip an edit suite - a Kona LH card and a Production Monitor. Along with a Sony HDV/DVCAM VTR. Specs of our set up are listed at the bottom.
Pretty much all of the work we have done in the past has been non-braodcast - we're looking to improve workflow and quality of final output. We work mainly with Final Cut Pro, but also with Motion.
We have connected everything and have marvelled at how much of a difference it makes having a proper video preview from Final Cut (v. 6) as opposed to what we had before - firewire to camera to TV... Of course we were expecting this marked improvement.
We were also expecting the key benefit of a video preview output from Motion.
Now. We do get a video output through to the production monitor from Motion. But this is where it gets weird.
When we do a preview of an animation, it looks really shoddy.
As a test case, let's take a basic text crawl in Motion 3.
Static graphics look great, but when you play motion graphics, the image quality is really jaggy and nasty. (even at full frame RAM preview, best render settings, full res - all of these options are apparently properly selected).
So we did some test exports. Usually we would export animations in the Animation Codec, with an alpha if intended for compositing on top of a video track in FCP... we tried a bunch of different formats - animation, photoJpeg, DVCPRO 50, Aja 2Vuy, Uncompressed 10bit...
All these play from Quicktime on the computer monitor just fine, but when playing from the AJA TV app to the production monitor, again the same problem. And then when you bring them into Final Cut, the same problem, even when you match the sequence settings and field order to the source video ...
In effect, it seems that anything generated in Motion just doesn't want to look nice on our Production Monitor - even when imported into FCP.
HOWEVER - if you drop the Motion PROJECT into an FCP timeline, all is fine!
We know the AJA card and the Monitor are working because of this fact, and because when you generate titles from within FCP itself - the same text scroll, for instance, it looks perfect!
I have also found when working with old composited animations originating from AE that you can get FCP to pump these through to the production monitor beautifully when working in an uncompressed sequence setting - or in an Animation sequence setting. (For an Animation sequence to go the the production monitor from FCP, the Video Playback option in A/V Settings needs to be set to "AJA Kona 625i25 RGBA" instead of "AJA Kona 625i25 8 bit" or 10 bit).
The above point could be of relevance...? The only Video Output options from Motion or AE that apply to our setup and monitor are "625i25 RGBA" and "625i25 DV-RGBA" ... are we supposed to have more options?
In short, we could work around these issues - it just doesn't seem right however that we can't get a decent external preview from Motion. A big reason for upgrading our setup was faithful video previews of animations from these programs...
We also can't understand why exports from these animation programs can look so poor. I can export a video with a text crawl generated from a DV PAL Final Cut Project with DV Pal compression settings and it looks massively better playing through AJA TV than our test Motion exports.
It just isn't right.
Please help. Pretty please.
For reference, here are the specs of our set up:
Apple Dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5
4.5 GB DDR SDRAM
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800 XT
Equipped with Kona LH Card
JVC TM-H1750CG Production Monitor fed via SDI (have also tried component, to no avail)
It just isn't right.
Please help. Pretty please. Many thanks in advance.
For reference, here are the specs of our set up:
Apple Dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5
4.5 GB DDR SDRAM
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800 XT
Equipped with Kona LH Card (version 5)
2 x 23" Apple Cinema Displays
JVC TM-H1750CG Production Monitor fed via SDI (have also tried component, to no avail)

Sounds like you are seeing interlace artifacts - in Motion's project properties, have you tried setting the field dominance to None?

Any suggestions for what to look for in a good production monitor?

I'm in the market for a production monitor and I'm looking at B&H's online catalogue now. Any tips on what to look for and if anyone has any recommendations or favorites? Thanks.

it would help if you could determine a budget and then shop for models within or slightly above that budget.
basically, some necessary items are switchable aspect ratio, underscan/overscan and then some sort of blue check for proper chroma and phase calibration. some monitors have a gray scale blue check which i think completely blows. it's better to have a monitor with viewable red, blue and green guns as the blue gun is more accurate for calibration than a grayscale blue check feature. also, there are other diagnostic functions that are viewable by using the red or green guns to view color bars.
some other nice features to have are horizontal/vertical delay, sdi inputs, hd-sdi inputs.
it's been mentioned in the last larry jordan newsletter than the crt monitor is going the way of the dinosaur and now sony and panasonic are marketing lcd products only. i think this is a very sad trend. as a freelance video operator/camera shader, i am of the opinion that lcd monitors are horrible; they hurt my eyes and the color rendition isn't as accurate as a crt. leitch is now manufacturing an lcd scope which is just terrible to behold. the black area of the vectorscope is a huge, amorphous blob of white light that shows no signal detail whatsoever.
i don't know what to make of larry's statement as a quick check of the sony business website reveals only bvm crt's in their product lineup, no more pvm series. i haven't looked at the panasonic product catalog yet.
although the sony pvm L5 that shane mentioned is a quality product, to my eyes, i would get an ikegami monitor but you'll find that the superior imaging of the ikegami also has a superior price point.
one last point, don't buy an used monitor from ebay, you don't know where it's been or how it's been treated. give jvc monitors a fair shake as well, not a bad product for the price, no matter what their reputation is.
good luck.

DVI to SDI or Component Production Monitor?

I will be hooking up a new Panasonic HD professional production monitor (BT-LH2600W) to my G5. I only need to monitor from Final Cut Pro's Timeline; no input or output needed (like from a Kona Card).
Panasonic monitor:
http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=1120 1&catalogId=13051&itemId=97137&catGroupId=14625&surfModel=BT-LH2600W&displayTab= R
The monitor has (2) SDI SD/HD inputs
S-video input
YPrPb/RGB input (with input for VD-vertical sensing signal)
It would be ideal to go to SDI since the monitor senses HD/SD signal and adjusts automatically.
G-5, 2.5 GHz, 8 GB Ram Mac OS X (10.4.8) Nvidia Geforce 6800, 30" Cinema Display
Any help out there would be appreciated.

Welcome to the forums.
That is a prodution monitor, not a computer monitor, so it won't have DVI inputs.
I only need to monitor from Final Cut Pro's Timeline; no input or output needed (like from a Kona Card).
Unfortunately that is what you'll need to get a signal to that monitor. A capture card or some sort of converter box...depending on what you are editing. Either that or a deck...again, depending on what you are editing. A DV deck will pass a signal thru, as will a DVCPRO HD deck. HDV devices will not, for that format you need a capture card or Matrox MXO.
Shane

RE: JVC TMH150CGU 15" Color Production Monitor?

Greetings:
Looking for a dent, but mid-priced monitor for editing and color correction. I've read some pretty positive things about the JVC TMH150CGU 15" Color Production Monitor. Anyone using this? Anything else comparable that I should also check out?
Blessings,
Craig

I have this monitor. It has recently been discontinued by JVC. The world is turning HD LCD so you may get stuck with it when you upgrade your techniques or footage. It has very good picture quality and can be calibrated well, but remember that it is a standard definition monitor, so you will not be able to easily or inexpensively monitor 1080p/24fps timelines in FCP. I needed it for that purpose and found I would need to spend a lot more for a Matrox converter to use this monitor for those timelines. Unfortunately, I will be selling mine on ebay and purchasing a low end Sony LCD for canvas external monitoring.

Production monitor question?

I'm working with a vendor, putting together a post set-up with FCP Studio 2. I told him I needed a production monitor. Originally, he suggested a Panasonic BTLH1700W but then got us a Dynex HD TV off the shelf to save money. Can you really just use an off the shelf TV and get true picture? I'm coming from an analog production environment using professional video monitors and I don't trust this set up.

As the others have said you simply can not use a TV set to do color correction, no more than you can use your computer monitor for coloring. TV sets have all sorts of crazy filters in them. Even once you use Bars to properly setup the TV, you are still only coloring to THAT TV set. Another TV by the same brand will look different.
Your vendor may have thought he's saving money, but he's costing the customer many hours of grief from very angry clients.

Any experience with JVC TMH-150CGU Production Monitor?

I'm trying to find a affordable production monitor and was considering the JVC TMH-150CGU. Has anyone had any experience with unit?

I'm using a Mac Pro (Intel 2 x 2.66 GHz) with NVidia 7300 and this monitor. I love it. It's amazing. Connected via single link DVI. Beware though, Acer shipped several models with a crippled native resolution through DVI. Resolved by firmware update that service has to provide.
the one big problem is Apple needs to update the video card drivers to solve a blinking display issue when coming out of sleep. For me this is a minor issue for a beautiful 26" display, but getting really annoying.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1095405

Broadcast studio monitor

Any suggestions/alternatives for an HD broadcast monitor that's not going to break the bank? I have a small wedding videography business and I can't see spending a mint on a monitor. I do however see the benefit of having a broadcast monitor for color correction purposes. Can you help? Thanks in advance.

HP DreamColor is not a broadcast monitor, but with an MXO2, it comes somewhat close. If you're serious, the best deal you'll find is a Flanders Scientific monitor (17" should work just fine), running off of an AJA Knoa LHi card. It won't get any cheaper than that, if you want quality.

Production Monitoring products for Weblogic 10

Hi,
Does anyone know other than BMC Performance Manager for Web Applications, monitoring products which can be used to monitor Weblogic in a production enterprise environment?
Regards,
Alistair.

You can try with 'hyperic'
Schelstraete Bart
[email protected]
http://www.schelstraete.org
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bschelst

Is it possible to find an NTSC production monitor for $600?

I can't take it any more! Not only can they not be calibrated, but the consumer TV's that I've been using as monitors when working in FCP have those darn optimizing circuits that constantly adjust the picture based on the overall composition of each frame. My predecessors here obviously did not frequent this discussion board, or they certainly would have budgeted for a real monitor.
I've been browsing B&H but they're just so darn expensive! Does anyone know of any resources for cheaper or used options?
Thanks,
Zap

studio x is right and has provided some good links.
is a blue check critical? no. is it beneficial? you bet! in your situation where it's not going to be moved, you have to weigh the cost/benefit ratio of not using a filter to look through.
when i go on a job whether it's mobile or in a studio, invariably i have to set up a monitor, fast. route bars to the room or monitor in question and having to carry a filter is another pain in my patoot. hit the blue check, zip zam boom calibrated monitor to assuage some producer's poor vision or lack of vision. or, if i'm calibrating a monitor wall because it's not been done in years and some director is yelling about my video levels which are actually fine, it's far easier to use the blue check.
one thing to be careful about is whether the blue check displays in gray scale or actually deactivates the red and green guns and displays in blue. i hate gray scale blue checks and would advise you to stay away from them.
i've been doing this for so long as well that many times i just eyeball the cyan/magenta bars when it comes to chroma phase if this is just for a producer playback somewhere and isn't critical.
be careful with used monitors as well. you don't know how it's been treated, whether it's been retubed or needs it, or some lame video guy has been messing around with the yokes inside because he thinks he knows what he's doing. i used to work with a V1 who did this.
good luck.

C-series h.264 streaming ~ broadcast confidence monitor

Hi all ~
has anyone simply viewed the h.264 stream with some type of software based decoder / codec - and if so
what was the path / url to view it... ? any comments will be appreciated !
I've built a custom java application for a broadcast studio handling call & cam control with on-screen diagnostics etc...
- they use alot of Sony's but now are bringing in Cisco C-series
The application as it stands now grabs the camera snapshot.jpg of camera on the far end and displays it on user interface in a little
.jpg viewer with ptz / call controls... just to let operators know video is happy...
well - now with the C-series I dont get to do that, since TC5 and above... well - within budget anyways...
to get the C-series snapshot I have two options - build a Base_64.json decoder which would emulate
how the web interface on the C-40 displays the snapshot now ( very costly ) - or grab it via SCP out of root/tmp/snapshots folder...
the issue here is I have to copy it from the codec and put it on a server - which would not be so bad, but the overall design
allows for alot of codec's... so - ideally - in 3 three years I could have 40+ codecs to copy / paste that .jpeg
from to the server, constantly over-writing the file etc... not pretty...
so - my only last hope is to grab an h.264 stream ( I only need to get the video when in a call anyways / h.323 only )
but I dont know enough about h.264 to know if it's even possible...
I'm suspecting I'm not going to get my way on this...
thanks in advance for your time !!
Tom Brittingham
Progicon Systems

If the C-Series have TC6 or greater software, you can get the snapshots the following addresses, one for local camera video and the other for incoming remote video. Note, web snapshots will have to be enabled on the codec for snapshots to work, of course.
/web/api/snapshot/get?SourceType=localMain
/web/api/snapshot/get?SourceType=remoteMain

Using Mac as a broadcast monitor

I have a unibody macbook pro and am wanting to use it as a broadcast monitor for field production, we are using a panasonic p200 and wanting to know what is the best way to play back with minimum or no lag, i have final cut studio and also adobe on-location cs4, what other methods also is their to get best results, all the est and thanx

have a unibody macbook pro and am wanting to use it as a broadcast monitor for field production..........to get best results
do you want a broadcast monitor, a field monitor or a computer monitor, do want best or poor results, they are all different solutions?
what other methods also is their:
watch a picture on a laptop-dozens of software apps available
1 Quicktime Pro:
2 http://www.boinx.com/boinxtv/overview/
is this a professional best way? NO
what is the best way to play back with minimum or no lag,
you need either a broadcast monitor or a more affordable field monitor, not a computer screen from a laptop
9" LCD
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/viewitem_cat.php?catalogue_number=sonylmd-9050
17" CRT
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/viewitem_cat.php?catalogue_number=jvctm-h150cg
Broadcast field monitor:
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/viewitem_cat.php?catalogue_number=panabt-lh1760we#

Alternative to professional broadcast monitors?

So I'm starting up a business - and don't have a lot of money at this stage for equipment. I'd like to get a monitor that is good for color correction - but broadcast monitors are just out of my price range right now.
Since I'm not doing broadcast work, but assuming I will still be editing high quality work that will go to dvd, are there any good alternatives to professional broadcast monitors that can be used for color-correction.
i've noticed most lcd tv monitors on the market suck for editing....what else is there?
And....can anyone tell me why broadcast monitors are so expensive ....what is it about their technology that is truly superior ???
thanks ....

sure they do, it's the bvm series.
i'm going to take a completely contrarian point of view to everyone's (except steve's) argument and argue in favor of a cheap sony 13 inch wega flat screen tv from best buy.
consumer equipment will reveal flaws faster than the so-called "professional" monitors. i use the term "professional" lightly as any older panasonic crt was a hunk of junk and so are the sony pvm '"n" series of monitors. am i advocating that we all use rca or curtis mathis or zenith tvs? good heavens, no, however, too much is made about the quality of the display around here and not enough stink is made about the quality of measuring tools like scopes being used.
i simply cannot fathom how someone making money will spend many thousands of dollars on a display and then rely on the pathetic software scopes. the only software scope that i would rely upon if i were making money doing this would be the new avid plug-in that videotek (or is it tektronix? i looked just yesterday and can't remember) is now making. i can only hope they build it for fcp as well. but this is just my opinion.
how many of the folks using fcp are currently getting anything on the air? how many are going to a film out or even festival distribution displayed with a projector? now, how many of those folks are reading here and then get pounced upon for not using a "broadcast quality" monitor? how your product is being viewed is how you should look at when color grading but in most instances this is completely impractical and expensive.
my experience with broadcast quality is anything goes. i've shaded my shows to consumer tvs and transmission has never said anything to me. i've shaded my shows to ancient crt's that bounced down the road for the last decade and have never been retubed and need it. i've shaded my shows to the latest and greatest lcd monitors and have left at the end of the day with a splitting headache. the point is, there is no "broadcast monitor" standard (there are however, broadcast transmission standards that in the end, we all have to follow if going on the air) and yes a blue check is nice but there are workarounds and i have to use them. yes, a nice bvm is a joy to work with however i did a show just recently looking at 5 bvm monitors and not one of them looked like the next and i didn't have time to go in and properly calibrate crt bias so i picked the one i liked best and used it.
today i'll do a four camera espn basketball game that goes straight to webcast, ESPN 360. logic dictates that i should shade that show on a computer monitor but i won't be able to, instead i'll use the less than professional crt on this particular "mobile broadcast" truck.
again, these are just my opinions. fire at will.
zeb

Broadcast/production monitor

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