Syncing video output to the specified lag time (ms) of your monitor

Question

Hey guys and lassies, I've got a question that I've been thinking about a lot, and I've looked around the web without finding a good answer, so hoping to get edumacated in the subject here!
I do a lot of video work in Premiere Pro CS6 where I want to be absolutely sure that I have perfect (or as near perfect as possible) synchronisation between video and audio. I'm building a new editing rig now and I'm wondering about monitors. What has me pondering at the moment is the different lag times the various screens have. Some of the TN screens are really fast, and some of the various kinds of IPS-screens are a lot slower. Maybe I'll use a TN for working and an IPS on the side for previewing and getting colors right. Is there a way to make sure that whatever lag time your screen has, be it 4ms or 40ms that you know that what you're seeing and hearing is actually IN SYNC for real, and not just because it synchs with your monitor? Can this be specified in the output settings anywhere?
I know that we're only talking about a frame or so here or there, but it's still something I'm really curious about and think would be interesting to find out. I've got a bad case of perfectionists syndrome. Thoughts on the subject?

Answer 1

i dont know of any programs or devices that can tell the report the delay from an external monitor. i guess if you really wanted to find out you could video record some test footage onto a camcorder, then bring that into premiere and look at the sync sounds on the timeline vs the video frame to see how far out it is. you would need high fps to really get accurate though and still may not be a good way to figure this out...
most people cannot tell delay over 100ms. so if your monitors are 4ms or 40ms and that is the limit of total delay vs audio it should not be noticeable. if it is noticeable and the footage is in sync on the timeline (frame vs waveform), you can try to compensate with an audio vst delay plugin (described below). just load up some sort of syncpop test footage in premiere and eyeball it to adjust the delay, to get an acceptable sync in playback on your monitors.
you can add a delay vst to the master channel, set it to zero dry, 100% wet and set the delay by milliseconds to get the desired result. the analog delay that is built into premiere might work, just have to double click on its name after adding to get to the controls. i haven't tested this, but this should be easy enough for premiere to handle the delay vst. if you need to add delay to the video this route may not work. i think there are some audio delay vst that get into negative delay but requires the host application to accept it.