Using an external monitor with FCP Studio v. 1.0

Question

I cannot get my external monitor to display my timeline editing window. I have made the right connections, with firewire from Mac to Sony HDV tapedeck, and with HDMI cable from tapedeck to LCD monitor, but the screen remains blank. The external video setting and the video playback setting both have the HDV 1080i options greyed out, so I can't click on them. I can only have 'none', or playback in full screen desktop. How can I activate the play out via the tapedeck to the monitor?

Answer 1

Nickmarios wrote:
However, if HDV cannot be played out of FCP via firewire, how come I can capture from tape and export back to tape with firewire successfully?
Part of the issue is the Open GOP nature of HDV. Basically, HDV spreads the information for all frames within the time that you've pressed record to the time that you've stopped recording, and then crunches that down. This is way different than other FireWire-supported codecs, like DV, where each frame contains all the information needed by FCP to send a signal out to an external monitor at full resolution.
Sending out a full resolution via FireWire during HDV editing - where, most importantly, you're not obeying the GOP structure - would require fairly intense system resources, since it must reference other frames (sometimes many other frames). That's why you need a dedicated accelerator, like a capture card, to do that and send out a signal. As mentioned, FCP can send out a (very degraded) letterboxed 4:3 signal via FireWire, but it can't send out a full resolution signal.
Capturing, however, is a data transfer and much easier on your system. Open GOP is also the reason that long captures get broken up into individual shots (every time you start/stop recording).
Finally, as Shane mentions, the conform that FCP does prior to Print to Video means that FCP converts your timeline to abide by the (Open GOP) structure of HDV. As you've witnessed, that takes a fair amount of time.