PT and 4 video monitors. how?

[Mephsito]

First off hello and thank you for taking the time to read and maybe help me with an issue im running into. not sure if this is cool to post here but,

I work at a indie studio and we are looking to put in 4 monitors into the my audio room. 1 monitor for the iso booth for adr and such, 1 monitor to display that same image as the iso booth for clients to view as the session goes on, then one monitor for the main protools session and a smaller monitor running my other protools windows and such. So basically i need 3 different sources to be viewed at the same time, 2 protools windows and the main movie.

now i know i should be looking at gefen for a dvi splitter but my question really comes down to sync and what monitors other post houses are using(we need something around 32 inch) and what splitters are you using to hook up multiple monitors. s

right now our system is thus:

g5 mac tower (one video card ati)
protools 7.4.1 cs2
Olivea monitor for main protools window
Acer (smaller monitor)
all audio running through mackie onyx to mbox2 coming out on mackie 284's

i was looking at a sony bravia at 120hz refresh rate but im not sure on the ms delay that would be caused. what would you guys suggest? digi? im at a loss right now and dont want to buy a monitor that will screw up sync thus causing much discomfort.

if this all sounds confusing the way i put it, i will gladly rehash what ive said.

Thank you for taking the time again to read this mess.

Chris Rovira

[Craig F]

search for Syncheck

the real question is how to get 3 outputs from your G5
some people will say Canopus for the picture but that limits your dv25
some will say Mojo lots of options but not cheap
if you use the same monitors for both parts of the desktop then Matrox makes monitor splitter that looks like 1 super wide monitor to the computer then splits the image across 2 or 3 regular monitors

[John@wombatstudios]

I recently went through this exercise.

I now get an increased proportion of video through final cut quicktime rather than SP betacam.
Also wanted to use a third monitor to throw quicktime movies on and also use for teaching. It's
not good when you have 10 students crowding around a 20 inch LCD screen peering at a protools
edit window!

Currently got a G5 tower. Wanted to get a Sony Bravia 46 inch LCD to use as the third monitor.

To put a second video card in the G5 was going to cost $1000. G5 was due to be upgraded at end of this year because it's 3 years old and starting to become a bit sluggish.

Video card bought for G5 won't fit in new Mac pro tower because of pci/e issue. Digi HD core card won't fit in mac pro for same reason.

Ahh the slippery slope. Decided to go for broke. Bought a mac pro, sony bravia, ordered upgrade pci-e exchange card. Ordered second video card for mac pro.

Still waiting for the digi card. But have fired up the mac pro with the sony bravia (fed via HDMI) and the results are stunning! It's clear enough to use as a third monitor.
Just make sure you've got enough room for digi cards though, because video card takes up 2 slots!


Now of course I have the standard video delay problems with the new monitor.
Has anyone measured the audio delay to be dialled in for:

SP and digibeta
quicktime movies

for the sony bravia XBR model.

It looks to be about 120msecs for the betacam, but interested to hear other results.

cheers,
John.

[doug_hti]

used a sony bravia a couple weeks ago fed through hdmi on mac pro 2.66. Bravia was on the stock video card and we used syncheckII to arrive at 4 quarter frames.....

[John@wombatstudios]

used a sony bravia a couple weeks ago fed through hdmi on mac pro 2.66. Bravia was on the stock video card and we used syncheckII to arrive at 4 quarter frames.....

that'd be 1 frame then

thanks. try feeding the bravia with a composite video source. I made it 3 frames (120 mSecs) !

cheers,
John.

[doug_hti]

that'd be 1 frame then

thanks. try feeding the bravia with a composite video source. I made it 3 frames (120 mSecs) !

cheers,
John.

haha, point taken, other than the fact that we adjust the latency with QUARTER FRAMES in pro tools.

my wife is from adelaide. I enjoy visiting once a year.

[John@wombatstudios]

small world, huh?

Let me know next time you're in Adelaide. Maybe we could do lunch and I'd be interested to exchange studio ideas. We tend to live in isolation in our small dark rooms.

cheers,

John.

[email protected]