PC Monitor v TV

[John Morgan]

Can anyone please advise me for guidance, or give views and opinions of editing video using a PC Monitor compared to a Flat screen TV, and what are the advantages/disadvantages of either one of them I need to upgrade my system and cannot decide which avenue to take

Thank you in anticipation.

John

[tom hardwick]

John - do you mean you're confused as to whether you should be using a TV monitor alongside your NLE pc monitor, so that you see a full screen version of your edited output? Or are you asking if it's ok just to view the timeline on the NLE's little monitor window?

I can often tell that a film I'm watching hasn't been edited using an attached TV as a monitor, and this even applies to broadcast footage. In a word: flicker. Far too many editors forget that their footage is interlaced, and holding a frame at random or using an unsuitable font for the text becomes glaringly obvious to anyone watching the finished film on a CRT.

tom.

[Dave Watterson]

Maybe I am way out of date in my thinking but "PC Monitor" and "a Flat screen TV" are virtually the same thing. The practical difference is that those sold as TVs have built-in tuners to accept signals from an aerial. Their circuitry is designed to process off-air signals best. Those sold as PC monitors have simpler circuitry to handle just the sort of output a computer sends.

You may have in mind the distinction between a CRT display using a Cathode Ray Tube - i.e. a deep, old-style device like the tellies of yesteryear and a flat-screen. CRT is reckoned to give more accurate colour displays. All the newer technologies like plasma, LEDs and so on are pretty good just the same.

For most purposes a flat-screen is fine: takes up less space, does not give you a hernia trying to move it, saves electricity, generates less static and heat and when carefully set up using test-cards and colour bars gives very good colour results ...

For highly critical colour work a good (i.e. expensive) CRT screen gives even more accurate results and so is used by top-end graphics people.

Many video makers use flat-screens for seeing the computer display but keep a small CRT display attached to show the output so that they can see how it will appear to users of ordinary, old-fashioned domestic televisions.

So my advice is get one or more flat-screens for your computer and if the budget allows add a modest sized, "portable" style CRT "telly" as well just to check your video output.

- Dave

[John Morgan]

Hi Tom & Dave,

I was wondering whether to use a TV to edit in just the same way as I use a PC monitor now for editing as a way of saving space by not needing both. But after reading your comments I think it would perhaps be better if I made that extra space available for BOTH.

Thanks for your replies.

John

[Pqtrick]

Picking up Tom Hardwick's point about broadcast colours, interlacing etc, can he perhaps please give a little more enlightenment.

I am only ever been drawn to the broadcast colours, the safe zone term, pu meters etc. When a project I was working on with a collegue had the potential to be, well, 'broadcast'.

Generally, I or we, just plod on assuming that we use the editing kit in all ignorance at the default settings in this area. Firstly, what are these in our lay terms and do we need to pay attention to them and in which circumstances?

I previously have used an extension monitor with my old MEDION PC which had a scart output which just worked. And at that time, I used an old PAL CRT 14” 4:3 Screen as a monitor just the clear the clutter off the PC. Now in theory, I can use an output from this new (ACER)PC to output to my super 16:9 widescreen telly, but so far it is only a theory. CRT sceens would only be 4:3 or am I wrong?

Can Tom perhaps enlighten us. - Pqtrick currently resident in Villeurbanne, Fr.

[tom hardwick]

I don't think I can enlighten you much on the broadcast colours and brightnesses other than to say most NLE programs will warn you when you're entering these no-go zones. I invariably disregard the warnings as I only ever go out to DVD and I like my whites whiter than white.

I have a 20" 50 Hz Sony CRT 16:9 monitor as my output on the Premiere 6.5 system. I've been into its service menu to dial out all the overscan and although it's a bit of a lump on the desktop, it's a very useful lump as it shows any interframe flicker and line twitter that may well be present but will be hidden by LCD displays.

Most TVs are 50Hz machines, but PC monitors are generally 75Hz and up, depending on how you've set them up resolution-wise. As such they're far from ideal for showing your output footage as they have to smooth the footage on the run, and by the look of it some can't keep up. Dave's points about weight and power consumption are of course correct, but the camouflaging of various interlace faults is their big downfall.

tom.

[chrisk]

Having used both a CRT and an LCD TV set on my system as an external monitor, I cannot see any difference in their abilities to show interlace problems. Wrong field order, progrssive scan jerkies etc all show clearly when either monitor is suitably set up. Here however is the problem as the monitor must be connected to the system so that both fields are seen.

I use Premiere Pro 2 using dual system monitors (DVI) and a third TV monitor which is connected for three different modes of operation.

1. As an additional computer monitor using a second graphics card through the VGA connection using the full resolution (1280 x 768) of the TV to give an extended desktop for any application(s)

2. As a 720 x 576 widescreen monitor through the S-Video output of the graphics card

3. As a 720 x 576 widescreen monitor through the SCART connector and using my DV deck as a Firewire to analogue converter.

For modes 1 and 2 the TV can directly monitor the output from Premiere as long as the project is custom set up for this type of operation. This then gives a larger screen display directly replicating what is seen on the Prem Prgram Monitor window, in real time and in sync with the sound. However, the external monitor only shows one field per frame as do all the displays with Premiere. Any interlace faults do not show

In mode 3, the signal is via Firewire just as if it was being recorded on DV tape, but recording is not required. Again this type of output must be custom set up at the start of the project and cannot be changed later. This method uses both fields of each frame and clearly shows any interlace problems, but has the disadvantage that the external display lags about a third of a second behind the Program Monitor due to the processing of the digital output.

I haven't found any way of showing individual fields in Premiere, but After Effects provides this facility and is a good way of analysing field problems in a particular clip.

Chris

[Michael Slowe]

My set up appears to be similar to that of ChrisK in that I have two computer monitors for doing the editing and a separate properly calibrated one for viewing and grading. I just changed from two old CRT computer screens (Dave's right about the weight!) and the new LCD's are so much brighter and HD footage looks fantastic on them but they seem very difficult to calibrate and just aren't accurate enough for grading, in my opinion. I still rely therefore on my old Sony professional monitor which is CRT and only shows in SD (switchable 4:3 / 16:9) but the colour is spot on. I think Dave is wrong about the computer screens by the way, I don't think they show HD in 1920 X 1080, it's someway below that I believe.

My problem, and this is why I'm posting, is with the treatment of gamma by different software applications. Whereas, grading colour and brightness to my Sony pro monitor was fine for tape output, I'm finding that DVD and now especially Blu-Ray encoders seem to be variable in this respect. I use BitVice for encoding DVD's and the people in Sweden who market this have issued some advice as to settings for editors using Media 100 as I do. This appears to have assisted greatly but with BD production I have been having awful problems with too light a picture from what was a perfectly graded and balanced timeline which looked fine on monitors. I've experimented with various export settings and codecs (I'm working in Apple ProRes HQ 422) but still have not resolved the problem completely. I'm currently encoding BD's in Titanium Toast 10 but about to experiment with Compressor and the H264 codec. Any suggestions anyone?

In the end it's probably all pointless, how do we know how screens are set up by the people viewing our films? We can only do our best in that regard.

[ned c]

I have 2 23 inch DELL LCDs (I agree getting the color right on LCD computer monitors seems a lost cause) and a 27 inch HD TV with an HDMI input from the Black Magic Intensity card in the computer; this gives real time output from the timeline so that I can view a good sized HD image on the TV screen. Another advantage of the card is that it has an HDMI input as well as analog inputs. I also have an old Sony 14 inch industrial monitor that has dependable color; but I have increasingly used the HD TV as I have been able to get a decent color balance with it.

ned c