Field Monitor - Warning

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TimStannard
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Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Field Monitor - Warning

Post by TimStannard »

Not a question, just a tale.
As some may remember I was researching field monitors so I had something a bit bigger than the cameras' LCDs to work with. I wasn't worried about colour accuracy, I wanted this specifically for focus. After many months (maybe a year?) I settled on a Lilliput A7S - a 7" 1920x1200 monitor which accepts up to 4k (genuine 4K and UHD). One of the key aspects is that it has "pixel to pixel" mapping. I emailed Lilliput who confirmed that this does exactly as it sounds - one pixel on the camera's output maps to one pixel on the display and thus any 4K/UHD footage would be cropped and only 1920x1200 pixel from the image would appear.

That sounded ideal for getting pin sharp focus from my Panasonic HC-X1 4K camcorder.

Cutting out the details of numerous tests and several email back and forth between myself, Panasonic and Lilliput - that aspect doesn't work!

Pixel to Pixel works as expected in FHD and 720 (in the former there is a slight letterbox on the display as the 1080 vertical pixels do not fil the 1200 pixels on the display and in the latter there is a black broder all around) which is great. But changing to 4K it simply does not work. Indeed the full image is stretched vertically to fill the display.

I'm not a happy bunny. Yes, I could return the monitor and that is really hassle I could do without. Moreover I feel decidely cheated having taken every reasonable step possible to check the thing would do what I want. (How can I trust an alternative will work?)
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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