Oh, in the old days, I had a Matrox G450 and a G200-PCI card.
Then you can have your primary desktop on the G200, your preview on the G450's main connector, and an SVIDEO/RGB-component using a desktop clone mode to your TV-out.

There are pluses and minuses to this. a PCI gfx card can reduce the hard disc throughputs you can attain. Depends on the speed you need and whether you have more than one PCI bus serving the PCI slots.

I'm not sure what I'd recommend you partner up with a P750 to achieve the same. There is value in just having the same driver family installed, or in fact going to a different vendor for that other card. Check for multimonitor solutions using Matrox. There is even an MMS version of the Parhelia series that goes above 3 "heads". However I guess a G450/G500 PCI or G200 (single or multiple) could do the business without confusing itself.

In my earlier post I think I stated my preference to you. However you might try cloning the main desktop (primary) to TV=out and using the 2nd display as a secondary display (as opposed to spanning the primary onto it). The P750 manual should explain some of this.

Be sure that whichever route you take, that you have the right quality whilst editing to know that WYSIWYG.

I use the Viewsonic VX900 for the primary monitor, Viewsonic VA720 for the second (right hand) monitor and through the ADVC-100 firewire connection to a Sony 13" tv for the external monitor. The preview window was moved to the right hand monitor along with the FX, Media Generators, Media Pool, Sound Buss, and transistions. Matrox Parhelia 128 meg vdeo card. The TV output of the Matrox also goes to the video buss which I can switch when doing "Preview renders" so I can view the Media player and the TV set
side by side, not for color but for action. This also works for viewing DVD discs. I have seen no problem using the preview window on the second monitor. This is almost a four monitor setup.

JJK

I appreciate the input guys...
I am not clear if anyone is using the Matrox 750 or "Parhelia" successfully with Vegas though ....and what work arounds they are using to get the VIDEO PREVIEW window to show up on ANY of the 3 monitors....
If their is no possibility with the Matrox card I thought I would try using one AGP dual monitor card and one PCI single monitor card....
Is any one using this configuration....
EcoMan

I use 3 monitors for Vegas. I have a basic Radeon VE 32MB dual DVI that runs a pair of 18” LCD monitors for the Windows desktop. I use IEEE 1394 to get external preview on a 14” NTSC monitor. Everything works fine.

I don't know anything about Matrox video cards but it sounds like you do not have it properly configured for the Windows environment or else you would at least get Video Preview on the desktop.

JL

ecoman: It sounds ambitious. I would run Windows XP or higher since dual monitor support was abysmal under Win2k. I'm sorry I don't know about your specific hardware. I used to run a AGP/PCI combo for 2 monitor support, but it was very hard to find two cards that worked together without crashing and the performance on the PCI card was pretty poor compared to the AGP. I was using a GeForce 2 with a Matrox Millenium II PCI (very old). I tried a half dozen combinations and that was the only one that worked for me. I would not go down that road again myself.

JL, which D/A converter are you using ?
I´m using Pyro A/V link, but when in my timeline there are transitions or Fx events, the external monitor are flickering so much. I don´t know what´s happening.
Can you give me a help ?

JJKizak has the Parhelia working as best a directshow-overlay svideo out card can do on the 3rd head of a triple card like P750.
I'm sure he can see the preview window on both his two ViewSonic monitors. External monitor support is mutually exclusive with OHCI firewire preview, BTW. Check you are not set for external and that you don't have the clipboard set as your view in the source options (etc).

There is nothing wrong with Matrox cards for advanced 2D work and much 3D NLE stuff. They are high quality and flexible. The Parhelia series supports both extended desktops spanning your monitors and a separate display (the OS does the spanning) as separate incarnations for each "socket". Each mode suits certain application environment restrictions or your maximise/initial-window preferences.

nvidia cards bias towards the extended desktop multimonitor paradigm.
A PCI graphics card is usually only slower because it is older. AGP has more bandwidth but with complex 2D or NLE/artistic 3D, you'll have a job to push the envelope that shows the need for AGP 2x, let alone 8x. The main thing you lose is peripheral or storage bandwidth IF you only have one instance of Pci _bus_. PCI Express should kill off the AGP slot, but that is another story with different dynamics really.

3 computer monitors, Parhelia = tick
2 computer monitors, 1 video monitor, Parhelia = mostly tick *

*(clone of destop mode, not DVDMax/PureVideo mode, or preview render, frameserve, but won't give so don't expect a fullscreen overlay like elsewhere whilst using Vegas4 for your video approval)

Just don't get he wrong end of the stick. No other card does this 2d/limited-3d any better. TVout of graphics adapters or windows subsystem modes for overlay surfaces is currently deemed a low volume requirement and consumer, not prosumer by Sony and its proponents. Rightly or wrongly.

Not seeing the preview window on the desktop is a particular system influenced bug, user setting or 3rd party fault. Please check again.

I'd either buy Parhelia (P750, Parhelia256) or QuadroFX or just FX5600, with as many DVI ports as I could. If I wasn't holding out for PCI Express and HDMI connectivity.

As JJKizak says, Parhelia and Vegas4 heads you towards a 4 monitor solution, even with the AGP4x Parhelia or AGP 8x P series cards.

>>> JL, which D/A converter are you using ? >>>

Panasonic PV-GS70 DV camcorder.

>>> I´m using Pyro A/V link, but when in my timeline there are transitions or Fx events, the external monitor are flickering so much. I don´t know what´s happening. >>>

Others on this forum could address this issue better as I don't know anything about the Pyro A/V. However, when there are transitions and Fx, it is normal for the frame rate during preview to drop when the CPU cannot keep up with recompressing the frames. The frame rate is displayed in the preview window, and when this gets below about 15 fps the playback looks choppy. I use Selective Prerender when I need to preview at the full frame rate.

JL

i am very confused because the intial question has not been answered. I am about to buy matrox p750 because some review it is quite good for video editing. Should i think of returning it back because it does not work with vegas.

Help