OT: Just went dual LCD monitor (WooHoo)

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/3/2005, 4:38 AM

A while ago I had asked your advice on dual LCD monitors and if I should go 17” or 19” coming from a 21” CRT. Just to let you guys know, I did finally chuck my CRT for dual Samsung 710N-2 17” monitors and I couldn’t be happier. There is no ghosting or anything. These things are bright and crisp and the CRT is history.

For all of you who suggested nothing smaller than 19”, I did some measurements and realized that two of them would overwhelm my workspace area so I went with the 17”. The clarity on LCD monitors is so much better that I really don’t mind that they are smaller. Having the double the horizontal view more than makes up for it because now I can place my video preview on the other monitor or even work on a Word document on one monitor while viewing what you’re writing about in the other.

Last night while I was editing a project in Vegas, I had Sound Forge open on the other monitor. Every time I would right-click on audio and select Open in Sound Forge, I would just move my mouse to the other monitor, edit it and save. I can’t imagine how I did without dual monitors for this long. It makes editing so much more productive.

If you’re sitting on the fence about it. JUMP! Newegg.com has the Samsung 710N-2’s for $244. Two of them are only $488!!! Sure they’re not top-of-the-line. But I got two for the price of one top-of-the-line monitor. I am one happy editor. ;-D

Thanks guys for all your advice. Hope this helps someone else who’s considering it.

~jr

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Comments

Jeff Smith wrote on 3/3/2005, 5:50 PM

March EQ has a review on the triple head P650, seems to be the same one DSE reviewed a year ago.

Douglas, do you use 3 monitors plus an NTSC?

Johnny, I bought the 17" samsung 3 weeks ago, I am going to buy another one and ditch the crt.

Jeff

"All the Matrox G series have an upgrade to allow for 2 computer monitors and one NTSC/PAL monitor, I like the P650 Millenium because it's silent and works great in the studio. There are other great vid cards out there. I did a review of the Matrox about a year ago.
http://www.matrox.com/mga/workstation/audio/news/reviews/feb2004/p650_dmn.cfm"

ken c wrote on 3/3/2005, 6:10 PM

great quote in your article, Spot, "Once you've had two, singles never do."

How about "Once you've had four, singles are a bore"

or "Once you've had six, one's just for kicks"

or ... (fill in the blank - a contest - wee!)

lots of monitors are great.. makes it easy to manage multiple applications and make your workflow a lot more efficient, by a multiple..

ken

Bob Greaves wrote on 3/4/2005, 4:15 AM

lots of monitors are great.. makes it easy to manage multiple applications and make your workflow a lot more efficient, by a multiple..

We know what you mean after seeing your infomercial with all those ultra monitors in the studio. (g)

farss wrote on 3/4/2005, 5:05 AM

It would seem that the Dell has the same problem as the HP, the AR is 16:10 not 16:9 which is an issue if you feed it with HDV via composite from the camera / deck.
Form my experience working with 1x17" and 1x23" I find the 23" too big!
Sure it's fine if all you've got on it is the preview window but anything else means I'm having to turn my head too much and the mouse pointer gets lost too easily. Sure you could put it further away but that must kind of defeat the purpose.

JJKizak wrote on 3/4/2005, 5:36 AM

If your around the age of 50, 15" to 17" are pretty good. If your around 60, 19" is better. If your over 60, 190" is best.

JJK

Rednroll wrote on 3/4/2005, 7:46 AM

"If your around the age of 50, 15" to 17" are pretty good. If your around 60, 19" is better. If your over 60, 190" is best."

Lol!!!! Yeah, I was thinking about getting a projection screen monitor, that way I could adjust the projection size on the wall as I got older and I wouldn't have to keep purchasing a new monitor every 5 years. "hey what's that spot in the middle of my video, was their finger prints on the camera lense?...oops, sorry junior's been eatting chocolate and putting his hands on the wall again.

TeetimeNC wrote on 3/4/2005, 9:34 AM

JR, I to am using the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, but with a 19 inch Samsung and a 17 inch CRT. I have not been able to figure out how to profile BOTH monitors - have you?

DavidMcKnight wrote on 3/4/2005, 10:02 AM

speaking of dual head cards, I use an inexpensive card based on an ATI 7000 that I got from newegg - Using it with two CRT's... this card works great in this setup.

IIf you go to newegg.com and shop for video cards, you can enter the exact chipset you want and choose any manufacturer (ATI doesn't make a card based on this chipset, but others do for about $40)

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-161-101&depa=1

You can also choose nVidia chipsets

scissorfighter wrote on 3/4/2005, 10:25 AM

Yes, that Dell 24" looks sweet, and at a nice price too! I just bought the HP 23" two months ago, and must say that I'm very happy with it. It's far better than two 17" CRTs. The picture is exceptional. One 23" LCD with an external 14" NTSC preview monitor makes for a lot of Vegas screen real estate in a relatively compact footprint. Before the Dell came out I would have (and did) strongly recommend the HP, but now I'd recommend that anyone in the market take a good long look at both.

jlafferty wrote on 3/4/2005, 1:22 PM

Why do the Dell's have such awful response times? The 17" "UltraSharp" at 25ms seems like it would be anything but...

Incidentally, NewEgg's link to the monitor I got recently was down -- now it's up again and for $225 it's a pretty good deal.

I also noticed that there's a black version of Johnny Roy's monitor -- and this bad boy comes in at $214 after rebates :D

- jim

Lili wrote on 3/4/2005, 2:05 PM

JR - I'm envious - someday I too would like what you have - congrats!!

But one question:

I currently have ONLY 1 Samsung 17 LCD. I was thinking that when I eventually splurge and get another monitor, would it be lame to get one that is 15 inches? More of a space consideration than $$, but does anyone else have 2 different sizes, and any regrets?

merci beaucoup,

lili

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/4/2005, 7:19 PM

> I have not been able to figure out how to profile BOTH monitors - have you?

What do you mean by “profile”? Do you mean Color profiles? I’m not sure Windows supports multiple color profiles. Since my monitors are identical I’m not sure it matters for me. I only see one color profile.

~jr

Bob Greaves wrote on 3/4/2005, 8:17 PM

"Profiling" a monitor is a feature of its driver. My ATI has several tweakable options accessed by using the advance button in the settings dialog box for the desktop.

From the advanced settings I can controll color correction for each monitor independantly.

One option to consider when using dual monitors is to rotate them on to their side so that they are taller than they are wide. I prefer this when editing audio but not when editing video. I use a toggle (shift+F12) to rotate my monitors 90°

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/4/2005, 8:53 PM

OK, got it. My ATI is the same way. You select the monitor (primary or secondary) from the Properties > Settings tab before you press the Advanced button and you can control the advanced features of each monitor independently (i.e,. OpenGL profile, Color profile, etc.) I wasn’t change the monitor first, I was just clicking advanced. I even get a different set of tabs for each monitor from the advanced tab.

~jr

busterkeaton wrote on 3/5/2005, 2:41 AM

I don't know. I only know that I have never seen all the negative effects that tis suppossed to occur with a response time of 25 ms. It suppossed to be unwatcheable for video. Its not.

Perhaps Dell measures it differently.

busterkeaton wrote on 3/5/2005, 4:57 AM

Here's Some technical charts from a positive review of that Dell 24" monitor. Review gave it 9 out of ten.

I belive the panel itself on the 24" is made by Samsung

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/5/2005, 11:24 AM

> I only know that I have never seen all the negative effects that tis suppossed to occur with a response time of 25 ms.

That’s because there really aren’t any. Last year when the average LCD was 50ms and people were complaining about ghosting, it was said that you need at least 25ms response time to eliminate ghosting. So there is nothing wrong with 25ms LCD’s. I went for 12ms because I also do gaming and that requires faster frame rates and might have some slight ghosting at 25ms.

~jr

jlafferty wrote on 3/5/2005, 9:51 PM

Are you a HL2 man, JR? :D

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/6/2005, 12:12 AM

> Are you a HL2 man, JR? :D

Let’s just say that me and Gordon Freeman have never actually been seen in the same room together. (now where did I put my HEV suit? I've got some clean up to do.) ;-)

Should we be starting a Vegas Counter Strike clan?

~jr

jlafferty wrote on 3/6/2005, 8:07 AM

Not into CS (yet) -- I have a tough time explaining why HL2DM is so appealing with a straight face to...well, to anyone older than 15 :D Something about throwing toliets at people shooting rockets at you just never sounds as good told rather than seen firsthand.

CS seems like it would take a lot of time invested to get a good return.

Drop me an email at jim@ideaspora.net sometime and maybe we'll setup a DM game or something -- good way to take a break from freelance work.

- jim

wrrn wrote on 3/6/2005, 9:13 AM

Yeah, I have a Samsung 191T LCD and it is fantastic. My secondary monitor is a Viewsonic CRT and when I have to look at it, the flicker is very noticable after the LCD. One reason I stayed with a CRT is to see how colors view on both monitor types. (I'm a web designer, and color is always an issue.) Dual monitor is great for just about any application, but especially for NLE.

Sidenote: My Samsung started ghosting - software pallettes would be mildly visible after the software was minimized to the taskbar. I called Samsung and they provided an instant swap for a replacement by shipping it to a UPS store (still under warranty). All I had to do was show up at the UPS store with the defective unit and go home with the new one. No messing with packing it for shipment. Great customer service. The only thing I don't like about the Samsung is that they allow up to 9 dead pixels before it is considered defective.

my 2c
warren

ken c wrote on 3/7/2005, 11:05 AM

I only buy Sony and Viewsonic, Sony preferred. I would never again buy a samsung, after having one die on me after 4 months.

ken

TeetimeNC wrote on 3/19/2005, 4:08 AM

Agree, Oscar's Multimon is pretty much indiispensable with dual monitor configurations. Another useful tool I've found for use with my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro card is their free Hydravision. Well, actually it is the MultiDesk tool that comes with Hydravision. With it I can create up to nine virtual desktops. A desktop consists of one or more applications loaded and placed on the desired monitor(s). I can then easily switch between sets of applications. Say for example, that I have these four desktops set up:

1. Outlook and IE
2. Quicken and Quickbooks
3. Vegas
4. Photoshop

At startup I might right click and load desktop 1 (each desktop can also be given a friendly name and/or its own background). I have placed Outlook on one monitor and IE on the other in desktop 1. Then if I want to do some Vegas work, right click and load desktop 3. Vegas loads the timeline on one monitor and tools on the other. I can unload desktop 1, or just have it remain loaded in standby. Within a desktop I use MultiMon to move windows between monitors if needed. All in all, a very sweet setup.

By the way, I found Hydravision itself to be of little use - I only use the ATI Multidesk tool that came with Hydravision. Hydravision is a free download from ATI's site.

-jerry