2 video cars, 2 monitors and a TV?

karavite

karavite

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I want to use Final Cut Pro 3 with dual displays and a TV to preview my video. No ATI card for Mac will support all three at the same time. I have a Radeon 8500 running now and am thinking of adding a PCI Radeon 7000 to run out of its S-Video to my TV.

Will this work? Believe it or not, ATI was not sure (they thought it would, but no firm response), so I came here to ask the REAL experts!
 
With two cards it will certainly work, but if your current video card has three outputs (ADC, VGA and s-video), I think the video will be the mirrored on the VGA and the s-video output, even though ATI won't tell anything about it. Doesn't hurt to try :)
 
I used to have a G4 450DP with an extra PCI Radeon card (though I can't remember which one it was) and I could do exactly what you're talking about.

Do you really want to preview on a TV using a video card output though? Every computer I've tried this with messes up the video dimensions, color & etc. enough to where it's not very helpful to preview on a TV. If you have a digital camcorder FCP will let you hook your TV to your camcorder to get a true preview and then you don't need a dual-display PCI card, but I guess if you're wanting to do this you probably don't have one, right?
 
Originally posted by jeb1138
Do you really want to preview on a TV using a video card output though? Every computer I've tried this with messes up the video dimensions, color & etc. enough to where it's not very helpful to preview on a TV. If you have a digital camcorder FCP will let you hook your TV to your camcorder to get a true preview and then you don't need a dual-display PCI card, but I guess if you're wanting to do this you probably don't have one, right?
Click to expand...

Thanks to both of you - I do have a camcorder, but I have been told using it this way for a long period of time is a good way to burn out the camcorder (they just aren't built for it). Would something like the Dazzle DV bridge be better?

http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html

Given your experience with the video card messing with color, that defeats the entire purpose of my getting the card! Was it an S-Viideo/composite video out that did this? Thanks for the information!
 
Yeah, the dazzle should be a hundred times better. Never used one but if it works (and it should) I think you'll notice a tremendous difference.

I've tried both S-Video and composite on both my old Powermac and my current Powerbook, same problem all around. They were both ATI cards so I don't know if anything else works better. I think the problem might be partly that video card makers refuse to lose pixels (which usually makes sense when you want to see data) and the signal from your DV camcorder always gives the TV more pixels than it actually displays. Not sure though.
 
Sure! :) I'm actually thinking about getting something like that myself, but I can't decide whether the go with the approx $300 for the Dazzle, or else pay another $150 for a cheap MiniDV camcorder with pass-through (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000063W8Z/104-3937555-1411916?vi=glance). It would output to the TV and do analogue to digital conversion without even using a tape, just like the dazzle. In addition, it would spare my more expensive camcorder a lot of rewinding, fast forwarding and capturing wear and tear as well. (Plus I would have a camera more ideal for loaning to friends when they ask! :p)

If it's likely to totally die from being left on, though, that might not be a good solution. As long as all that got ruined was the lens, lcd, viewer, etc. it would be great. What have you heard are the effects of leaving a camcorder on?
 
Hey jeb,

Mostly rumors and a few posts. Of course there is the issue of wearing out heads and motors, but I saw a post somewhere from a guy who had my same camera (Sony TRV27) who used it to pass through video and the thing simply burned out on him. He had it repaired under warranty, but was told not to use it as a pass through device - "it just isn't built for that."

All of this got me thinking about buying a mini-dv deck, but they have their problems too and the only reliable one seems to be those made by Sony - yet they cost more than the darn camera! At the same time, nobody I know is able to tell me why a $1000 deck won't get burned out in the same way - heads and motors in particular. The second camcorder idea is something a lot of people do as well. Since I have a mini-dv, I would like to use a second mini-dv for capture, but you can't really find a mini-dv camcorder for less than $500. So, do I want to spend $500 to avoid wasting my $800 camera? Doesn't sound like a good move to me!

I wonder how many new Mac video iMovie users will end up toasting their camcorders? I'm not saying this is Apple's fault, but it would be nice if they mentioned this somewhere in iMovie instructions/docs. Even though I use FCP, iMovie has a very nice "capture now" feature and my method of avoiding the ruin of my camera is to just capture my entire tape via iMovie and edit out clips in FCP (I also have a $30 tape rewinder that helps a lot). However, I happen to have more hard drive space than your average new Mac owner.
 
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