HD Monitors

To watch your HDV footage you will need an HD monitor. The good news is these are getting cheaper - the bad news is that the quality of available monitors is variable. We have had many at DVC which have varied from excellent to terrible, with even the terrible ones costing as much as £700!

Full HD is 1920 x 1080 pixels, but you do not necessarily need a monitor this resolution to see a good HD picture. Many are 1366 x 768 resolution and we have found that they display 1080i footage well for a reasonable cost.
A monitor that does full 1920 x 1080 resolution should, of course, give a better picture still - and you can be sure that you are seeing all the pixels and therefore any possible problems will show through. There are many very large (40-50 inch) full HD monitors that have excellent pictures, but they are a bit large to sit next to an edit suite. There are several 24” monitors available but the only ones that we have found to give an excellent picture are the BenQ screens (below). Every other 24” has either had a bad image or not had the necessary connections!

When buying an HD monitor it is worth making sure they have both component HD input (which many do not) and HDMI. The latter is a new standard of connector that will become much more important in the future. You need HDMI to be able to play some copy protected Blu-ray discs at full quality, although for editing it is less important. However it is good to make sure your monitor has this connector just in case.
And be sure to check the resolution of the screen. We have seen many adverts for large screens described as “HD ready” or “HD compliant”, but in fact the resolution is a mere 852 x 480 (a common resolution for plasma screens). This means that while these screens will accept and display an HD input, they will not look nearly as sharp as a picture on even a 1366 x 768 screen - there are just not enough pixels!

As most HD monitors are LCD screens, just like those found on PCs, most have a PC connection as well. This means that you could plug your desktop or laptop into the screen and use it as a playback device. You may even find that playback of standard definition DVDs improves when played off the right kind of PC through a PC connection!
An HD monitor really is a must if editing HD. You will not appreciate the full benefits of HD without a proper display and you cannot judge things like accuracy of focus, quality of effects etc without it.
At DVC we sell lots of HD monitors but concentrate on the ones we think have the best features for editors.