PLAYBACK at 1080p via HDMI!

[Stephen Pruitt]

Okay. . .

. . . there are a few souls like me out there. They don't want to spend the cash for a terrific HD-SDI monitor at 1080p (or even 720p). Instead, they want/need to make do using a cheapie 1080p monitor or television.

After our old 720p Samsung died, I wanted to see if we could monitor out via HDMI at 1080p. After discussions with Stuart, it turns out that this was theoretically possible, but might not actually work in practice, as the 1080p PLAYBACK setting was for HD-SDI, with the HDMI cable just tagging along for the ride in an uncertain state of operability.

I took ol' #791 (MX) to Best Buy and tried it out on all sorts of monitors. I was only able to get a true 1080p playback signal out of the HDMI on one monitor (an LG LED/LCD), and it flickered so much it was pretty much unusable. It looked like Stuart (and the manual) was going to be right: The 1080p signal on the HDMI really wasn't likely to work in the real world.

I was ready to give up my quest when we just decided to try it on a small 22" LCD television set (in this case a cheapie Insignia). And guess what? It worked like a charm! We were able to get the set to work perfectly at 1080p on playback right out of the camera. Intrigued, we tried another cheapie TV, an LED/LCD "Dynex" (the Best Buy store brand). And it worked perfectly, as well! 720p as you shoot, automatically switching to 1080p on playback! And not an ounce of flicker, either! We bought the Dynex (for all of $250) and counted ourselves fortunate to have achieved "the impossible." But, given this experience, I'm fairly willing to bet that most television sets will work at this setting, allowing us to monitor live shots at 720p, and then view playback at 1080p without the press of a single button. It's like butter!

I'm very happy. Just wish I had enough money to buy a nice 19" Panasonic HD-SDI, but for $250, this thing is a winner!

Stephen

 

[michael zaletel]

Just curious... How are you powering the Dynex?

-michael

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

It's just plugged into the wall.

We almost never shoot where we don't have access to AC power.

Stephen

 

[Paul Lee]

Very interesting. We just tried a similar monitor with no luck so I am glad to hear about this. Can you please give us the model number of the Dynex?

 

[paulherrin]

so in general, what's to look for in a monitor to work or not? i was trying to follow, but got a bit confused about why some worked and some did not...

 

[ericyoung]

I think the trend was that cheap ones worked better! :smile:

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

I think that the trend here is that cheapie TV sets seem to work whereas computer monitors (at any price) do not.

The exact model of Dynex we purchased is the DX-24E150A11. It had everything we wanted (size, low price, LED, speakers, HDMI, was in-stock, etc.).

Again, the automatic switch from 720p to 1080p was effortless with both this TV and the Insignia LCD, but we went with this one strictly because I wanted an LED set because I thought it looked slightly better.

Now, as everyone knows, use of a cheap monitor like this comes with significant trade-offs. This is a set for pulling focus and setting framing. . . not for judging color or look. But, frankly, for $250, it works okay. If I were buying it for home use, I'd be pretty disappointed, but this thing probably won't last more than a year or two on the set anyway.

As an aside, for mounting to a C-stand, we purchased the Best Buy wall mount kit, screwed it into the back of the set (it already has tapped holes that fit it exactly), and then screwed a Matthews 3" wall plate to the metal of the wall mount kit. It isn't perfectly centered on the back of the set, but it's so lightweight, it doesn't matter. It's a very elegant solution, actually.

Anyway, I'm glad others have found my three-day quest to Best Buy is saving them some time. It was a nightmare to try out all of those options!

Stephen