{"id":21,"date":"2007-11-14T23:51:45","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T06:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/2007\/11\/14\/2k-monitoring\/"},"modified":"2007-11-14T23:51:45","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T06:51:45","slug":"2k-monitoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/2007\/11\/14\/2k-monitoring\/","title":{"rendered":"2K Monitoring"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are much fewer monitoring options if your workflow requires full 2K resolution monitoring.\u00c2\u00a0 The primary reason for this is that most consumer gear and broadcast\u00c2\u00a0equipment all\u00c2\u00a0top out at 1920×1080.\u00c2\u00a0 The HD-SDI and HDMI<\/a> interfaces are both limited to 1080p in most cases as well.\u00c2\u00a0 HSDL (High Speed Data Link)\u00c2\u00a0is an older standard, developed\u00c2\u00a0specifically for transmiting 2K image data over regular BNC cables at HS-SDI frequencies.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0AJA’s\u00c2\u00a0Xena2Ke<\/a> and Kona3<\/a> cards support HSDL,\u00c2\u00a0but\u00c2\u00a0HSDL usually runs at 15fps, and is therefore\u00c2\u00a0not realtime, and not a\u00c2\u00a0useful option for monitoring.\u00c2\u00a0 Dual link HD-SDI<\/a> as well as the new 3Gb\/s SDI<\/a> are both capable of 2K, in various forms.\u00c2\u00a0 Certain products use 3Gb to carry full 1556 line 2K images, but most 2K hardware only supports 2048×1080\u00c2\u00a0resolution over SDI varients.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The other two primary connection options are VGA<\/a> and Dual Link DVI<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 VGA has a maximum standard resoultion of 2048×1536, although a fairly rare 2304×1440 is also an option (Sony 24″ CRT).\u00c2\u00a0 Although perfectly 4×3 (1.33 aspect ratio), 1536\u00c2\u00a0lines of vertical resolution is a little short of the 1556 lines of a standard 4perf full aperture 35mm film scan.\u00c2\u00a0 For 1.76 and 1.85 aspect ratios (1152 and 1080 vertical), VGA provides full resolution support.\u00c2\u00a0 Dual-Link DVI supports 2560×1600 when connected to a 30″ LCD, which is more than enough for every variation of 2K.\u00c2\u00a0 So that leaves us with\u00c2\u00a0four ways of driving our display: Dual-Link\u00c2\u00a0HD-SDI, 3Gb SDI, VGA, and DL-DVI.\u00c2\u00a0 Other proprietary methods exist, but will be difficult to incorporate into an Adobe based PC workflow.
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\nDual-link HD-SDI supports 2K from a variety of sources, specifically the NVidia QuadroFX SDI<\/a> cards, and Bluefish444 2K|Lust<\/a> I\/O card.\u00c2\u00a0 The primary display\u00c2\u00a0devices that support this signal format are\u00c2\u00a02K projectors, which makes sense due to the fact that almost all 2K finishing work is targeted towards theatrical projection.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately a projector precise enough to accurately monitor color at 2K resolution\u00c2\u00a0is extremely expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 Certain high end CRT video monitors also accept this signal, but most of these\u00c2\u00a0eventually scale it to their native 1920 maximum horizontal width.\u00c2\u00a0 Sony’s new BVML230<\/a> will accept 2048×1080 inputs, but will scale it to 1920×1080 as well.<\/p>\n

3Gb SDI has very little hardware available to support it at this point.\u00c2\u00a0 The only real solution on the market at this point is to use Blackmagic’s Multibridge<\/a> to generate it, and Blackmagic’s HDLink Pro<\/a> to receive it.\u00c2\u00a0 This solution merely converts it DL-DVI, which we will discuss below.\u00c2\u00a0 The Multibridge allows fullscreen 2K without depending on the workstation video card.\u00c2\u00a0 In the future, I expect that this standard will be widely adopted to replace dual-link SDI.\u00c2\u00a0 This is\u00c2\u00a0especially beneficial as we move towards more 4K finishes, which currently require 8 HD-SDI links\u00c2\u00a0to support\u00c2\u00a0full resolution in realtime.<\/p>\n

I am not aware of any solutions allowing 2K to be displayed over VGA besides using software to output the signal from a computer graphics card.\u00c2\u00a0 Certain older 21-22″ CRT monitors support 2K resolution, but you will need to be able to configure your software and\/or your graphics driver to allow you to get fullscreen video output to the monitor.<\/p>\n

Dual Link DVI can support 2K, but flat panel LCDs are the only products I am aware of that support this connection interface.\u00c2\u00a0 This makes it less than ideal for color grading work, but a great solution for visual effects work.\u00c2\u00a0 The excess resolution removes the need for dedicated full screen output, but that can usually be achieved as well.\u00c2\u00a0 Both computer graphics cards and the HDLink Pro can output 2K resolution over DL-DVI.\u00c2\u00a0 Graphics cards are obviously cheaper, and will likely work better in AE, but an HDLink Pro, with the appropriate hardware to drive it, will probably offer better performance in an NLE, like Premiere Pro.\u00c2\u00a0 It really depends on your budget,\u00c2\u00a0but if you can afford dual desktop monitors PLUS a full screen monitor, the HDLink Pro enables this configuration.<\/p>\n

So those three interfaces dictate most of your actual display options in that regard.\u00c2\u00a0 Current 2K projectors<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0are driven by Dual Link SDI, but we will see DL-DVI and 3Gb SDI replacing that in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 2K CRT monitors can be driven via VGA connections, and LCD flat panels can\u00c2\u00a0support 2K and above using DL-DVI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are much fewer monitoring options if your workflow requires full 2K resolution monitoring.\u00c2\u00a0 The primary reason for this is that most consumer gear and broadcast\u00c2\u00a0equipment all\u00c2\u00a0top out at 1920×1080.\u00c2\u00a0 The HD-SDI and HDMI interfaces are both limited to 1080p in most cases as well.\u00c2\u00a0 HSDL (High Speed Data Link)\u00c2\u00a0is an older standard, developed\u00c2\u00a0specifically for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[16,18,12,20,14,37,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}