Anybody running Vegas on 3 monitors?

cheroxy wrote on 9/20/2008, 9:30 AM

It seems like there is a big jump from the many dual monitor cards to the next level which is usually 4 monitors.

Can anyone recommend a 3+ monitor capable card that doesn't have any of the unnecessary extras (like GPU?) for vegas?

Comments

Editguy43 wrote on 9/20/2008, 12:08 PM

I am using 3 monitors and LOVE IT but i am using 2 vidio cards not sure of one other than a Matrox card that does more than 2 on one card.
But let me tell you I love three monitors. I kinda have a mish-mash 1 22" lcd, 1 17" lcd, 1 19"crt flat. the 22 is my main the 17 is for all my tools and the 19 crt is my preview monitor. with Vegas pro I love the way you can save layouts and i have 7 setups that i can switch to for various things, I also LOVE the new trimmer and its external preview function, it is very cool when i have external preview on for both trimmer and timeline it automaticlly switches the preview to whichever one you are working in, makes it great when i am editing old film footage

if you would like to see how mine is set up send me an email

cheroxy wrote on 9/20/2008, 12:12 PM

Thanks. I guess I'll just have to do the dual card then. Good to know!

JJKizak wrote on 9/20/2008, 1:47 PM

I used to with the Matrox Parhelia card with the third being the HDTV output. The problem was the resolution of the other two not being 1920 x 1080.Most of those new super cards only do two monitors so now I'm down to two at full resolution.
JJK

Cheno wrote on 9/20/2008, 4:59 PM

One thought is this

http://matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/

you'll most likely be stuck to 24" and under panels but the feedback on this product has been quite stellar.

course, it's more than the cost of a new graphics card ;)

ritsmer wrote on 9/21/2008, 12:56 AM

But why not use one single 30 inch with 2560x1600? - imagine what a timeline one could have in the upper part - 2560 pix long - and all the other stuff below - and they can be found for some 1100 US - and up..

Will a 30 inch give a good editing workflow or is the 2 or 3 "smaller" monitors solution better?

blink3times wrote on 9/21/2008, 5:10 AM

"But why not use one single 30 inch with 2560x1600? "

I think multiple monitors looks manly-er :)

I asked this question a while back after I got a 25.5" wide screen monitor. I was so used to working with a single 19" monitor that I was blown away at how much better vegas was on a larger wide screen. Now I have the wide screen AND the 19" running vegas.

If I had to do it again I would probably go with one 32 or 36" monitor. Multiple monitors I think is great for using other programs because you don't need a lot of screen space for firefox (just for example) so you can restrict it to one screen. But the BIG disadvantage (I'm finding anyway) with multiple monitors is getting the color balance right between them. It's not easy. One single monitor does not have this issue.

Years ago we HAD to rely on multiple monitors because these big screen monitors didn't exist. But today.... it is an option.... a viable one at that.

Steve Mann wrote on 9/21/2008, 10:48 PM

You can run Vegas on as many monitors that your Windows will support. I know a gamer who has ten monitors on his XP system. I have had as many as four, but I am down to two now because I needed the monitors on another editing station. Just look for some Geoforce 4000 IDE cards, should be pretty cheap now. Each has two VGA outputs. You can put as many cards into your PC as you have empty IDE slots.

I strongly recommend that you use multiple copies of the same card. Mixed brands will work, but if they are all the same, then you only have one driver and control program to deal with.

Editguy43 wrote on 9/21/2008, 10:59 PM

can you post a jpeg here on the forum i would like to show how i have vegas setup with my main edit layout

farss wrote on 9/21/2008, 11:15 PM

You'll have to upload it one of the photo sharing sites or the like and post a link to it.

Only problem I have with the really big monitors is you cannot curve them around like you can with 3 monitors.

Bob.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/22/2008, 9:51 AM

I looked into this before, and looked into that triple head to go solution, but the rez restrictions killed it for me, as I'm looking to add a 3rd 24" 1920x1200 rez monitor and the highest res solution for that triple head adapter is "3 x 1680 x 1050". Just not enough for a rez junkie like me :P.

Fortunately the card I use is really cheap now, and still pretty juiced up, so I think I can toss in a 2nd one for not too much more (8800GT) and I'll be good to go, as long as I add another monitor. :)

Dave