[Tig] Scopes

[Bob Kertesz]

>LCD scopes?
>The Omnitek is a rasterizer and you can feed it to any sort of monitor you
>like.
>I think you'll find you can get all the detail (and as many views of the
>signal you are monitoring) you need, and I'm curious how the ones you've
>seen have been set up.

I've been using the Leader 7700 rasterizer in production for about a year now,
and I quite like it. It's essentially a 5750 in a box. I normally hook an
inexpensive 15" Dell digital LCD monitor to the DVI output, and use it in
"quad-split" mode where I have RGB waveform, vectorscope, 8 ch. audio, and
color picture all displayed at once. It will do HD or SD SDI.

Additionally, it displays any embedded time code at the top, and what format
it's running in (scan size and frame rate). Pretty much everything I want to
know in one glance. And I can replace the audio quadrant with a system
measurements screen which shows stats and errors for the digital stream. Each
quadrant can be made full screen with the push of a button, so in an emergency
it can be used as a picture monitor (it had better be a real emergency - due
to the $200 Dell digital monitor it's just adequate, but better than a B&W
viewfinder).

It's not as convenient to carry around and set up as a single half rack or
portable scope would be, but it's a lot more versatile and a lot less
expensive. With the 15" Dell monitor it was around $7K if I remember
correctly, when the 5750 was around $13K.

>My 2 cents is that no matter how well a picture monitor is set up, viewer
>fatigue and other subjective conditions make it relative at best.  There is
>no substitute for the absolute data that a 'scope' will provide, to know
>with certainty what your signal is doing, whether it's video or not.

Agree absolutely.

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Leader whatsoever, but I do like
their stuff. Somebody needed to wake Tektronix from their stupor, and based on
what I see in L.A. on productions and in the rental houses, I bet they're
paying attention now.

--Bob

Bob Kertesz
BlueScreen LLC
Hollywood, California
bob at bluescreen.com

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