External monitor via IEEE-1394 (FireWire)

You can send video directly from the timeline to a television monitor. With this feature, you can make your final editing decisions on a broadcast monitor (which differs significantly from a computer monitor) before printing the project to tape.

IEEE-1394/FireWire external monitor requirements:

  • OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394 DV card.

  • DV camcorder or DV-to-analog converter.

NOTE

  • VEGAS Pro allows you to use one external video device at a time. The external monitor display will be unavailable during video capture.

  • When using an external video monitor, you need to enable external-monitor preview each time you start VEGAS Pro. This change was made to prevent the possibility of hiding the main VEGAS Pro window behind the secondary display when monitors are improperly configured.

Setting up an external monitor

The diagram below shows the preferred setup for sending video from the VEGAS Pro timeline to an external television monitor.

The video is converted to DV format and sent through the IEEE-1394 card to the DV device (camcorder or DV-to-analog media converter). The DV device sends analog output to the television monitor.

Use the Preview Device tab in the Preferences dialog to configure your IEEE-1394 card. For more information, see Preferences - Preview Device Tab

NOTE The DV device must support pass through in order to use an external monitor.

Previewing audio

External monitor previewing differs in one respect from printing to tape from the timeline: no audio is sent through the IEEE-1394 card. As shown in the illustration in the previous heading, audio is sent to the sound card and then on to the mixer (if present) and speakers so you can mix your audio on better speakers than are typically found in television monitors.

Before printing to tape, you may wish to preview the audio through the television monitor speakers to ensure a good "TV mix." You can use the print-to-tape feature to send the full video and audio to the external monitor. Follow the steps for printing to tape from the timeline, but do not set the camcorder to record. The video and audio streams are sent through the IEEE-1394 card to the external monitor. For more information, see Printing video to tape from the timeline

Turning on external-monitor preview

  1. Use the Preview Device tab in the Preferences dialog to configure the display you want to use as a video preview monitor. For more information, see Preferences - Preview Device Tab

  2. Select the Preview on External Monitor button in the Video Preview window.

    You can turn off external preview by pressing Alt+Shift+4.

    TIP Video is sent to the external monitor and the Video Preview window at the same time. If you experience dropped frames, try clearing the Display frames in Video Preview window during playback checkbox on the Preview Device tab in the Preferences dialog.