Monitor help

[Martin Kitchen]

Hi Guys. 
 

Im looking to upgrade my monitor, I’ve got a transvideo at the moment it’s just a little bulky looking to get something  a bit more compacted still 7inch though, I’ve seen the small HD Cine 7 just wondering if anyone’s running that and if they like it?  Any other monitor ideas are very welcome.
 

Thanks for any help 

 

Martin 
 

 

 

[Martin Kitchen]

Sorry I put this in the wrong section could one of the admin please move this or delete. 
 

Thanks 

[William Demeritt]

I haven't looked at the Cine7 for a Steadicam monitor yet. Looks brighter than a lot of options (and not as bright as others, both more expensive and cheaper). For a pure Steadicam monitor, it's probably feature overkill, but if you want a Steadicam monitor that you can set up to pull off the sled and use as an operator's monitor, it's probably perfect. 

[Tom Wills]

One of the main things that’s kept me using SmallHDs as my primary monitors (though I will soon be picking up a couple of the off-brand new super bright monitors as backups) has been the ability to zoom and scale the picture, along with the addition of custom, easily changeable guides. I have found that in the past couple years, there has been a proliferation of DPs wanting to use old anamorphic lenses, sometimes producing odd aspect ratios, and then cropping down the sensor to fit the proscribed aspect ratio. On one particular show last year, we were using a 2x anamorphic lens on an Alexa Mini, cropping for 16x9, but not in the center - from the side of the frame! It was truly bizarre (horizons always were oddly bent, no straight lines existed on one side of the frame, and you had to be cognizant of where you put the actor’s face to make it not get too bendy... but that’s another story), but the biggest thing for me was that after you go to anamorphic, then crop down, you end up with a tiny box of picture in the middle of a giant black area. SmallHD’s cropping and scaling tools meant that I easily had available a crop which I could toggle on and off that gave me the picture area we were using, with only a little look around on the edges. No text, no giant black bars, just my frame blown up to full screen. I don’t see how I could commit to using a primary monitor at this point that didn’t give me at least that flexible of an option, and so far, the SmallHD has seemed to be the most intuitive, easy to use version of that.

[William Demeritt]

Tom nailed it. I don't need the multi-window view in SmallHD, but the ability to crop and choose your framelines, mask them, change any number of options, etc, always keeps SmallHD in my kit. Also, I'm a fairly "disposable" type (everything goes bad, why fight it), so I'd rather go with an ultrabright, well programmed, well designed monitor and grab a couple at an affordable price than spend 2x or even 3x on another monitor. Nothing against other manufacturers, I've owned monitors by many of them. However, SmallHD really has the price point to feature point that just keeps them as my go-to. 

FYI: as of writing this, SmallHD is selling some B-stock monitors, and they have the 703U monitor for $1499. If I had any idea when I was working next, I'd grab a couple in a heartbeat.

[Martin Kitchen]

Thanks Guys i really appreciate the help.  

[Justin Browne]

I have  both the Cine7 and a Transvideo.  The Cine7 in my opinion would not be the best Steadicam monitor.  Its has a great picture but it is not as bright.  It also feels fragile compare to my Transvideo.  Its a great HH /conventional monitor though. :)