VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Foog]

My old monitor (screen, not speaker) gave up the ghost last week and since video quality isn't exactly a critical component of what I do, I went out and bought the cheapest one I could find.

Big mistake. It seems they are making these things increasingly rectangular in the assumption that people prioritize the viewing of wide-screen/landscape videos over any actual functionality. The aspect ratio of my old one was almost a perfect square and I liked the shape of the workspace it offered. In contrast, the new one cuts the bottom off all my plug ins so that I have to pull them up, click to process, then drag them back down so I can again see the track I am editing. Major pain in the butt, that. Scripts, my browser, pretty much everything on screen has effectively been cut in half. Grrr! I tried rotating the whole thing 90 degrees, but it made things absurdly narrow left-to-right.

So, a question and an observation...

Question: Can anyone think of a way to mitigate this issue short of buying another monitor? I fine tuned the resolution/aspect ratio as much as I could, and zoomed text out to fit more on the screen at once. It's not nearly enough. And I tried to find some way to resize my plugins in Pro Tools but there doesn't seem to be any. Is there anything else I can do other than complain loudly into the void while I sit in the studio? (PRO TIP: complaining loudly in the void has limited efficacy and makes one grumpier)

Observation: IF you haven't bought a monitor in a few years and are considering buying a new one for studio use, take note that they are getting wider (horizontally) and thinner (vertically) and choose wisely!
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Andrew Fogarasi

[Mike Harrison]

Have you configured the computer to the monitor? Properly configured, I'll guess that no part of the image would be cut off.

I'm on a Mac, and the "Display" tab of System Preferences automatically recognizes what type of monitor is attached and allows for further user configuration to calibrate the monitor for color, contrast and white point. I don't know how Windows PCs handle display configuration. But I would think there's something not configured properly if part of the image is being cut off.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Yonie]

Andrew, it could be you need to adjust the resolution to match your current monitor. Go to your Control Panel / Settings from the start menu and check around under Appearance and Personalization, perhaps there's a recommended resolution.

If your old one had a 4:3 aspect ratio, then yes the layout will be slightly different if this is a 16:9. Shouldn't be as dramatic as you're describing, though.

[Foog]

Would that it were so simple. The first thing I did was check the resolution, and then try other resolutions to see if anything worked better. Nope. (for the record, I'm using a Macbook Pro, so this was through the System Preferences' display tab).

Unfortunately, I don't know what my old monitor's aspect ratio was. It looks pretty square on the junk heap, which makes me wonder whether it was a 1280 x 1024. Whatever it was, the difference is indeed very dramatic. Enough so that I might shell out for another one, or see if I can finagle a return/replace out of the place I bought it from.
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Andrew Fogarasi

[Bruce]

Just like movies went from square to wide 50+ years ago and TV shows went wide 25+ years ago, computers have been going wide for what, 15+ years now?

Sure, jiggle with the settings for now to help you through the transition, but you'll have to face it, all monitors are wide now, which means if you get a big enough one you can run different operations in different parts of the monitor. I love running my DAW and my copy one above the other.

The good news, good monitors are getting cheaper every day. My first Apple 20" monitor I got 12 years ago was $1,200. A decent 24" Samsung is now just $129. It's time to love (or tolerate) the "new" technology.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Foog]

Phooey to embracing the new standard! I just spotted a refurbished DELL 1280 X 1024 monitors online for 68 bucks Canadian. Think I found my solution at a relatively cheap price.


..out of curiosity though, Bruce: do you find that running 2 monitors puts a strain on your system at all?
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Andrew Fogarasi

[Lee Gordon]

I run one 16x9 monitor and one 4x3 monitor at my desk and the same in my booth. When I needed an extra 4x3 monitor, I bought a couple on Craigs List for about $20-25 each.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Bruce]

I don’t need to run two monitors. Everything fits fine on just one.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Foog]

Sorry Bruce. I had misread what you said about DAW and copy one on top of the other and thought you meant two monitors instead of both on the same one.
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Andrew Fogarasi

[AlexLee]

Another solution, if you're on a Mac, may be an a called Spectacle. https://www.spectacleapp.com/

I use it a lot controlling what I see between 2 monitors, it would be useful on just one as well. You just need to memorize a few macros.
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Alex Lee - The Voice That Performs
www.alexleevoiceover.com

[JohnV]

Is there a posibility of having the computer run the monitor in PORTRAIT mode (sideways... tall)?
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SoundscenesDC, main talent and production offices just 385k km up the gravity well in LuNoHoCo Center, old satellite studios still bookable at the future site of Johnson City!

[todd ellis]

last year i bought a 4k monitor for video editing - i love it for viewing - but for reading, it's crap. like lee, i bought a couple old acer 1280 monitors from a local company who was upgrading for $20/ea - great resolution for reading & it frees up my already too big monitor for ... well ... nothing really.
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"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?

[Deirdre]

I use two monitors in the recording booth and for design.
No strain on ye systems.

Using 3rd monitor for music composition on the design iMac computer was a bit of a cable juggling act, but they all had different display protocols so the compy never rebelled.
(Not doing that any more at the moment-- I'm still trying to figure out where the music part is going to live here at Camp Cooper.)
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DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[Foog]

Hurray! The new monitor arrived today. Here is the difference. The "old new" monitor I bought last week was 16:9, and looked like this when I ran my DAW:



The cut off at the bottom isn't image cropping, that is literally where my screen ended. if I wanted to use any plugins, I had to drag them up far enough to access the render button, and they would cover the recorded track so that I couldn't see what they were doing to it. Like so:




And now the new (actually, new old new refurb!) 5:4 monitor that I just set up, which lets me see the track WHILE I manipulate it, no extra moving of plugin windows required. Screenshot:



I'm pleased as punch. I can once again run my plugins and see what they are doing to the track when I render, as well as keep the plugins open and out of the way when not using them. The few seconds of keystrokes/mouse-dragging that the 16:9 monitor required for each edit may not seem like a lot, but it adds up to hours per month I bet! And bonus points for my poor aging eyes, when reading scripts I can now fit more lines of text on a screen, even after changing my default zoom back to where it was previously with the, errr, old old monitor.
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Andrew Fogarasi