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Take one look around and witness an explosion of consumer and prosumer DV cameras, and even broadcast cameras like Sony's XDCAM, with IEEE 1394/iLink ports. These cameras are popping up everywhere and yet, for some reason unbeknownst to logical men and women, the industry has been excruciatingly slow to embrace a very obvious fact: If you're a serious shooter today, you want and need a high-end, onboard monitor with an IEEE 1394 interface.
Perhaps it is a lingering professional bias against consumer DV, or aloof product developers lacking imagination or insight. For whatever reason, we simply haven't seen many DV-enabled onboard monitors. This will change with the successful introduction of the Datavideo TLM-70, an elegantly manufactured, high-resolution LCD display. It compares to and even exceeds the performance of well-known monitors costing several times the unit's modest $1,299 MSRP.
The Datavideo TLM-70 is compact at 7.5"5.5"2.5", with a latest-generation 7in. TFT active-matrix display. This is encased in an extremely rugged housing. Given the rigors of many shooters' grinds these days, an onboard monitor - as exposed as it is - must be tough in order to withstand the inevitable slams and wallops incurred during normal wear and tear.
The monitor must also be frugal on power. I, for one, am dog-tired of carting around 75lbs. of battery bricks. With the move now toward disc-based cameras like the XDCAM and solid-state options like Panasonic's P2, the ravenous consumption of a conventional CRT monitor is passe. Consuming a reasonable 20W, the...