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in late 2007 I did a review of Red Lightning Software's HD Monitor Pro (http://bit.ly/d4gy6c). At the time it was a nice application that let you view video images directly from your video camera, log, and record directly to your hard drive. In this article I'd like to briefly revisit this app, because it has evolved significantly- even to the point of spinning off a second application, Shot Logger Pro.
HD MONITOR PRO 1.6
Like the earlier version, HD Monitor Pro 1.6 will act as a software monitor- a very accurate one for Panasonic NTSC DVCPRO-HD cameras as well as for NTSC and PAL DV cameras. Focus, exposure, and white balance are much more accurate when done on production monitors. Considering the price of those monitors, HD Monitor Pro is a realistic alternative with full 1:1 resolution.
I tested the new version on a second-generation 17'' MacBook Pro. My media drive was FW 800 connected via an ExpressCard adapter. This leaves the built-in FireWire ports free to simply read the HD video signal coming from my Panasonic HPX170.
I don't recommend using the built-in FW ports to run a camera and a hard drive. But if your system drive has enough space, you can record to it directly. Just don't edit video footage directly off of your system drive; hard drives don't support enough bandwidth to stream video and audio and perform OS and app tasks at the same time.
NEW FEATURES
I'm very impressed with the image quality in HD Monitor Pro, as well as its ability to zoom in and move around the zoomed image as well. The supplied overlays are also very professional and useful grid lines, such as action safe, title safe, rule of thirds, center crosshair, and alignment (Figure 1).
The new version also gives us very nice audio meters with heavy, black lines at 12db increments and the usual green, yellow, and red color areas. The audio meters also conform to standard DVCPRO-HD with channels 1 and 2 grouped together and channels 3 and 4 grouped together. Of course there are standard zebra stripes, flip and squeeze display modes, and a tool to calibrate your Mac's screen to match NTSC colors as closely as possible.
A new feature I...