I was pondering this afternoon if I would want one 30″ 2560×1600 LCD screen for video editing with Vegas or two 24″ 1920×1200 ones. After visually trying to fit Vegas on the resolution that governs the 30″ LCDs, it appears that I can fit on it 4 tabs of tools, the preview window in full HD size and about 3 tracks of A/V in the timeline. While this is not too bad, the reality is that for serious video projects you need more than 3 tracks of A/V. For that reason alone, having two full 24″ full-HD monitors is a better deal. You can fit all the tools, a small preview window (small because it won’t be used much) and at least 8 A/V tracks, and then you use the second full HD monitor as a “secondary monitor” for full screen video preview in 1920×1080 (so your preview video looks sharp because the zoom level is 1:1). Now, that’s cool.

The 30″ 2560×1600=4096000 pixels and the two 24″ 2x(1920×1200)=4608000 pixels give an edge of 12% more resolution to the dual screens, which is a good edge. However, the dual screens cost $800 ($400 each, and last week they had a promotion where they were selling those at just $300 each), while the 30″ alone costs ~$1200.

Conclusion: for video editing, it makes more sense to have two full-HD monitors rather than a single big ass one.

I felt like doing some shopping therapy today, so I spent about $350 for a SLIK 504QF-II fluid head and tripod legs and the 0.7x wide-angle WD-H43 lens for my HV20. It’s funny how I get to spend money on that stuff, and I always forget to buy a new bra (I am reminding myself every few days that I need 1-2 new ones, but I always manage to forget buying clothes).

I had a fluid tripod head before (the Bogen 701RC), but it sucked. I couldn’t get it to pan smoothly, at least not without a rubber band. With this new tripod head I am able to pan as good as with the rubber band, just by using my finger. Moreover, the tripod comes with good legs, which is something I really needed: on old timelapse videos of mine the video was shaky because the camera was moving a bit with the wind as my old generic Quantaray Ritz-branded tripod legs were too cheap and light.

Here is a sample video showing both the tripod head’s abilities and the lens’. Much better quality version here (3 MB).