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Why do you use dual screens when editing?


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Vijaya Kumar C
Vijaya Kumar C
E learning Professional
For most of the editing work single screen enough. Dual screen not required unless you are editing commercials or any fully professional videos where each frame counts............

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I read that on a video forum. They didn't have an option to ask follow up questions. They only have that guy giving answers to questions.

Can someone give examples of how they use dual screen for edits? I've never tried it so have no idea what the benefits are.

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When editing motion pictures, most of your work is actually done on the timeline, not on the image in the viewer like with Photoshop. So it helps to have the extra space on a second screen so you can move back and forth and zoom in on the timeline without constantly adjusting window sizes. That gets very annoying when you have to scroll back and forth thru the timeline constantly.

You’ll also frequently be looking for and pulling clips from the bin, which is a basically a browser window with folders where all of your clips are stored, before adding them to the timeline. There’s also usually an Effects and Metadata panel that you’ll constantly be searching thru. The more real estate for these windows the better, it’s awful when you have to resize these windows every time you want to look for something. 

It’s also nice to have a dedicated monitor just for the picture so you can see the image as large as possible. So often you may have 3 monitors for editing or color grading.

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My partner and I actually use a three screen setup most of the time because it makes it easier to have the clips, info or scopes open on one screen, the timeline on another and a preview on the third screen.

But to be completely honest a few months ago we moved and for a couple of months we only had the one widescreen monitor and we were able to work without any problems. It is beneficial seeing a larger preview of what you're doing.  

colorgrading_studioS.jpg

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I actually use 3 screens for Resolve. Left display are the media bins and effects. Right display are the preview/program windows and timeline. Upper display is the "color grading" monitor. The Left and Right displays are 2500x1400 resolution 27" LED backlit Apple displays. The upper display is a 4096x2160 DCI 4k 17:9 aspect ratio display with 10 bit electronics and panel with full 444 compatibility. I can also throw a 3rd computer display up there if I want, it's wired to do so. Normally it uses a Blackmagic decklink 12G (8k) SDI/HDMI output card, so I can retain 10 bit color space when grading. So why not use just a big monitor? Because Resolve doesn't scale properly to one monitor, it only scales properly to multiple displays sadly. So you kinda have to use 2 displays to get resolve to work properly in editing mode. Kinda one of those bugs. I use it with single displays all the time, my laptop for instance, but holy crap is it cramped. Using Resolve on a single 4k monitor is a lesson in futility sometimes. You need to have a separate display to hold all the media, effects and color panel snap shots, let alone all the Fusion panels. Its even worse with Avid and Premiere, they literally gobble up all your real estate and organizing your bins becomes nearly impossible with one display. With Avid, I've even used 3 displays before, but I still prefer 2 because when you have so much real estate it can get annoying to move your eyes between monitors lol. 

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