Apple Final Cut Pro 6 - Manual (Page 223)

222 Part III Setting Up Your Editing System
Connecting a Third-Party Video Interface to an External Monitor
You can use third-party video interfaces to connect a Final Cut Pro system to an
external monitor. A third-party interface may be able to transcode your sequence to
one or more of the following output formats: SDI, HD-SDI, analog component (YUV),
S-Video (Y/C), composite, and even DV. For more information about these signal
formats, see Chapter 12, “
Connecting Professional Video and Audio Equipment ,” on
page 171.
Some interfaces and decks can also downconvert an HD sequence to SD video output.
For example, while editing an HD sequence, you can use an appropriate third-party
interface to downconvert your HD video to a letterboxed standard definition SDI signal.
The SDI signal can be connected to an SD broadcast monitor.
Note: Make sure that the output format of your video interface and the input format
of your video monitor match. If you have a consumer monitor, it probably has only
composite analog video input, even though your video interface may support a
higher-quality output format (such as SDI or component analog).
Choosing Playback and Edit to Tape Output Settings
The settings in the A/V Devices tab of the Audio/Video Settings window determine
which video interface you use to externally monitor your video. You can choose to view
external video via FireWire (DV), a computer display (using Digital Cinema Desktop
Preview), or a third-party video interface. You can also specify a different output
interface for editing to tape versus playback while editing.
Although these settings reside in the A/V Devices tab of the Audio/Video Settings
window, you can choose a video interface from several other locations in Final Cut Pro:
 Summary tab in the Audio/Video Settings window: In this tab, you can choose video
and audio output interfaces from the corresponding pop-up menus.
 View menu: Instead of going to the Audio/Video Settings window, you can select
video and audio interfaces for external monitoring by choosing:
 View > Video Playback, and then choosing the name of the video interface
 View > Audio Playback, and then choosing the name of the audio interface
Note: When you choose an Easy Setup, the external video and audio playback settings
are automatically set for you because audio/video device settings are stored in an Easy
Setup. For more information about Easy Setups, see Volume IV, Chapter 24, “Audio/
Video Settings and Easy Setups.”