Re: using laptop as monitor with hd camera while shooting

Firstly, using a laptop screen for monitoring is not a good idea. Colours and Gamma are represented incorrectly, what you think is a light orange colour can turn out to be dark red, as an example.
You will first have to spend some time calibrating the screen to represent HD TV colour space, tonal quality, and base black levels. This will take time, and preferably someone who knows what they are doing.

Now for the help.
Does the camera have a firewire output on it?(You may need to set some menu options in the camera to enable the firewire port to activate whilst in camera mode.)

If so, then there are several solutions.
If you have Final Cut Pro then you can connect the camera to the laptop via a firewire cable and use the log and capture window to view (having set the capture settings to firewire). Initially the window will be small, but if you scale the canvas window to full screen size then turn on "log and capture" the viewing window will be larger, not full screen though.
Another option is if you have Adobe CS4, it has a program called "On Location". Connect the camera via firewire and use this program for monitoring.
And lastly, there are some on line programs such as "Monitor Magic" and "Scope Box" that provide the same service, but you will have to pay to get them.