Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie
by Mister Cat
on
Jan 25, 2008 at 8:51:44 pm
I searched around on this but can't find anything that helps me, including the help files in OL. I just installed everything today and started looking at the tutorial from Adobe. Since I don't have a 4 to 4 pin cable yet, my camera is not connected. However, the tutorial says I should be able to see color bars at least and check out how that will work. My field monitor is completely blank, however, and I don't know what to do. It's a laptop with no other monitors attached, the video card is set to only one monitor, etc. This is a brand new Dell D630 with nvidia quadro card. Any advice on what I should be checking?
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Vincent Becquiot on Jan 28, 2008 at 7:00:04 pm
If you can't see color bars when you hit the bars button, you are probably on Vista, which I really can't recommend running OL on. You will also experience issues with the scopes, etc. Note that many of these resolve themselves when you plug in a camera, but it's still quite unreliable, unless you go back to XP.
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Vincent Becquiot on Jan 29, 2008 at 6:52:46 pm
Hmm, then you might need to update the video drivers. The reason I assumed it was Vista is really because it has been pretty consistant on the machines we use. You should be able to see bars without a camera connected. BTW, was the screen green or black?
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Mister Cat on Jan 29, 2008 at 9:41:52 pm
The screen was black. Interesting thought about the drivers since the laptop is 2-3 weeks old. I'll look into it later when I have a chance to access the machine.
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Tim Kolb on Jan 31, 2008 at 1:49:21 pm
I'm honestly not trying to be condescending, but this seems to be an area that continues to be far less intuitive initially than the designers ever intended...
...you are clicking on the "Bars" button on the video monitor portion of the interface, right?
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Mister Cat on Jan 31, 2008 at 4:05:47 pm
Tim, yes, I'm hitting the bars button. I've been trying to follow along step-by-step with the tutorial included with CS3. Unfortunately I don't get off the first step because the monitor shows nothing. I now have my DVX plugged into the laptop and it shows nothing. I just updated the video driver and still nothing. Ideas on what to try next?
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Dustin Dallam on Mar 4, 2008 at 10:04:26 pm
I have the same exact laptop, and same exact problem...
A Google search for the video card in the laptop (Nvidia Quadro NVS 135M) lead me to a forum where someone was complaining that the card doesn't support the output of video to a second monitor... It made me start wondering if the card itself isn't capable of working with OnLocation.
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Dustin Dallam on Mar 5, 2008 at 6:06:11 pm
Update: I installed the latest video drivers available for the laptop at the Dell site and everything is working fine now.
Before updating the drivers, I noticed that the sliders for Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, etc. in the Video Color Settings of the Nvidia Control Panel were all on zero and greyed out (couldn't move them). After installing the new drivers, all of the settings are now in their default position and adjustable (something to check-out).
Re: Field monitor shows nothing--complete newbie by Steven J Casey on Mar 6, 2008 at 5:53:56 am
Dustin, you are a rock star. I downloaded the driver from Dell and everything seems to work now. I'd tried a couple of times updating the driver just using the windows update, which I see is not worth a d**n. Right now I'm sitting in a hotel and won't be able to test with my camera for a couple days, but I'm sure it's going to be fine since I at least have the color bars now.
And for the record, Adobe totally dropped the ball on this one. To this day they've never responded at all. I love the whole Creative Suite, but their support is really lacking.
