Sorry no, you're not on the right track.
By external monitor, everyone is talking an 'external broadcast monitor' connected via a YCr'Cb' pipeline - that would be cards/thunderbolt from AJA/BlackMagic/Matrox which are plugged into a broadcast quality monitor from someone like
FSI.
Television sets or LCD panels for a computer do not accurately provide the 'standard' that we talk about - it's a neutral standard that the broadcast industry uses. When you just 'plug something' into your mac, the video is handled in RGB space - a different math/storage than the method than your video is stored in.
Last, there are 15" HD screens....60" HD screens...and projectors. Some can be set exactly to a 1920x1080 HD - but some screens pad the edges for the correct 16x9 proportions. When you look at your 60" plasma, if it's a 1080, it is showing all the information. Are you 1 foot from it? 20 feet? the distance is crucial to whether it feels pixelated.
If the field sounds like a mess of standards that are difficult - they are!
The general thought: Hardware output + broadcast reference monitor = trusted output.
Best,
Jeff G
Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
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