by Laura Randall
With the increased popularity among event videographers creating 'Same Day Edits', more and more of us are getting powerful laptops for our on-site editing needs. A laptop gives you more flexibility in where you can work and less weight and bulk to lug around at events. But If you are like me, you REALLY miss your dual (or more) monitors that you are used to on your desktop computer. Even with my 17" widescreen on my laptop, my timeline just feels cramped. Now there is an easy, lightweight solution from Matrox called the Dual-Head-2-Go, or as I call it, the small and portable 'magic black box'.
The Dual-Head-2-Go plugs into your VGA port on your laptop and then you can plug up to two external monitors into the other side of the box, giving you up to three screens. And the beauty is, you don't have to turn one screw on your laptop to make it work. Install the simple software that comes with the Dual-Head-2-Go, change a few settings in your control panel, and suddenly you have tons of real estate. According to Matrox, you can have up to a 2560 x 1024 resolution stretched across two displays - that's 1280 x 1024 per display, depending of course upon your system and the monitors you are using. You can also determine your window and monitor positioning which is a great bonus.
For those who travel and use a laptop to edit, you can still use this solution if you make arrangements at your destination to have one or two monitors available for your use. I've done this very successfully on the road with my Dell M90 laptop and whatever monitors I'm able to get a hold of in my destination city. The one thing you have to understand though is that the monitor whose highest resolution is the lowest common denominator between the two monitors, is the highest that you can set the other monitor to. So for instance if "monitor A" has a maximum resolution of 1024x768 and "monitor B" has a maximum resolution of 1280x1024, the most you will be able to get on both monitors is 1024x768 each. The one downfall is that then the larger monitor might seem slightly fuzzy or too big, but again this is a temporary solution in this situation and the goal is to get maximum real estate so you can edit easier.
The other way the Dual-Head-2-Go can be used is for a more permanent solution. So let's say you want to use your laptop in the office yet you'd like to have two more monitors hooked up to it. That's fine, just make sure you have two of the same monitors so they can use the same maximum resolution. In general the Dual-Head-2-Go won't work with a docking station or expansion station since the video card is 'passed through' the docking station. I also tested the unit with Adobe Photoshop and it worked great!
The Matrox Dual-Head-2-Go retails for $169, and is an excellent value for videographers (and others) who use laptops but need to expand their monitor real estate. I was very pleased with my little 'magic black box' and look forward to continuing to use it for my mobile productions.
With the increased popularity among event videographers creating 'Same Day Edits', more and more of us are getting powerful laptops for our on-site editing needs. A laptop gives you more flexibility in where you can work and less weight and bulk to lug around at events. But If you are like me, you REALLY miss your dual (or more) monitors that you are used to on your desktop computer. Even with my 17" widescreen on my laptop, my timeline just feels cramped. Now there is an easy, lightweight solution from Matrox called the Dual-Head-2-Go, or as I call it, the small and portable 'magic black box'.
The Dual-Head-2-Go plugs into your VGA port on your laptop and then you can plug up to two external monitors into the other side of the box, giving you up to three screens. And the beauty is, you don't have to turn one screw on your laptop to make it work. Install the simple software that comes with the Dual-Head-2-Go, change a few settings in your control panel, and suddenly you have tons of real estate. According to Matrox, you can have up to a 2560 x 1024 resolution stretched across two displays - that's 1280 x 1024 per display, depending of course upon your system and the monitors you are using. You can also determine your window and monitor positioning which is a great bonus.
My test was nothing like PC Magazine might do with a hundred different monitor combinations, but I think my test was more 'real world' in that the monitors I had were not the same. In fact they were extras that were just sitting in the garage because they had been replaced in recent times with newer, bigger, wider screens. I also used a spare Sony Vaio laptop that is 4 years old just to put the Dual Head 2 Go through its paces.
The first thing I needed to do was update the video card drives on the Sony Vaio. It had probably been at least 3 years since that had been done, especially since the last two years it spent most of its time just sitting in a laptop bag not being used! So that was easy enough to do by going to ATI's website and getting current drivers. As I mentioned the monitors were different from each other, one was a Hyundai 17" LCD monitor and the other was a Samsung 18" LCD monitor as you can see in the photos. I set up my Adobe Premiere Pro timeline stretched across the two 17" monitors and then used the laptop's monitor as an 'output' screen so I could view my video in a larger format.
Wow. Quick. Easy. And it works!
The first thing I needed to do was update the video card drives on the Sony Vaio. It had probably been at least 3 years since that had been done, especially since the last two years it spent most of its time just sitting in a laptop bag not being used! So that was easy enough to do by going to ATI's website and getting current drivers. As I mentioned the monitors were different from each other, one was a Hyundai 17" LCD monitor and the other was a Samsung 18" LCD monitor as you can see in the photos. I set up my Adobe Premiere Pro timeline stretched across the two 17" monitors and then used the laptop's monitor as an 'output' screen so I could view my video in a larger format.
Wow. Quick. Easy. And it works!
For those who travel and use a laptop to edit, you can still use this solution if you make arrangements at your destination to have one or two monitors available for your use. I've done this very successfully on the road with my Dell M90 laptop and whatever monitors I'm able to get a hold of in my destination city. The one thing you have to understand though is that the monitor whose highest resolution is the lowest common denominator between the two monitors, is the highest that you can set the other monitor to. So for instance if "monitor A" has a maximum resolution of 1024x768 and "monitor B" has a maximum resolution of 1280x1024, the most you will be able to get on both monitors is 1024x768 each. The one downfall is that then the larger monitor might seem slightly fuzzy or too big, but again this is a temporary solution in this situation and the goal is to get maximum real estate so you can edit easier.
The other way the Dual-Head-2-Go can be used is for a more permanent solution. So let's say you want to use your laptop in the office yet you'd like to have two more monitors hooked up to it. That's fine, just make sure you have two of the same monitors so they can use the same maximum resolution. In general the Dual-Head-2-Go won't work with a docking station or expansion station since the video card is 'passed through' the docking station. I also tested the unit with Adobe Photoshop and it worked great!
The Matrox Dual-Head-2-Go retails for $169, and is an excellent value for videographers (and others) who use laptops but need to expand their monitor real estate. I was very pleased with my little 'magic black box' and look forward to continuing to use it for my mobile productions.
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