I can't help.

But if it's any consolation I do exactly the same thing
with my movies and have for years. I always have a standard
TV monitor hooked up do do all my final color and image
work. And I have top of the line Apple Cinema Display.

I spent 4 weeks (240 hours) tweaking my 96min. feature.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

CI,

thanks, you always help out. what i am planning on doing is getting some type of s-video or vga cable to connect it to a television while in post-production.

p.s.

no matter how many hours you spend writing, drawing out, planning, setting up, shooting, reshooting, editing, composing, authoring...once you put that dvd in your player and watch something you created...there is nothing like it.

i love this digital age we live in. the only advantage major studios have that we don't is the ability to spend millions on celebrities (which does not make up for a bad story) and the ability to have 10 guys hold a cable just because they have deep pockets.

CI, do you have a link to your work?

What do you mean by "terrible?" Color balance? Gamma? Something wonky with the interlacing?

Using a TV to preview your footage as you edit will definitely give you a much better view of how it will look when it's finished (especially in terms of gamma and color balance). Just make sure that the screen is well calibrated, and keep in mind that individual TV sets can vary drastically from the "proper" settings.

-----------------
Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my vodcast on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=96931870
and my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com

..yes, please specify what you mean with looks terrible....

as of workflow it was said already hook up a tv to your system.but not necessarily as secondary display.
instead connect it to the output of your capture card and use the tv as control monitor.
this gives you more correct results than simply playing back an avi or mov on your tv as secondary display.

if you aren't using a capture card with that capability you will have to burn a dvd to see how it looks. I suggest to make the changes you want only on a few frames in each shot. this way you have hardly any rendertime and the dvd encoding/burning is quick too.
see if things work like expected and do your thang then.

btw. you can calibrate a monitor using software and hardware solutions but it is not cheap and requires some knowledge in that field.

the tv you are using to calibrate should not have settings change too drastically, always return to neutral settings.
keep in mind that many people changed their settings on the tv. some have higher contrast or less, others like it brighter and again others want more or less saturation.

if you want to keep it safe you might mimic those changes on your control monitor too to see if your footage works in all settings.
actually if you did compositing/fx work cranking up the brightness or down the contrast might reveal even errors you made.....