Multiple Monitors

In the last post on using a customized keyboard, we got a great comment on the use of multiple monitors. We've been using dual monitors on all of our production machines at Pixel Workshop for as long as I can remember, certainly going back to the 8100av Mac days, as I recall.

It's a simple, inexpensive way to markedly increase your productivity. There's the obvious benefit of increased screen real estate, but I also find I like the organizational aspects of having a primary and secondary monitor. Being able to place apps, windows or palettes that I'm not using "out of the way" (but still available at a glance) is a really nice organizational tool for me. Apples recently added Spaces feature is an attempt at this via a single monitor, and it is indeed useful, but I still wouldn't give up multiple monitors.

I know plenty of editors, people I respect, who insist that a single large monitor is the way to go. Certainly, there's something to be said for having a Final Cut Pro or After Effects timeline stretch across a 30" monitor, but I still prefer the organizational aspects of two screens. Even if I had a 30", I'd have a smaller, secondary monitor, too. (Our main edit system has two Dell 24" monitors.)

It should be noted that there is a potential performance hit when running two monitors from a single graphics card, since the VRAM is split evenly between the two screens. Apps like Motion and Color (and, to a lesser extent, Final Cut) use the graphics card to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and you're essentially halving the amount of memory available for the graphics card to use on any given window. (Installing a second card would solve this issue, but alas, slots are still somewhat dear in the typical Mac Pro being used for video and motion graphics.)

I have an iBook G4 I use for email and web surfing (soon to be retired and replaced with a Macbook Pro, I'm hoping...) and I recently added an external 22" monitor to use when I'm at my office desk. Wow. What a difference! My productivity has noticeably improved.

Oh, one more thing, a bit of a blast from the past. I remember years ago, probably when we were using 9500s as our main workstation machines, setting up a machine with three monitors, one in the middle and one on each side, because there was a F-15 flight simulator that would give you front and side views when using multiple monitors. It was a gather-up-the-geeks cool moment in our studio.

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