Hey guys, whats up.
My name is Serge,
and welcome back to my channel.
In today video,
we’ll take a look at three benefits
of using an external display,
or a dual monitor setup,
when editing in Final Cut Pro.
For my setup, I use a slightly older,
2015 15” MacBook Pro,
connected to a BenQ PD2700U monitor,
but the same thing can be accomplished
by using pretty much any Mac,
connected to any decent display.
The first benefit,
especially, if like me,
you use a laptop, is screen size.
The 27 inch display on my monitor,
is almost twice as big as my MacBook Pro.
Opening Final Cut Pro on this display,
and setting it to full screen,
gives you a ton more room.
This is what Final Cut Pro looks like
on my MacBook,
and this is Final Cut Pro
on the 27” external display.
As you can see,
there is way more room for my timeline,
and I can have the media browser
and the inspector open all the time,
and still have a decent size viewer window.
You can even press Control Command 4
to toggle the inspector height,
to extend it all the way down
to the bottom of my window.
A lot of the time when editing on my laptop,
I usually have to close the browser window,
and the inspector window when not using them,
just to make my viewer window a reasonable size.
Using a larger display,
allows me to keep all the windows open,
and still maintain a reasonably sized work space.
The second benefit of using an external display,
is you can use Final Cut Pro in a dual monitor set-up.
Whenever you have a second display
connected to your Mac, in Final Cut Pro,
you will see a second display content button.
Clicking on this button
will open up a dropdown menu,
and let you choose what part of Final Cut Pro
will be displayed on the second screen.
You can select to have your timeline on your second screen,
your viewer,
or the media browser.
This depends largely on your screen setup,
but for my combination,
I prefer to have the media browser on my MacBook screen.
This way.
I have my timeline,
a nice size viewer window,
and the inspector open on my main screen,
with my media still readily available on the second screen.
The third benefit of using an external display,
is Final Cut Pro has an A/V Output option,
that lets you send the audio
and video from your Mac to an External display.
This allows you to see what your project looks like
on a reference monitor,
such as the factory calibrated BenQ monitor I’m using.
Your Final Cut Pro window will look the same,
as if you were just using a single display,
but your viewer will also be displayed
on your reference monitor.
Any on screen controls,
such as the transform tools,
will only be visible in the Final Cut Pro.
To use your external display as a reference monitor,
you either need a Mac with an HDMI port,
or if your Mac doesn’t have an HDMI port,
you will need a third party video interface
hardware and software.
For this example, we will use my 2015 MacBook Pro,
with an included HDMI port
used to connect to the external monitor.
To set this up,
first open System Preferences on your Mac,
and select Displays.
Set the HDMI monitor as a secondary display,
by making sure the white line
is at the top is on your primary display.
Next, hold down the Option key
while clicking on the Scaled button,
and select your display’s resolution.
Close the System Preferences window,
and if you have Final Cut Pro open,
close and re-start it.
From the Menu Bar, select Final Cut Pro,
Preferences,
and click on the playback tab.
From the AV Output menu,
chose the HDMI monitor.
Now, to output the viewer
to your reference monitor,
from the Menu Bar select Window,
and Output to AV.
This will display what your exported video
will look like on the HDMI screen.
You will see whatever is in your viewer,
minus any on screen controls.
This is a very helpful feature,
especially when color grading your clips,
to help you see what the finished video will look like,
and if using a properly calibrated monitor,
you’ll see exactly what the colors
and detail in your video will look like.
So, as you can see,
using an external display with Final Cut Pro
can be very helpful and beneficial,
especially when you use a high quality
reference monitor, such as the PD2700U from BenQ.
This monitor was provided for me free of change
from the marketing team at BenQ,
and I am currently testing it.
Once testing is complete,
I will do a full, dedicated review video,
but so far, it’s been great.
I’ll leave a link for it in the video description below.
If you enjoyed this video,
make sure to hit the Like Button,
and if you’re new here,
check out the rest of my channel
for more helpful Final Cut Pro videos.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you next week.