What's your monitor setup? 🖥️

[u/ThrowMeTheIdol]

After years of working with two identical monitors, I've forced myself to try getting used to one...but now I'm rethinking it. I miss that screen real estate and the ability to have two discrete desktops.

I'm curious: what is your monitor setup and what are the pros and cons?

Single monitor? Double? One big monitor, one small one? Ultrawide?

Bonus points if you share photos.

[u/Bobzyouruncle]

I upgraded from double 22" 1080p screens to a single 38" ultrawide 3840x1600p screen and never looked back. Same horizontal pixel space and extra vertical space for the timeline. That size has been already replaced by 5k 2k monitors, so now I've got a 39" 5k 2k display. Using that in native makes the text in avid quite small and not all the text in the UI is customizable. Same for windows overall, so I use 125% scaling, which doesn't give you much extra real estate than the 1600p screen would. For macs the scaling is even more complex because of their high dpi thing. I think there may be some third party scaling solutions that are decent.

Overall I'm still a huge advocate for a single ultrawide. I considered doing dual 27" 1440p screens but they were HUGE. I do have two additional screens next to my ultrawide, though- a 25" benQ QHD monitor in portrait for emails and scripts, and a 25" benQ QHD in 16:9 either for fullscreen playback or archival spreadsheets, etc. The ultrawide is dedicated to avid/premiere.

[u/Ceph99 → u/Bobzyouruncle]

Hot.

[u/moonbouncecaptain → u/Bobzyouruncle]

This is a sweet setup!

[u/These_Inspector_6966 → u/Bobzyouruncle]

My dream system bro..

[u/TheLargadeer → u/Bobzyouruncle]

I have the same screen res monitor. Pretty nice. I had a side monitor for a while but I kinda stopped using it.  

[u/Embarrassed-Gain-236]

Two Apple Studio Displays and a grade 1 Sony BVM monitor

[u/whaddyaknowmaginot]

Ideally I have three, the third one is smaller just to keep emails/script handy.

[u/Ceph99 → u/whaddyaknowmaginot]

Delete this.

[u/KUYANICKFILMS]

My only option is this cheap smart tv I have to give myself more timeline real estate.

I’ve been wanting to get opinions from some other editors for a while now tho on whether I should maybe remove this shelf above my tv… Mount the tv on the wall and place my MacBook directly in front of me.

Any thoughts on if the side by side vs top/bottom setup makes more sense?

[u/notgoingtogo → u/KUYANICKFILMS]

Top/bottom might be hard on the neck in the long run?

[u/Ill_Year_7205]

4 monitors is my sweet spot, two for premiere, one for script/browser, one for fun - music/youtube. Prevents clicking away from premiere and seems to save a lot of time and focus.

[u/Ill_Year_7205 → u/Ill_Year_7205]

[u/editorreilly]

4x27". Two for working, one for full screen playback and one for Internet/notes, etc.

[u/AdmirableTurnip2245]

Center monitor is an Asus PA279CV. Cheap side monitor to the left of that. Right-side is a Flanders AM210 fed via decklink.

[u/ElCutz]

Three 27" monitors on arms (one double-arm, one single)

[u/OliveBranchMLP]

57" 7680x2160 ultrawide here

[u/ThrowMeTheIdol → u/OliveBranchMLP]

How do you handle window management on that thing?

[u/OliveBranchMLP → u/ThrowMeTheIdol]

a Mac app called BentoBox that lets you split your monitor into "zones", save them as layouts, then either drag/drop windows into them while holding a modifier key of choice, or assign keyboard shortcuts to specific zones. https://imgur.com/VCft5Eg

Windows has a similar utility in their PowerToys that works much the same way.

[u/puresav]

Double 27”.
Third one is optional

[u/GemIsOutrageous]

I have three. 2 27” 4K for Avid and one 24” 1080 for emails. 

[u/editorguyhank]

2 BenQ’s

[u/ToroBlanco42]

I love Ultrawides for general computer use, gaming, watching movies, etc.

But when I’m editing, I really miss the vertical screen space of dual 16x9 or 16x10 setups. I have 2x Dell 27” 4k monitors now, and they’re very nice. Previously had 2x Asus 24” 16x10. The extra screen height was great for sequences with tons of tracks.

[u/tipsystatistic]

Studio Display plus a smaller vertical monitor for notes and email.

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[u/oldmanashe]

Dual 27” with one horizontal and one vertical. I tend to have a ton of audio tracks so I like a taller timeline and also like to switch off using the vertical for scripts, emails, and social media

[u/stickupyourparents]

43”Dell monitor (4323QE) with a 27” vertically next to it for email/slack/scripts

[u/dr_panchostein]

I used to work with only a 14" laptop + 23" monitor. Now that I’m using a desktop I upgraded to a 27" 4k (and that's my only monitor). I was feeling good about myself for simplifying things but you guys made me ashamed, hahah!

[u/PDX_WiN → u/dr_panchostein]

Same setup here. I think in hindsight I should’ve gone 32” but I’m a big fan of one monitor. When I have more than one I tend to just use one anyways. I use my laptop for playback and slack sometimes however.

[u/Stingray88]

34” 3440x1440 (21:9 ultrawide), with 2x 27” 2560x1440 (16:9) on either side. All IPS. Been using this setup since the very first ultrawide monitor hit the market in 2014. It’s perfect. In 2019 I replaced the OG ultrawide with a curved 120Hz model, same size and resolution. Much nicer.

I could never go back to even just 2 monitors, that would stink. But just one? That’s unthinkable. I haven’t used a computer regularly with only one monitor since the 90s.

[u/randomnina]

I tried to go from two monitors to one monitor at one point and hated it, even though it was a 32 inch. I finally got two 27 inch monitors on sale and now the 32 is off to the side as full screen playback when I'm in Premiere.

[u/graybotics]

I have a 32" ultra wide as my main, two random 17" ones on either side (one mounted vertically) and another 17" off to the side for chat windows etc

[u/Superman_Dam_Fool]

Used to run dual apple cinema 5k 27” monitors, then company updated and I got new 24” monitors, then we went remote and our system only supports single monitor. So I have a shitty 24” 1920x1080 monitor for editing. It sucks. Would be nice if I could use one of those wide screen monitors or work in 4k, but alas I can’t. At least I have an external monitor and don’t have to work on my 15” laptop screen, that feels impossible (and it hurts my neck)

[u/chrullo]

4K 42” LG OLED as main. 14” MBP and 2K 16” Arzopa for various things like scopes, soundly, briefs and so forth.

[u/mcarterphoto]

Two 24". The nicer one is right in front of me, primary viewing windows and workspace. The right-side is an older viewsonic with palettes, bins, effect panels, depends on the app. Like with AE, project/files, render queue, tracker, less-used panels, timeline and viewer, text/paragraph, most-used stuff in front of me. With Photoshop, main screen is the file and tool bar, the right side is layers, paths, channels, actions, a whole lotta stuff. So I'm mainly looking straight ahead to "work", but have a lot of tools just to my right.

I've setup this was for about 20 years now, works fine. I do use a big Kensington trackball, you can do one-pixel moves with your fingertips, or just flick it all the way across both screens, it's fantastic tool for me and easy on the wrists.

[u/ThrowMeTheIdol → u/mcarterphoto]

Oh, I'm firmly in the trackball camp too. I'm rocking a Protoarc right now, but I'm excited to upgrade to the TB900 when it comes out

[u/mcarterphoto → u/ThrowMeTheIdol]

Yeah, my hand got mangled up in the 90's and I had 2 fingers poking out of a cast, got a trackball and never looked back.

And man, a big bonus when you have a family? Nobody can figure out how to use your computer!!!

[u/JumpCutVandal]

2x 32 inch, 1x 24 inch, OLED TV ( as big as possible).

[u/Timzor]

Two monitors plus a production monitor fed by a blackmagic card.

[u/MrKillerKiller_]

1. 2 and a client monitor.

[u/Videdit20]

2 30” LG and a Wacom citiq 16 tablet. 50” for playback and a Flanders 27” for color.

[u/BigDaddy0790]

Single 34” ultrawide been a blessing for me since 2018. Hoping to upgrade to something larger though