Three West

Back in the day I used to own a Fuchsia 1977 Chevy Impala. That’s right, Fuchsia. *Smile* The car was having some problems with the carburetor and so I decided to buy a kit to rebuild the carburetor. I admit, I was motivated by the ridiculous prices I was being quoted by mechanics.

So I bought this kit (a mere $10 or so) and removed the carburetor from the car. I had my Chilton’s manual and my kit and went to work on cleaning it and replacing the old parts with the new ones from the kit (an extremely easy task).  When I was done, I went out to the car to put the rebuilt carburetor back on. While doing that, one of my roommates said to me “What if your car doesn’t work?”. It was a strange question to me. My response “Why wouldn’t it work?”.  I wasn’t being naive I just felt like if I’d informed myself (i.e. knew what kind of carburetor I had, knew what kind of kit to get for that carburetor, had the Chilton manual with exact steps on what to do, followed them, etc.) there is no reason why it wouldn’t work. It worked before I took it off (however terrible) and it should work better when I put it back on. It did indeed work fantastic when I put it back on.

I told this story specifically for this post because it has two important relevant elements. 1. You may be attempting to do something considered mystical by the average person, and 2. You may be told it can’t be done, it’s not worth doing, or you just should buy a new one (I was told all three of those things in regards to my carburetor issue).

Lets get a little more backstory shall we? If you search the web to find out about how to convert an LCD panel from something like an old laptop into a LCD monitor for whatever you want to use it for, you will find “it can’t be done”, “it’s not worth it”, “it’s easier just to buy a new monitor”. Those things may have been true at one point but it no longer applies today.

Low budget filmmakers often want and need to find cheaper solutions for production monitors. Let’s face it, they are very expensive. The CRT ones are not only very expensive but usually very big, bulky and heavy and not really what you want to take on shoots (however just fine for post production work). So then we will consider LCD options. The cheaper portable LCD monitors are still a little expensive but if you happen to find one at a reasonable price such as the ones http://www.LCD4Video.com carry, then the quality is only good enough for framing. If you’d like a higher quality monitor for focusing you are looking to spend well over $500. I know in a world, used to paying big bucks for electronics, there are still many of us who believe we are being ripped off in that regard. I’d go into that but it would be quite a novel.

Many thrifty filmmakers then decide to use commercial LCD TVs or monitors …um… the big ones, to avoid paying the high costs for the small LCD production monitors. But who wants to lug a big ole LCD monitor or TV around? And we are still talking somewhere between $180+ for one of those unless you can find something used.

So then there are those of us who want to take an old laptop LCD Panel and make our own affordable LCD monitor that has a high enough quality for focusing. LCD panels can be had from old and new laptops that are no longer working but still have good screens. You can obtain these all over the internet for as little as $8. These are the main things to consider for your project:

1. LCD Panel - Any resolution; but for focusing you may want a bare minimum of 1024×768.
2. LCD Controller - This just isn’t any ole LCD controller. You need one with multimedia ports. The bare minimum for making a production monitor would be one with just AV ports (yellow, red, white). This is the primary component that makes people think it’s not possible to pull a laptop screen out and convert it for other use.
3. LCD Inverter - The Inverter lights up the fluorescent tube inside the LCD screen. These are actually already present in the laptop. If it is still good, pull it out with the LCD Panel and use that instead of buying a new one, unless your controller comes with one then just use the new one.
4. Button Bar - This little board connects to the LCD Controller and adds button functionality for controlling your LCD Panel. These can be obtained dirt cheap as well.
5. The LCD Case - You just need something to put everything in for a finished monitor. The beauty about a DIY monitor is that you can make a case that fits your gear and you can be mindful of where you plan on mounting it or how you plan on using it.

So our task here is to build our own focus quality production monitor using an LCD panel pulled from a laptop and to build it at an affordable price. I must mention that there are at least two companies selling LCD kits that include focus quality LCD panels, controllers, inverters and button boards. These kits are indeed made from LCD panels from Laptops and they work great.

This will be a multi-part tutorial as I’m in the process of making this monitor. Stay Tuned for Part 2!