I was pondering this afternoon if I would want one 30″ 2560×1600 LCD screen for video editing with Vegas or two 24″ 1920×1200 ones. After visually trying to fit Vegas on the resolution that governs the 30″ LCDs, it appears that I can fit on it 4 tabs of tools, the preview window in full HD size and about 3 tracks of A/V in the timeline. While this is not too bad, the reality is that for serious video projects you need more than 3 tracks of A/V. For that reason alone, having two full 24″ full-HD monitors is a better deal. You can fit all the tools, a small preview window (small because it won’t be used much) and at least 8 A/V tracks, and then you use the second full HD monitor as a “secondary monitor” for full screen video preview in 1920×1080 (so your preview video looks sharp because the zoom level is 1:1). Now, that’s cool.

The 30″ 2560×1600=4096000 pixels and the two 24″ 2x(1920×1200)=4608000 pixels give an edge of 12% more resolution to the dual screens, which is a good edge. However, the dual screens cost $800 ($400 each, and last week they had a promotion where they were selling those at just $300 each), while the 30″ alone costs ~$1200.

Conclusion: for video editing, it makes more sense to have two full-HD monitors rather than a single big ass one.