Monitor for a Surgery Training Kit

[JohnWalton]

Hello everyone,

I am a soon-to-be surgery resident and recently got some training equipment for practicing laparoscopic surgery at home. The training kit includes a fold-out box into which you insert instruments and a webcam for viewing what you're doing in the box.

However, the webcam has rather poor image quality and lags too much to use.

I do have a GoPro Hero3+ Black, which should be all the camera I need. Now all I need is a monitor.

I wanted to ask the AnandTech community's help in finding a monitor which will allow me to do the following things...

1. Plug in my GoPro or some other HD camera (i.e. HDMI)

2. Display at a high resolution (1080p preferable, I could probably get good enough detail at 720p if needed)

3. Display at a latency low enough that the camera's image feels as instant as the movements of my own hands. Now I'm not familiar enough with monitors to know exactly what Hz value is acceptable/unacceptable. I'll need your help with that part

I'd like to keep it under $350. No need for SmartTV or 3D.

My future patients and I thank you very much for your help.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think what you want is a PC monitor more so than a TV. Nice ones with minimal lag can be had for about $130 off amazon. Lag on a monitor or TV is measured in miliseconds(Ms), not to be confused with the refresh rate of the panel which is rated in hertz(Hz).

Something like this http://www.amazon.com/VS228H-P-22-In...=1080p+monitor

 

[DesiPower]

CRT ftw, if you can find a good one

 

[Nebor]

I think 3D would add a lot to the experience.

 

[JohnWalton]

Thank you all for the responses.


cmdrdredd: Thank you for the recommendation, it looks terrific! Milliseconds- that makes much more sense.
5 milliseconds sounds pretty good to me, but I've never tried out and compared monitors based on lag. Does lag get lower than 5 ms? And is that worth investing in?

DesiPower: A CRT would look badass, but I'll be storing the monitor and surgery kit in a closet when not using them, so not likely to have room for it. Good thought, though.

Nebor: You're exactly right! I wish they made lap cameras with 3D, but apparently 2D is good enough for the vast majority of lap cases. While 3D would make practice significantly easier, that practice may not be as applicable to the standard 2D laparoscopy.

 

[Nebor]

I believe we should start seeing 3D colonoscopes hit the market in late 2014, so that technology should start to bleed over to other micro-cameras soon thereafter.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I believe some manufacturers rate their panels down to 1ms or 2ms but they rate gray to gray and that doesn't translate well to the real world.

 

[JohnWalton]

Nebor: sounds cool! 3D is already built into the control consoles for the Da Vinci robot, though at this point in my training I couldn't say how helpful that particular feature is. Affordable 3D lap cameras could be a smart move for surgical supply companies competing with Da Vinci for pure lap vs robot cases.

Regarding grey-to-grey lag, what do you all think of the statement in this thread that grey-to-grey is a measurement prone to manipulation by manufacturers only advertising the most favorable GTG result of many tests?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1221711/what-does-response-time-2-ms-gray-to-gray-mean-in-specs

Is there an additional metric you would recommend considering when trying to buy a monitor with minimal lag?

Thanks again for your advice.

 

[Howard]

The GoPro-style cameras have a very wide angle lens. Is this OK for you?

 

[JohnWalton]

Howard, thanks for the response. Yes, the image on the GoPro is close enough to what I need (you can change video field of view to a more narrow one).