Video Assist advantages

Blackmagic Design make a product called a Video Assist. They are fancy monitors and recorders typically paired with a good video camera.

Advantages

Added redundancy as you can record to multiple SD cards.

Bigger viewfinder, making it a lot easier to pull focus.

Can record in mezzannine codecs, don’t need to convert your source footage.

Screen autorotates giving a variety of positioning options.

Lots of useful features like focus peaking, zebra, frame guides etc.

Automatically records when you use the record button on your camera.

LUTs, allows you to apply a look to the monitor, so you can get an idea of how the finished images look when editing.

Good inputs and outputs, can hookup HDMI/SDI/XLR in and out.

Can place the monitor in a more convenient spot such as closer to the operator when using a jib.