In Broadcast - August 2017 - 76

76

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 7 - Issue 8 | August 2017

InFocus

Picture Monitoring
Contributing Editor Andy Stout rounds up some of the
latest developments in broadcast and grading monitors...

D

uring the production of
the recent Dunkirk movie
which was shot mainly in 15perf 70mm film, Christopher
Nolan carted a 70mm projector
around France so that the team
could watch the dailies when
they came back from the lab.
The fact that it took a couple
of days for the 1000ft rolls of
celluloid to be processed and
get sent back to location so that
the team was always effectively
working two days behind, is the
sort of thing read with bemusement
by a new generation of filmmakers
weaned on digital.
Picture monitoring has become
steadily more of a real-time process
as the cameras have become so in
turn, with onboard units - often with
increasingly
powerful
recording
options - increasingly de rigueur in
production. This is to the benefit of
the camera manufacturers, who as
a result can legitimately include less
onboard memory in the full knowledge
that there is a growing installed base
of third party kit out there that adds
additional functionality.
Daylight Viewing
This whole business model probably
reached its apogee so far with
Atomos' launch of the HDR-capable
Ninja Inferno. Not only does this offer
a 7-inch, 1500nit daylight viewable
monitor at a sub-US$1000 price,
but it also significantly upgrades the
recording capabilities of the Panasonic
GH5 camera from its (as shipping)
internal 8-bit 4:2:0 Long GOP to 10-bit,
4:2:2, ProRes/DNxHR.
Atomos has some history of
doing this. Its Shogun external
recorder/monitor
was
the
first of its ilk that could utilise
the 4H HDMI outputs of the
Panasonic GH4 and Sony A7s
and thus played a large part in
the steady trickle-down of 4K
shooting.
Its martial arts named
product range is impressively diverse,
comprising a series of 5-inch and
7-inch screens that start at subUS$500 and head north fairly quickly,

Atomos' Ninja Inferno
is the key to unlocking the capabilities
of the Panasonic GH5

culminating in the 19-inch on-set and
in-studio monitor recorder aimed at
DIT carts and elsewhere, appropriately
dubbed the Sumo. While obviously not
designed to compete with a proper
HDR reference monitor, at 1200nits
it will provide a display that you can
actually see while working outside.
It's claimed that Sumo has a dynamic
range of 10 stops, which is comfortably
ahead of the six-and-a-half that Rec
709 boasts, though also shy of the 12
to 15 stops that the majority of modern
cine cameras can produce.
There is an important point here:
while manufacturers claim that
their displays are HDR-capable, in
most cases these are showing an
approximation of the final HDR image
derived from the Log output of the
camera in question. In some ways it's a
cheat, but it's a necessary one and the
result has been a clutch of monitors
that show more than ever before and
don't necessitate cramming your head

into a sun hood to
see what's going on.
Indeed,
there
is
nothing
like
launching a new
monitor in the Las
Vegas sunshine of
NAB to prove this
Ultrabright - 2200nits makes the SmallHD unit visible in
pretty much any lighting
point, which might
be why quite so many seem to debut opens up another front in the battle
there. SmallHD's Ultrabright series is for monitor supremacy, in that the
a case in point, its 5-inch and 7-inch VS-5 excels at one of the other chief
versions throwing out an astonishing attributes of the on-camera minor:
2200nits and being encased in enough waveform monitoring.
Gorilla Glass that, while not exactly
This is the sort of operation that can
unbreakable, are gaining an enviable eat memory and Aputure manages
reputation for robustness.
to be astonishingly good at it for a
All that brightness costs, the 5-inch product in the sub-US$1000 category,
503 UltraBright, unlike the Atomos avoiding the perils of lag, latency, and
models has no recording option, but low resolution. Like its counterparts
there are plenty of cheaper, duller it features an HD screen, though its
(without being pejorative) models in a lack of overall ultra-brightness is comrange that extends off-camera and all pensated for by a 160-degree viewing
the way up to the 32-inch 3203 HDR angle, and the new 'x' version also
production monitor.
adds HDMI/HD-SDI outputs as well as
And brightness is not the be all and cross-conversion between the formats.
end all, the company pointing out The ability to measure waveform, vecthat its newly launched 702 OLED torscope, RGB histogram, false colour,
provides some impressive accuracy zebras and timecodes is not new -
in more controlled (indoors) shooting many of the ones we're talking about
environments.
on these pages do - but it is very well
executed.
Connectivity
Writing in the early summer lull in
the run up to IBC there is little that is
genuinely new in the field. An
exception is the Aputure VS-5x,
a 7-inch monitor that adds an
increased level of connectivity
The new
to the previously released VS-5. This
Aputure VS-5x

The DreamColor family
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.smallhd.com/ https://www.atomos.com/ninja-inferno https://www.aputure.com/products/vs-5x-1 http://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/dreamcolor-displays.html
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