In Broadcast - August 2017 - 77

77

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

Picture Monitoring

Convergent Design's Odyssey 7Q+
is an increasingly capable machine

Evolution
This whole area is one where
products are not locked in to
specifications but rather evolve over
time as firmware updates add new
features. Convergent Design, for
example, has managed to add a whole
clutch of new capabilities to products
in its Odyssey and Apollo range in the
past year including support for Avid
DNxHD 4:2:2, 2K RAW for the Varicam
LT, ProRes Proxy, ARRIRAW 4:3, EDL
support for multi-camera recording
and more.
Probably the most powerful addition,
and one that illustrates just what
this sort of unit is capable of above
and beyond the scope of picture
monitoring, was the Titan HD extract
add-on. This uses one 4K camera to
create three HD video signals, where
one frame is a supersample of the
full image area and two are windows
selected from within the original
input. These windows can be panned
smoothly through the 4K field and the
three angles can be Live-Switched.
All four HD signals can be recorded
simultaneously in Apple ProRes with
matching timecode and filenames.

InFocus
cont'd...

Possibly due an update by the
ever-hyperactive
Blackmagic
Designs at IBC2017 as well
is the Blackmagic Video
Assist 4K, especially given
summer promotional
pricing that dropped
its price on both
the 5-inch and
7-inch. This is
another
product
whose promise has been
fulfilled by firmware updates since
release, with last year's v2.3 in
particular adding the ability to
record 4K video at up to 30fps
onto SD cards (though this is
never going to be a cheap option
in terms of media usage).
Being Blackmagic, there's a bit
of an emphasis on grading and up
to six 3D LUTs can be stored and
selected, none of which are baked in
to the outputs. A v2.5 update dropped
at the end of June as well, assigning
support for professional vector scope,
waveform monitoring, RGB parade and
histogram.
It's also worth pointing out that the
company has recently opened up its
URSA Mini pro camera to the extent
that third parties can write remote
control solutions for it. Add in the fact
that the camera has a built-in DaVinci
Resolve colour corrector, and it's not
impossible to see the debut of a live
grading solution coming to a monitor
near you soon.
Of course, one thing that all the
onboard monitors currently have
in common is that though they are
4K capable, they only display a HD
picture. For 4K and HDR display you
have to jump up to a proper Reference
Monitor.

Award-winning Dolby PRM-4220

The Blackmagic Video
Assist is rapidly becoming
a serious component of the
filmmaking toolkit

Well, you did, as a new middle
ground is in the process of being
established from the PC market. HP
probably still leads the way with its
Dreamcolor range, though there is
plenty of activity in the market with
the likes of BenQ and Eizo all in a
constant churn of introducing new
products.
HP's Dreamcolor won a Scientific
and Engineering Award from the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences back in 2015 though, and is
not loosening its grip just yet. The 31inch DreamColor Studio ISP-display
provides a Full 4K resolution and
covers 80% of the Rec.2020 wide
colour gamut and can be picked up for
under US$1300.
Reference Standards
Up at the rarefied high end of
specialist reference monitors, Dolby's

Emmy-winning PRM-4220 was
the game-changer when it was
released in 2010, the first flat
screen to outperform a CRT,
and so far the company is yet
to replace it. It does have HDR
reference displays, but these
4000 nit monsters have so far
only been demonstrated in private
rooms.
While they wait for public release,
the top of the market is occupied
by the likes of the Canon DP-V3010
4K Reference Display and the Sony
flagship BVM-X300 30-inch 4K OLED
display. The latter is considered
to be one of the best monitors out
there at the moment and is now in
its second generation, owners not
only benefitting from the increasingly
ubiquitous firmware update last year,
but also being able to choose an actual
physical upgrade route that added
an HDMI and second SDI input to the
device.
Even this though does not cover
the Rec.2020 colour space in full,
providing the sense that there is a lot
of development still to do out there
before picture monitoring fully catches
up with picture specification.

Sony flagship BVM-X300 30-inch 4K OLED display
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.convergent-design.com/plus https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/blackmagicvideoassist https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/blackmagicvideoassist https://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/cinema/products/prm-4220.html https://www.sony.co.uk/pro/product/broadcast-products-professional-monitors-oled-monitors/bvm-x300/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - August 2017
