Sony at recently concluded IBC 2017, announced the new firmware updates to its professional monitors enabling them to wider dynamic range and a wider colour gamut, ensuring the monitors are ready for 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) productions.
Drawing on decades of broadcast and live production expertise, Sony’s range of professional monitors is designed to assist professional content creatives to work more efficiently and realise maximum returns on any production budget. With the rapid increase in 4K and HDR cinematography and broadcast, the urgent need for equivalent picture evaluation equipment drives Sony to enhance its leading professional monitors to meet these industry demands.
The latest firmware updates applies to High Brightness Mode of PVM-X550 4K TRIMASTER EL OLED picture monitor, and to version 2.0 for PVM-A series TRIMASTER EL OLED Full HD picture monitor (PVM-A250, PVM-A170) and LMD-A series LCD Full HD picture monitors (LMD-A240, LMD-A220, LMD-A170). With the enhancement, the monitors are capable of achieving superb colour reproduction utilizing as a reference monitor for Sony’s award-winning 4K TRIMASTER EL OLED master monitor, BVM-X300.
The new firmware provides existing PVM-X550 users with the High Brightness Mode that delivers wider dynamic range in order to reproduce more realistic colours. Optimised for 4K colour grading, the new mode achieves over 180% in HDR Peak Luminance as compared to the current PVM-X550. It also enables customised individual settings of Electro-Optical Transfer Functions (EOTF), colour gamut with the wider HDR brightness on each quadrant.
The Version 2.0 firmware update equips the high-grade picture monitors with a wider colour gamut for accurate colour reproduction for the constantly evolving demands in 4K, cinematography and graphics applications. The update supports the ITU-R BT.2020 colour space and accepts one of Quad-link 2SI 3G-SDI signals. It also offers DCI-P3, S-Gamut3 / S-Gamut3.cine and Adobe RGB settings to utilise its wide colour gamut alongside proper EOTFs such as 2.6 gamma alongside S-Log3 (SDR) and S- Log2 (SDR).
In addition, the Version 2.0 update enhanced field application features with four new camera shooting/live events support functions. They include the sync-free side-by- side where users can monitor two pictures without synchronisation; false colour that checks the exposure level of a camera at a glance from a distance; audio muting that assist users to start shooting quickly; and flexible area markers anywhere on the screen for unique screen layout such as instantly differentiate between a product and its commercial data for shopping channels.
