FEATURE | MON I TOR I NG
Goldcrest’s credit history hardly needs repetition, but for the sake of completeness the company’s post-production page lists Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom , the Kingsman series and Skyfall amongst many others. At this level, Treherne continues, clients are demanding. “Some of the studios are now requesting a monitor profile document as part of the HDR delivery package. This document must show the gamut and precise EOTF of the monitors read by us, using a professional probe, before doing the grade. Again, we never have any problems meeting the spec defined by the studios.” Then, at IBC 2018, Sony launched the BVM-HX310. It’s a display based on LCD technology, but it has much the same specification as the X300 and targets much the same market as the X300. Why would a company risk competing with its own product, having already created a They’re not that well suited for HDR. There’s a huge challenge with burn- in, with lifespan
from now.” With brightness a sore point of OLED displays, HDR was always going to work them hard. “There were challenges,” Desmet continues. “They’re not that well suited for HDR. There’s a huge challenge with burn-in, lifespan.” A challenge indeed, given that displays using high-brightness OLED panels routinely push £30,000. Sony’s Daniel Dubreuil, product manager for professional monitors, describes the situation slightly differently, and points out some of the advantages that the BVM-HX310 enjoys as an LCD-based display. “The reason we decided to move that direction was that the new tech has an advantage over OLED. The new technology LCD can display 1000 NITs, but... on the X300 you can’t have the full-screen white at 1000 NITs. You can have 10% of the
successful display that was widely received as the holy grail? Bram Desmet, of monitor specialists Flanders Scientific (FSI), suggests that the answer may be practical. Flanders makes displays based on various technologies from various manufacturers and is a client of Sony Semiconductor, the branch of the company which manufactures the OLED panels used in X300 (and competing) displays. Desmet says, simply, that “for pro markets, the top-emission [high- brightness] type OLEDs that are used in the [Flanders Scientific] DM250s, the X300 from Sony, that tech is gone. The manufacturer has pulled out from even trying to make those. Top emission RGB OLED is not going to be around a year
ABOVE The new Sony HX310 with the extra Light Modulating Cell layer.
48 DEF I N I T ION | JANUARY 20 1 9
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