TORONTO—As a leading production facilities provider, Dome Productions executes live sporting events and entertainment, as well as corporate productions, working closely with major broadcasters, leagues, teams, production companies, government bodies and content creators. We pride ourselves on providing technologies and expertise that contribute to a visually engaging and immersive end result. We’ve been a longtime Sony user, incorporating their imaging technologies into our workflow, so we’ve come to trust their expertise and dependability.
At Dome, we’ve produced more than 1,000 live 4K events over the past five years, and as our clients began embracing 4K and HDR production, we needed advanced monitoring solutions to meet those needs.
4K MONITORING ON WHEELS
In our previous truck builds, we had been using Sony’s BVM-E170 and BVM-E171, which were always reliable and priced right. When we were looking to outfit our newest greenfield IP core mobile unit, Dome Gateway, we knew we wanted to explore the latest options from Sony. We were pleased to learn about Sony’s new PVM-X series picture monitors, the 24-inch PVM-X2400 and 18.4-inch PVM-X1800, which incorporate a 4K native panel, HDR and wide color gamut while offering the color accuracy we’ve come to expect from the company.
4K was an extremely important selling point for us. With the PVM-X series, we recognized the benefits of using a native 4K monitor that doesn’t require scaling and has no delay in internal processing. For our line of work, lip sync is especially important, as is the ability to work in real time and provide an accurate representation of what is going out to air. It’s also great that the monitor accommodates whatever format we have, from 720p all the way up to 2160p.
In our field, a video operator serves as the main point of quality control so they need to have the best tools for the job, so having a dependable monitor like the PVM-X series that combines 4K with high-quality color accuracy, very low processing latency, wide color gamut, HDR support and options for LUTs, is critical.
In addition to the key features, it was beneficial to choose a Sony panel that fits perfectly into the fixed space in the truck’s wall. It was also instrumental that the PVM-X series seamlessly color match with our other Sony monitoring technology and complement the imaging from our Sony cameras. We always look to select options that can easily integrate into our existing workflow, grow with us and have a long lifespan to ensure a return on our investment. That’s why we’ve been so pleased to be among the first users of this new series of monitors.
MORE TO COME
There are more features incorporated into the PVM-X series that I hope to take advantage of in the near future; for instance, the quad-view capability. The monitors provide four independent inputs so you can display four different signals at the same time or compare the same signal in different ways. We haven’t used this yet, but we look forward to deploying it soon when we get back into HDR productions.
Based on the success we’ve had with the PVM-X series monitors in our Gateway truck, we are currently in the process of replicating the monitor setup in our all-4K Dome Silver truck, along with implementing Sony’s HDC-5500 system cameras, to continue the collaboration.
Al Karloff has worked in various engineering roles at Dome Productions over the past 17 years. He is currently engineering project manager where he has designed and built numerous 3G/1080p, UHD mobile trucks and remote production facilities. He can be reached at Alan.Karloff@domeprod.com.
For more information, visit pro.sony.
