PARAMUS, N.J.—Sony Electronics will show its new Crystal LED CAPRI display featuring 1,500 candelas per square meter (cd/m²) of maximum brightness with a 2.50-millimeter LED pitch size during InfoComm 2025, June 11-13, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

The new display supports high refresh rates and brightness, a wide color gamut and antireflection, according to Sony. It also offers installation flexibility, a familiar structure, streamlined maintenance and compatibility with the company’s ecosystem of virtual production technologies, the company said.

The new ZRD-VS25FB and ZRD-VS25FM models are compatible with Brompton and Megapixel controllers, respectively, it said.

Targeted at a broad range of users looking for a cost-effective approach to virtual production applications for TV, feature films, commercials, broadcast and rental and staging, the CAPRI LED displays complement Sony’s premium Crystal LED VERONA displays, use the same controllers and offer the same luminance, enabling both lines of displays to be used together within the same LED wall, Sony said.

“With the announcement of CAPRI, Sony is furthering our commitment to the creation of Spatial Content, such as virtual production, by giving a wider range of users opportunities for flexibly showcasing images in high fidelity,” Rich Ventura, vice president of Professional Display Solutions at Sony Electronics, said. “We’ve broadened our lineup to offer more cost-conscious choices, which expand the market in support of high-quality virtual production at every level and ensure the growth of Sony’s distinctive virtual production ecosystem.”

The CAPRI series offers high refresh rates up to 7,680 Hz to reduce scanline artifacts and ensure smooth, fluid motion. With a high brightness of 1,500 cd/m², complemented by coverage of more than 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, the displays accurately reproduce lifelike images.

Antireflection capabilities mitigate the effect of reflection from lighting equipment, it said.

The series takes advantage of recent installation advancements to ensure fast and efficient setup, Sony said. Offering a 1:1 cabinet optimized for temporary installations such as virtual production stages, the models can quickly and easily be assembled and dismantled using locating pins for simple alignment and a tool-free lever locking mechanism.

To streamline maintenance, the CAPRI enables module blocks to be changed from the rear. A status indicator light makes identifying blocks that need to be serviced.

Sony expects to begin shipping CAPRI sometime in the winter, it said.

See Sony at InfoComm 2025 booth 2001.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Samsung, a new NASCAR technology partner, will provide digital displays to elevate the stock-car racing circuit’s fan experience, racing operations and enterprise processes, the company said today.

The multiyear partnership will begin with the introduction of Samsung displays and monitors for NASCAR Productions’ newly launched remote race control room, Samsung said.

Housed in NASCAR’s 58,000-square-foot production facility in Concord, North Carolina, the control room features Samsung’s The Wall as its centerpiece, allowing officials to review comprehensive, real-time video, audio and data from the track and remotely officiate races. The Wall spans 32 feet in width and 9 feet in height, NASCAR said.

The new control room will enable NASCAR to remotely officiate large-scale races nationwide in a precise, data-driven way. During races, as many as 24 officials in the room will use The Wall as their primary screen to access replays from the SBG Sports Software system, which is capable of aggregating up to 200 camera angles, all driver audio and voice-to-text transcription of team radio transmissions, it said.

The Wall’s true-to-life picture quality will deliver footage and data with the finest level of detail, presenting crisp, clear information to remote officials so they can confidently make decisions on penalties and race results.

“Our indoor LED displays and monitors will help NASCAR fuel a new era of race-day precision from the first lap to the final stretch,” David Phelps, head of the display division at Samsung Electronics America, said.

“With superior visuals and real-time data, officials will experience unmatched clarity and insight into every moment of each race—offering a level of visibility that surpasses what they could see on-site at the track. This is just the beginning of our partnership as we help to pave the future of motorsports.”

Officials in Concord will remain fully immersed in the racing action via live feeds and intercom communications to consult with their counterparts at the track.

The Wall’s large-scale display provides officials with a real-time view of information as drivers make their laps and pit stops. The screen will display a variety of data, including feeds from onboard cameras, Engine Control Units (ECUs), optical tracking cameras, Pit Road Officiating (PRO) systems and official cameras positioned at the pit, start and finish lines, restart zones and other key locations, the company said.

Officials will use a range of Samsung monitors to gather and analyze insights, including 25 27-inch ViewFinity S6 high-resolution monitors and seven 49-inch Odyssey G9 monitors. The ultra-wide, curved Odyssey G9 monitors offer extensive screen real estate where officials can simultaneously view and assess multiple data sources, enhancing their ability to support track operations, it said.

“Remote Race Control will give NASCAR officials unparalleled views of more than 200 camera angles with multiple data points from every car that were previously not available,” Steve Stum, NASCAR vice president of operations and technical production, said. “It will also allow us to make competition calls faster and more accurately than ever before to ultimately help improve the product.”

The remote race control room will be fully operational and revved up to support this year’s NASCAR Cup Series, which kicks off with the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 2.

More information is available on the company’s website.

PARAMUS, N.J.—Sony Electronics will introduce four VERONA Crystal LED displays built specifically for virtual production applications during IBC2023, Sept. 15-18, at RAI Amsterdam.

The new displays, which include the ZRD-VP15EB/23EB and ZRDVP15EM/23EM, incorporate a new Deep Black and Anti-Reflection Surface Technology that enables expression of deeper blacks while greatly reducing contrast loss resulting from the light of adjacent LED panels and studio lights. As a result, the contrast between the image projected on the LED display and an actor or actors performing in front of the display on set is significantly reduced, thus blending virtual and real in a way that reduces the time and cost required to make adjustments in post-production, the company said.

The two new models of displays—both available with pixel pitches of P1.56mm and P.231mm—also achieve a high brightness of 1,500 cd/m2 and wide color gamut covering more than 97% of DCI-P3, thereby increasing the sense of realism of shooting virtual locations. The displays leverage high-performance LED drives that enable high refresh rates up to 7,680Hz to enable a dramatic reduction in scanline artifacts on camera, the company said.

Working closely with industry leaders, Sony designed the new VERONA series with an easy-installation 1:1 cabinet design to make it quick and efficient to assemble a display that matches the desired stage size, it said. 

Featuring large, easy-grip handles, the displays make use of locating pins for easy alignment and a lever-type locking mechanism that can be operated without tools, it said.

The Virtual Production series adapts to LED designs that are curved, hanging and stacked and now offers the strength to support more weight, enabling self-stacking screens up to 23-feet high. The LED surface and edges are protected by Sony’s surface technology and specifically designed protection mechanisms that prevent damage during installation, the company said.

“As virtual production expands, Sony is uniquely positioned to provide an ecosystem of solutions – from our VENICE digital cinema cameras and Crystal LED displays to the workflows and expertise creatives require,” said Kevin O’Connor, senior director of Cinematic Production Solutions at Sony Electronics.

“The new purpose-built Crystal LED VERONA displays are a critical piece in creating virtual productions that frictionlessly marry the real and the virtual realms. Through the support of some of the most innovative filmmakers, we’ve developed a new high-quality technology that is poised to simplify and enhance virtual production through its ease of use and compatibility while enabling powerful new forms of expression.”

Sony designed VERONA to work with leading virtual production LED controllers. The ZRD-VP15EB/23EB works with Brompton Technology’s Tessera SX40, and the ZRD-VP15EM/ 23EM works with Megapixel’s HELIOS Processing Platform. The new ZRD-VP15EB model also sees a roughly 27% power consumption decrease when compared to the current ZRD-B15A model, it said.

This launch follows the latest Sony announcement of a new Virtual Production Tool Set designed to tackle common problems with virtual production and to support quality InCamera VFX.

See Sony at IBC2023 Stand 13.A10.

More information is available on the company’s website.

MIAMI—Grup Mediapro’s Mediapro US subsidiary has launched what it is billing as the largest virtual production center in South Florida.

The new facility includes a giant LED wall - 24 meters wide, 7 meters high and with over 1,000 panels - at its Miami studios. 

The opening is part of a multi-year agreement signed between Mediapro US and BrandStar, one of the longest-standing production companies in the United States, and represents a notable expansion of Mediapro's operations into the virtual production sector.

As part of the deal, BrandStar designed, constructed and installed the LED wall and will offer support services for the operation of the virtual production system.

This audiovisual installation will use Unreal Engine software, a 3D creation tool allowing the live blending of real environments with digitally created elements. 

Grup Mediapro reported that the launch is part of an ambitious plan to equip its main production centers with virtual production technology over the course of 2023-24. In this first phase of its rollout, the group plans to open centers in Miami, Barcelona, New York and Madrid.

In Barcelona, the virtual production set will be launched in late 2023. This studio will be located in 22@, Europe’s largest urban audiovisual production hub, and will combine 235 square meters of LED panels with green screens. 

In the third quarter of this year, the group will add a new, 1,500 square meter virtual production center in New York. The second phase of this strategic plan will be completed with the 2024 launch in Madrid of another center. In later phases, Grup Mediapro will deploy this technology in all its production centers.

In a statement announcing the virtual production studio, Miami-Dade County mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that “the film industry is one of Miami-Dade’s most special economic drivers. Expanding the footprint of Miami-Dade County’s film and production capabilities is one of our key strategic initiatives, and we are honored to see this new partnership bring a first-of-its-kind studio to our county. I look forward to seeing a new level of production coming into Miami-Dade thanks to this new partnership.”

BrandStar founder and CEO Mark Alfieri added that “the company is delighted to be opening a facility in Miami-Dade County. The ability to combine our experience in producing over 300 TV episodes and 1,000 commercial video projects a year with that of the Grup Mediapro team will create new opportunities for the TV and film industry.”

Each year, Mediapro US produces more than 5,500 hours of TV content and operates 10 TV channels. With a 200-strong team of staff, Mediapro US provides production services to numerous TV shows for clients such as CNN, ESPN, beIN Sports, HolaTV, Hemisphere Media Group and CONCACAF.

Certain technologies just limp along for years until they crystalize—and then suddenly its potential just explodes in your face. That has happened with virtual television and film production, which really came of age during the pandemic.

Some form of virtual production has been used for a long time, with a good example being 13 years ago on James Cameron’s film “Avatar.” However, that lavish and experimental film was far from a mainstream production. 

Today, virtual production is being used on television programs and saving real money. Smaller crews, budget constraints and pandemic restrictions have been a driving force behind the surge of the technology. For example, the FX series “Snowfall,” a show set in Los Angeles during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, saves about $50,000 per episode using virtual technology.

Since the term has been used so loosely over the years and there are different definitions of virtual production, we’ll start with a modern description, so we are all on the same page. 

Virtual Production Defined
“Today, virtual production is the use of real-time technology in production. It’s normal production—all the things that filmmakers already do—with the added ability to look at their visual effects or animation in real time,” said David Moran, director of industry relations at Epic Games, the maker of Unreal Engine 3D creation software.

“Before now, all those things were done in post and took a long time,” Moran told a 2022 NAB Show panel. “Today, we can do them with live action and normal production techniques.”

Virtual sets replace green screens and can use 2D playback of photographic footage on giant LED set walls, or 3D tracking that moves with the camera so the image changes as it does on a real set. A big difference today is the use of high-resolution LED walls to project the background of scenes, like those used on FX’s “Snowfall.”

“Computer graphics at first were very slow,” Moran said. “It took a long time to do renders, like four hours per frame. It was not good for visualizing what you were doing. Virtual production started a long time ago—Robert Zemeckis used it on ‘The Polar Express,’ a 2004 film. But then it was just the director who could see it in his own virtual camera. The latest phase of virtual production is the one where you can put the visual effects on a LED wall in front of the entire crew. Everybody can now work as they normally do on the set.”

A.J. Wedding is the co-founder of Orbital Studios in Los Angeles, a virtual production studio with satellite operations nationwide. He is also the virtual production supervisor for “Snowfall,” which uses a 62x14-foot LED wall for a penthouse set alone.

“A lot of the things that were not possible yesterday are possible today in virtual production,” said Wedding. “With pixel pitch being much tighter, you can get the camera closer to the LED wall. We are doing a lot of things that even just a few months ago were not possible. The technology is getting that much better very quickly.”

Christian Herrera, a director of photography who has worked on Season 5 of “Snowfall,” said scenes can be shot closer on LED set walls and the wall itself becomes a light source. 

“The technology is still in a very nascent stage,” he added. “So we try to work with the LED panel and camera manufacturers and say, ‘These are the issues we’re having. How can you solve them? Can you change the pixel pitch? Can you give me panels at 120 hertz?’ And we do a lot of tests about color. Color is a big problem because camera sensors don’t necessarily see the same colors that your eye sees. That’s going to be a huge improvement that’s still coming. 

“But having LED walls, instead of a green screen, makes the set a lot more realistic,” Herrera continued. “The reaction of the actors to these LED walls where they can see a playback image, allows them to get more involved, just as having a real set on a real location. They perform in the moment. 

Video Plates in Action
Herrera said he remembered a scene where “we had a nighttime video plate and the camera looked at a table where the moon was reflected on it and then it moved up to the actors. The moon was what was lighting the shot from the LED wall and it was kind of awesome.” 

Webbing added: “The workflow in television production moving from preproduction to post is tough. We were able to develop a system that’s easier for TV schedules by using video plates that we track in two-and-a-half dimensions. We basically layer it—something we can do very quickly.” 

Herrera said, “Making the video plates is a collaboration. They must work on the narrative for the script that we have. So it can get tricky going through which kind of plates and what time of the day do we need to capture. Say we do 2,500 plates on the streets of L.A. You have a lot of information and detail in the buildings, on the streets and in the moving cars. We capture all those plates with a high ISO camera. You can see all these moving elements that you cannot get on a green screen.

“Also, for a lot of these plates, we have to remove buildings that wouldn’t be there in 1985, the era of the show,” he continued. “We had to have period cars driving by. If you think about having to shoot that, in reality, you’ve got to lock up the street and have the cars going by. It’s a nightmare to do that.”

Moran said after the making of the 2009 film, “Avatar,” there was an explosion of interest in virtual production. But, he said at the time, all the productions were very expensive, and the industry failed to make the technology palatable for ordinary productions. Then, over time, virtual production evolved. It became their mission to take the real-time technology and bring it to a broader group of production types. 

“We were careful to not hype it too much,” Moran said. “Now we’re listening and learning. We have put together a lot of training programs—one is called the ‘Unreal Fellowship’—you don’t go to class, you learn on the set; it’s an apprenticeship on the set. Also, standards are very important and must be developed.”

Virtual production, when it is fully implemented, will bring another seachange to television and film production. “If you’re going to do full virtual production, you’re going to have to shift not just the workflow, but also your budget,” said Webbing.

“A lot of people say ‘Oh, my God, virtual production is so expensive.’ But you’re taking money from other buckets and putting them into this bucket. In the end, it is actually money saved. Using this technology, instead of doing multiple locations, is a lot easier and higher quality than any other way of doing production.” 

This article has been updated. 

NEW YORK—Leyard will unveil a 1.2 millimeter fine pixel pitch model to the company’s Leyard TVF Series LED video wall line at NAB Show New York, Oct. 16–17. The Leyard TVF 1.2 millimeter model delivers clear, crisp images at nearly every angle and viewing distance. It also allows commentators to distinguish and describe content standing very close to the video wall.

The Leyard TVF Series is a family of fine pitch LED video wall displays that the company says delivers superior on-camera performance with a range of refresh rates to ensure that it can be used with a variety of on-camera recording needs. It offers a 27-inch, slim-profile display cabinet, front serviceability and a creative, stackable design. The Leyard TVF 1.2 joins other models available in 1.5, 1.8 and 2.5 millimeter pixel pitches.

Leyard will also demonstrate the high contrast ratio and color accuracy of high dynamic range (HDR) content, taking advantage of the unique performance characteristics of Leyard LED video wall displays. An important emerging technology, HDR promises more lifelike images with a broader range of color and contrast to create a next-generation visual experience.

Attendees can see the Leyard TVF Series LED video wall line in the company’s booth N765.

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Olympics’ roster of products for the 2018 Winter Olympics now includes Leyard LED video walls. The Leyard TWS series will be present on broadcast sets in Pyeongchang, South Korea throughout the XXIII Olympic Winter Gamers, NBC Olympics’ Coordinating Director Michael Sheehan announced.

The Leyard TWS series is a line of LED video wall displays with a 27-inch diagonal, all-in-one design that can fit into convex curved or traditional video wall environments, either large or small.

The 2018 Winter Olympic Games will run through Feb. 9-25.