BURBANK, Calif.—One of the worst things you can do in Hollywood is waste someone’s time arguing over the correct setup for a monitor, which burns valuable time and money. The good news is that a true reference monitor like Sony’s BVM-HX3110 can quickly settle any debate.
Most post houses are circling the wagons around their current monitoring technology, but now we’re at the point where we must keep up with changing client and production demands.
Our Sony BVM-X300s have served us well and have given us our money’s worth. I once asked the Sony engineers in Japan about the life expectancy of its panel and they said, “8,000 hours.” I have X300 panels that have gone past life expectancy, and they still get the job done.
A Natural Evolution
But Sony’s HX3110 is a natural evolution, and colorists have widely accepted it as the reference standard.
We have four 3110s across our locations, all in use on our annual production schedule of about 50 television shows, 30 theatrical titles, music videos and client marketing projects. Plus, we handle student projects, a growing space that requires high-end monitoring. Everyone is looking for the next low-budget feature to have breakout success.
Monitoring is always changing. More clients are requesting HLG deliverables, so that changes how we approach HDR calibrations—4K is increasing and 12G is more common. The 3110 easily handles all of those functions. It all comes down to the quality in the panel, and a true reference monitor like the 3110 is on another level.
I was working with an Academy Award-winning director on a recently released high-profile film. I put up two X300s and he immediately said, “This is not my movie,” which is the one thing you don’t want to hear a director say. Then we showed him his project on two 3110s and he was happy—and this guy has the best eye I’ve ever seen.
He was seeing tracking issues that were off by maybe half a percent. Now there’s no going back. We’re doing another movie with him, and he’s got to have a 3110.
Sees Things Others Miss
The menu structure on the 3110 is intuitive, with less scrolling and navigating required. It supports up to 30 presets, which is tremendous. I configured and labeled my first 10 presets so colorists can hit the channel select button and quickly choose SDR, HDR, Rec.709, P3 legal or full range, or other commonly used monitoring setups. With other monitors, I’ve seen people lose track of whether they’re viewing SDR or HDR or assume they’re grading in Rec. 2020 when they’re working in P3. The biggest fear in my world is a colorist working in the wrong format, but the 3110 eliminates that risk and saves so much time.
I love how the 3110 handles power limiting or, as Sony refers to it, “Automatic Brightness Limiting” (ABL). When I put up a full-field image, the 3110 maintains brightness consistently across the screen, rather than noticeably dimming as large bright areas appear. If your luminance isn’t accurate, your picture will not be visually correct. I’m more confident that what I see on this monitor is an accurate representation of the signal, and clients know with certainty what their show will look like.
As far as the future of monitoring, 4,000 nits as a delivery requirement will eventually be the standard and 4K is already here. The 3110 already supports these capabilities and more, so we’re set to handle whatever comes our way for the next several years. It even matches well to the X300s.
The colorists I work with live and die by seeing things you and I can barely notice, and no one argues with a reference monitor like the 3110. Everyone falls in line because the 3110 doesn’t lie. It settles any debate.
For more information, visit the Sony Professional website.
