Dome Productions Tackles 4K and HDR Production with Help from Sony’s PVM-X Series Monitors
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 for many years, 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. In our previous truck builds, we’ve been using Sony’s BVM-E170 and BVM-E171, which were always reliable and priced right. So when we were looking to outfit our newest greenfield IP core mobile unit, Dome Gateway, we knew that we’d want 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 a 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 the 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 outbound to air. It’s also great that we can take whatever format we have from 720p all the way up to 2160p and the monitor accommodates it.
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 available to them. 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.
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.
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Al Karloff
Manager, Engineering Services, Dome Productions
Al has worked in various engineering roles at Dome Productions over the past 17 years. Until 2013, Al was EIC (Engineer-in-Charge) on Dome’s mobile units, covering many professional sports and entertainment shows, as well as Olympics and government summits. In 2013, he transitioned to project engineering and is currently engineering project manager where he has designed and built numerous 3G/1080p, UHD mobile trucks, and remote production facilities. Al works closely with clients and operators to ensure the truck designs accommodate the latest workflows.
