Canon used NAB 2015 to show it HDR workflow as well as some new HDR monitors. It also introduced a new 15 f-stop camera, the C300 Mark II.
To showcase all of this, it set up a DI suite in a dark theater. A dimly illuminated scene was set up and acquired with the C300 Mark II camera. This was displayed on two side by side monitors: one showing a standard dynamic range grade and the other showing the high dynamic range grade – in real time. The camera is applying the PQ curve to the 4K RAW output stream. The difference was quite noticeable, of course.
The monitors are new too. The DP V2410 is a 24” HDR monitor that uses an IPS LCD panel with a peak luminance of 400 nits. The display can allow calibrated review using a 709 or P3 color space and it does debayering of the RGGB pixel structure of the camera in the monitor. No other data has been released, but it is aimed at on-set use so the DP can see what the HDR content looks like. It joins the 30” version which is aimed at post houses. These two monitors now allow a calibrated and consistent look from the monitor to the P3 projector that might be in the post house as well.
Canon then ran some finished clips of content to show off the capabilities of the display using a cinema class projector. The image below, captured with my phone, does not show what was visible in the live demo. The bright light of the window, which is washed out in the photo, was bright, but clearly revealed a car sitting outside. The rest of the interior is dark, but details were clearly evident as well.
Canon also revealed a technology prototype flat panel display that produces a peak luminance of 2000 nits with 4k resolution. A special grade of some demo content was done to this peak luminance and shown on the display. The same content was fed to Canon existing 30” 200 nit HDR monitor, but the PQ encoded data was scaled to fit the lower peak luminance of this monitor. This is how it is supposed to work.
