Flanders Scientific is a specialist supplier of broadcast monitors that has a special relationship with Zunzheng Digital Video Co Ltd in China as a sales agent and also supporting manufacturing.
One new monitor was the XM550U which is a 55″ UltraHD OLED monitor that can be used as a Grade 1 monitor for SDR as it has 750 cd/m² of peak white. The monitor has 12G, 6G and Quad 3G inputs. As well as displaying UltraHD, the monitor can output downconverted HD. It has support for 3D LUTs for calibration and includes broadcast features such as waveform, vectorscope and RGB parade. The monitor is expected to start shipping in Q4 of this year and pricing is likely to be around $15,000. The company is also developing a 77″ version.
The XM310K is a new 4096 x 2160 monitor that uses a 2,000 cd/m² panel with 2048 individual LEDs in the backlight to provide 1,000,000:1 contrast and is intended to be used as an HDR reference monitor. It can support ‘multiple HDR formats’. Calibration is via 3D LUTs and the panel has 10 bits of greyscale and 100% of P3 gamut. The chassis has similar features to the XM550U. The monitor is expected to sell for around $45,000.
Analyst Comment
The XM310K uses a different approach to the 1,000,000:1 contrast panels from Ikegami and Eizo. The other one uses a dual LCD layer, but the 2,000 cd/m² version instead uses a modulated direct backlight with 2048 separate LEDs. There is experts say, a small halo effect when the monitor is made this way, although it wasn’t obvious to me.
Buyers need to decide if they need 2,000 cd/m² for mastering. That is the level that may be ideal for mastering PQ, although the BBC said that HLG and PQ are effectively identical when graded at 1,000 cd/m², so that level is a good one for content that may be supplied both ways. (BBC Updates on HLG Status). (BR)
