Sony unveils new 4K HDR reference monitor and launches TRIMASTER HX brand

 Asia Pacific, 14 September 2018 – At IBC 2018, Sony announces a new 31-inch Grade 1 reference monitor, the BVM-HX310, which offers accurate colour reproduction and high-contrast performance that provides assurance to professional content creatives in critical picture decisions. The launch of the new reference monitor also marks the introduction of Sony’s new technology brand TRIMASTER HX.

The BVM-HX310 has been created in response to the industry’s desire to overcome the challenges of accurate picture evaluation, especially in the black reproducibility. Accurately reproducing images down to individual pixels is possible, thanks to the combination of Sony’s specified and dedicated panel and its newly developed display processing technology. The new monitor is fully capable of reproducing 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) content, supporting industry standard brightness of up to 1,000 nits in full-screen and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio for HDR productions.

“Drawing on decades of post-production and live production expertise, the BVM-HX310 is designed to provide professionals with images they can trust, helping them to work more efficiently and achieve better creative focus, whether on location or in a studio,” explained Mr Takuma Wada, Head of Content Creation Solutions Marketing, Professional Solutions Company (PSAP), Sony Corporation of Hong Kong Limited. “At Sony, we continuously work with our customers to offer solutions that help them overcome the challenges they face daily. The result of this process is that, together, we create innovative solutions like our new reference monitor.”

Sony also introduced its new technology brand, TRIMASTER HX. HX represents the combination of both HDR (‘H’) and Liquid Crystal (Xtal) Display (‘X’) technologies. Monitors of this range offer the accuracy, consistency and quality of colour reproduction.

“When content professionals choose a reference monitor from Sony, they expect our solutions to offer trustful image quality,” Takuma added. “TRIMASTER HX is the new umbrella brand that incorporates Sony’s specified million contrast LCD panel and its unique panel controlling technology to deliver consistent picture quality, accurate colour reproduction with the deepest blacks, and provides high-contrast performance consistent with our current award-winning reference monitor, the BVM-X300.”

The BVM-HX310 hosts all major HDR EOTF and, for the first time in Sony professional monitors, 12G-SDI is supported to allow simple 4K transmission with a single SDI cable. It handles ITU-R BT.2020 colour space and HDR images with Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), SMPTE ST2084 and 2.4 (HDR) gamma alongside S-Log2, S-Log3 and S-Log3 Live HDR for SR Live Workflow.

In addition, users can load predefined Look Up Tables (LUT) based on their viewing requirements onset or in post-production thanks to BVM-HX310’s User LUT function. The existence of multiple EOTF in 4K/UHD, in addition to multiple colour spaces and RGB ranges, give rise to potential complexities in source identification.

The latest 4K HDR reference monitor incorporates Video Payload ID (VPID) which identifies signal information embedded in the SDI interface to help switch to appropriate display settings automatically – minimising the potential for human errors.

BVM-HX310 offers a Quad View mode, allowing professionals to view up to four customised individual display settings across the monitor in HD (including EOTF, colour space, transfer matrix and colour temperature), which was previously introduced on the PVM-X550. The mode will also support User LUT of the BVM-HX310.

Sony will be exhibiting at IBC 2018 on stand 13.A10 in the Elicium Hall, RAI Amsterdam. Join us at the Sony booth or visit pro.sony to find out more about the BVM-HX310.