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DISPLAY TRENDS www.postmagazine.com 26 POST JUNE 2016 who are exposed to HDR want it," reports Scott. "They insist on an HDR version of their movie for posterity, if not immediate theatrical needs." DELUXE Deluxe's (www.bydeluxe.com) Creative Services division, the home for brands in- cluding Beast, Method, Encore, Company 3 and Efilm, has made a major commit- ment to HDR monitoring with an invest- ment in 30 Sony BVM-X300s. Deluxe is rolling them out across its creative companies in North America. The division's chief technical officer, Mike Chiado, calls the rapid move to HDR "the most exciting development I've seen in a long time. Every filmmaker we show HDR thinks it's great and says, 'I want my show to be that.' The wow-factor is imme- diate. So we want to be in the forefront of the movement." Admittedly, there are "not a lot of choices in the pro HDR monitor market yet," says Chiado. But "the Sony X300 is the first monitor I've seen that's stable, has all the functionality we need and can move easily between all the different color gamuts and gammas without turning things into a science project." The Sony X300s will be replacing Sony BVM CRTs, which Deluxe has remarkably kept in service. "Our Company 3 colorists are very particular about what they view material on," Chiado says. "We haven't found a satisfactory replacement in the professional realm since CRTs stopped being made. CRTs were our gold stan- dard, and alternate display technologies suffered from off-angle color shifts." Fortunately, Deluxe lucked into a sup- ply of spare tubes. "We warehoused doz- ens, and they have kept our CRTs running to this point," he explains. "But CRTs are stuck in the 1920x1080 world. We needed a device that could easily change gamuts and gamma or PQ; 4K was mandatory, HDR was mandatory. We're already seeing a big demand for HDR from our episodic and fea- ture clients." The X300's 30-inch size is a draw- back for client viewing where much larger displays are typically used, Chiado notes. Deluxe may opt to team bigger consumer HDR monitors with the X300; the company is also keeping an eye on Sony's PVM-X550, a 55-inch quad view 4K OLED monitor expected to be available this summer to complement the X300. Deluxe's color suites also feature Dolby's 4,000-nit Pulsar monitors and Dolby PRM-4200 professional reference monitors. Beast uses larger consumer OLED monitors with bet- ter horizontal viewing angles for its commercial clients. Company 3, Efilm, Encore and Deluxe Culver City offer grading theaters out- fitted with Barco DP2K-P and DP4K-P projectors with modified internal optics. But HDR is making its theatrical mark at Company 3 and Efilm in Los Angeles; Deluxe and Dolby collaborated on a dual Christie laser projector-based theater for Dolby Vision HDR work, which is based at Company 3. The HDR theater has mastered nearly 30 films, including Tomorrowland, Exodus, The Martian, Deadpool, Alice Through the Looking Glass and X-Men: Apocalypse. "Displays are only going to get bigger, brighter and more resolute," says Chiado. "We're doing some 8K workflows, and we'll see 8K monitors at some point. The next color gamut is Rec. 2020 and nothing really displays it right now, unless you're talking laser projectors. The Sony X300 comes very, very close though — there will be some breakthrough to allow Rec. 2020 on a flat display." LIGHT IRON NY Light Iron New York, the Manhattan-based full-service post facility (www.lightiron. com), has also embraced HDR with its purchase of Sony BVM-X300 monitors. Supervising colorist Steven Bodner is us- ing one in his main TV suite, and another one is on order for the facility to be used in another color bay or an online bay. All equipment at Light Iron New York is swappable to other rooms as needed. "HDR is the way the industry is going," Deluxe's Theater 4 color suite with Sony's BVM-X300 monitors. Christie CP4220 4K Digital Cinemas.