Atomos Sumo - NAB 2017

I have been interested in the Convergetn Design Apollo, but at 19" monitor / switcher / recorder seems much nicer than a 7" if you've got a table you're working from.
 
A 19" screen is certainly a lot more comfortable for fat fingers, but there are a few things the Apollo can do that the Sumo won't. Worth doing a thorough comparison to see which suits your needs. Not claiming one better than the other; each has its advantages.
 
Got to see this in the flesh just recently, really nice piece of kit. The nicest I've seen from Atomos to-date.

I can see this absolutely killing it for video village or director/client monitoring purposes. Has great viewing angles, is nice and bright, has an easy battery plate solution, mounting points for wireless receivers, can display multiple camera feeds, good 3D LUT support, and of course, internal recording so that the Director/Scripty can have playback at their fingertips.

Answers a lot of the complexities of on-set monitoring, I think it's a lovely piece of kit with a lot of potential.
 
One thing that is not fully clear to me is Atomos approach to HDR.

They advertise this as HDR, which in my view should mean among other things supporting an appropriate gamut, but apparently the monitor is Rec.709.

If this monitor is a Rec 709 monitor that is just very bright it does not deserve the mark HDR IMHO.

But perhaps I am misunderstanding the specs and is it possible for this monitor to show gamuts larger than Rec.709.
 
Cary Knoop said:
One thing that is not fully clear to me is Atomos approach to HDR.

They advertise this as HDR, which in my view should mean among other things supporting an appropriate gamut, but apparently the monitor is Rec.709.

If this monitor is a Rec 709 monitor that is just very bright it does not deserve the mark HDR IMHO.

But perhaps I am misunderstanding the specs and is it possible for this monitor to show gamuts larger than Rec.709.
Click to expand...
Jeromy Young explains their stance at about 6m20s here:
https://youtu.be/1hXN4JlwHRY
 
I think technically speaking, HDR only refers to the range of brightness levels a display can produce. Wide color gamut is often used to refer to displays that can produce a larger color space. This white paper from Canon has a decent overview:
http://learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/white_papers/White_Paper_HighDynamicRange.pdf

Now on the consumer side, everything gets a little muddy and HDR is often used to refer to a range of different display quality improvements (including resolution, contrast, color space, etc.). The UHD Premium designation for TVs from the UHD alliance has the following specifications (somewhat confusingly, Sony refers to TVs which meet these specifications 4K HDR rather than UHD Premium):
  • Image Resolution: 3840×2160
  • Color Bit Depth: 10-bit signal
  • Display Reproduction: More than 90% of P3 colors
  • A combination of peak brightness and black level either: a) at least 1000 nits peak brightness and less than 0.05 nits black level OR b) at least 540 nits peak brightness and less than 0.0005 nits black level

The key point here is that if you were to target more than 90% of the DCI-P3 color space, there's no guarantee that many TVs would be able to reproduce it. And once you go beyond 100% of P3, things get even more uncertain as there are almost no displays capable of producing 100% of Rec 2020 currently:
http://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/picture-quality/wide-color-gamut-rec-709-dci-p3-rec-2020

All of this means that while the Atomos monitors (like the Sumo, Flame and Inferno models) are useful for monitoring HDR footage (referring strictly to range of brightness), if you need to be able to monitor a larger color space like DCI-P3 you likely need a different display for this. For on set monitoring, when you are recording a log or RAW signal, the lack of wide color gamut support may not matter so much. But for editing and post production, especially if you actually are delivering in a DCI-P3 color space, you may want a P3 capable monitor.

There's some useful information about Rec. 709 vs. DCI-P3 and what the effects are of different color space mismatches in this article from Red:
http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/cinema-color-management
 
Just to be clear, the number of displays of any type (other than a mathematical reading from a scope) that are capable of showing Rec2020 is currently zero.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Just to be clear, the number of displays of any type (other than a mathematical reading from a scope) that are capable of showing Rec2020 is currently zero.
Click to expand...

Is this why high end colorist suites with top of the line Sony BVM-X300 or Canon DP-V2420 reference monitors still need a laser projector?
 
Mitch Gross said:
Just to be clear, the number of displays of any type (other than a mathematical reading from a scope) that are capable of showing Rec2020 is currently zero.
Click to expand...
That is true, but on the other hand there is an opportunity between Rec.709 and Rec.2020, P3 for instance.
 
Cary Knoop said:
I wished they would have done the opposite, a top rated portable recorder without a monitor for $500.
Click to expand...

I would like to see something like this as well. Atomos did have a product along these lines with the Ninja Star, but perhaps it didn't sell well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top