Barco RHDM-2301 User manual

Barco’s High-Definition reference monitor
New Grade-1 LCD captures Barco’s broadcast expertise
Carl Peeters, President of Barco’s Security & Monitoring Division,
talks about the strategy behind the company’s
re-entry into the Grade-1 reference monitor business.
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At this year’s National Association
of Broadcasters’ NAB, 14–17 April
2008, Barco builds on its estab-
lished reputation in color monitor-
ing with the introduction of its
RHDM-2301 Reference Monitor. Carl
Peeters, President of Barco’s Secu-
rity & Monitoring Division, talks
about the strategy behind the com-
pany’s re-entry into the Grade-1
reference monitor business.
Carl Peeters: “Although our last ‘official’
Barco-developed Grade-1 reference
monitor was launched some years ago
we have continued to develop the core
technologies needed to create market-
leading calibration solutions.”
The RHDM-2301 is the latest evidence of
this ‘red thread’ through Barco’s broad-
cast display and visualization solutions,
which started nearly 40 years ago when
the company created the world’s first
state-of-the-art reference monitor. This
true Grade-1 LCD reference monitor
helps complete Barco’s vision of end-to-
end calibrated solutions for broadcast
and audiovisual professionals.
The reference for broadcast
visualization
Barco has a long history of manufactur-
ing display technology for the broadcast
market. Barco developed specific driving
schemes delivering perfect gray and
color tracking for CRT displays in the late
seventies. This made Barco the recog-
nized brand for good skin tone reproduc-
tion. With the introduction of the first
self-calibrating broadcast monitor in the
eighties, broadcast professionals were
delighted to finally use a zero-mainte-
nance product. Barco elaborated on that
success with the introduction of a dedi-
cated color imaging display family.
Re-entering the reference
monitor market
Thanks to recent advances in LCD tech-
nology and Barco’s continuous R&D
efforts, Barco is now re-entering the ref-
erence monitor market, with the first
true Grade-1 LCD display for the profes-
sional broadcast market.
“A number of factors have affected the
timing of this new development,” says
Mr. Peeters. “The key one is technical.
Until now, CRT displays have been the
only serious choice for professional,
Grade-1 calibration duties. Now we can
capitalize on advances made in LCD
technology to match, or exceed, the
performance of Grade-1 CRT displays.
We believe the RHDM-2301 will set a
new standard in the professional broad-
cast market – drawing on our deep cali-
bration expertise in other fields, such as
healthcare and air traffic control.”
Another key factor is the market: the
industry is in rapid transition to digital
broadcast, high-definition TV with very
high resolution and wide aspect ratio.
New reference solutions are needed as
CRT monitors finally become obsolete.
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Standing out in three ways
Barco’s new reference monitor address-
es three critical issues for providing
Grade-1 performance from an LCD solu-
tion: color accuracy, image stability and
motion handling.
Mr. Peeters: “For color accuracy, we
have introduced 10-bit panel technolo-
gy and 48-bit image processing capabil-
ities (16 bits per color). Thus the
RHDM-2301 can truly reproduce a possi-
ble 1,024 levels per color, resulting in
over a billion possible colors and gray
scales. The used wide-gamut LED back-
light allows achieving any current color
standard, such as EBU, ITU, SMPTE and
even DCI. Each monitor is factory-cali-
brated using a three-dimensional look-
up table, using a high-precision
spectrometer and a proprietary calibra-
tion algorithm.”
The RHDM-2301 has been designed to
ensure that colors stay true over time.
To make sure what you see is really
what you get, the RHDM-2301 has inte-
grated advanced calibration sensor
technology. This technology makes sure
that the display remains calibrated in a
wide temperature range and for a long
time, which minimizes the need for fre-
quent maintenance or recalibration.
Motion handling is excellent thanks to
the high-speed 120Hz panel and scan-
ning LED backlight technology. The
panel can be driven in real interlaced
mode (with black-line insertion), to pro-
vide CRT-like motion performance and
remove de-interlacing artifacts. The
scanning backlight technology mini-
mizes the LCD motion blur typically
seen in LCDs. Both technologies provide
the necessary ingredients to achieve
reproduction of moving images with a
quality never seen before on an LCD.
The reference for color
professionals
Barco’s RHDM-2301 display will mainly
be used in three application areas. The
first application area is image acquisi-
tion and capture, where camera and
lighting professionals need a reliable
reference for the images being cap-
tured. The second area is production,
where control room personnel need an
accurate representation of incoming
feeds for source quality validation and
for program and output monitoring. The
last one is post-production and editing,
where high-grade color correction
needs to take place before broadcast
and storage.
Out & tech room
Colorist
Shooting
Lighting man
Editing
Program mixing
Ingest
Feedback
Delivery
As the most efficient common reference, Barco’s
RHDM-2301 display increases efficiency
throughout a wide range of broadcast and post
production applications.
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www.barco.com
Ref. no. R599020SS0408R000 April 2008
Barco is an ISO 9001 registered company.
The information and data given are typical for the equipment described. However any individual item is subject to change without any notice.
The latest version of this product sheet can be found on www.barco.com
Contact Barco
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Reference monitors for the
digital age
If anything, the need for high-quality,
high-reliability reference monitors is
greater now than it has ever been. Carl
Peeters: “People expect so much more
from visual media and entertainment,
as High Definition digital broadcast TV,
on-demand IPTV and digital cinema
become the norms.”
“In this modern broadcast and distribu-
tion environment, the number of
images that need to be simultaneously
viewed and controlled is increasing dra-
matically,” Mr. Peeters continues.
“Barco's networked visualization solu-
tions enable production and master con-
trol rooms to be cost-effectively net-
worked together. This improves opera-
tors’ ability to monitor the broadcast
process and visualize real-time video
content, both in the control room and
remotely on PCs and other network-con-
nected devices with user-friendly inter-
faces. This enables anyone, anywhere to
view program content from any screen.”
In addition, Barco has been the leading
proponent of multi-view display tech-
nology in broadcast environments – and
the high-grade calibration these sys-
tems need.
Carl Peeters: “But there will always be a
need for single-view Grade-1 reference
monitors where accurate, reliable color
balance is a must, not an option.”
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