Consumer display technology is making its way into Hollywood mastering studios to let filmmakers create HDR grades with up to 2000 nits peak brightness and beyond–DCIP3 colors.

In Hollywood mastering studios, most movies and series are color and luminance graded on very expensive professional reference monitors such as the 30-inch Sony BVM-X300 RGB OLED. 

Sony's BVM-X300, that is now discontinued, reaches up to 1000 nits peak brightness, which is why many HDR movies and series are capped to maximum 1000 nits – many a lot lower, depending on the creator's intent.

 Also watch: Video: How Hollywood movies are color graded for HDR & SDR (w/ Dado Valentic)

If they want to go higher, there is the 42-inch liquid-cooled Dolby Pulsar LCD with thousands of dimming zones that reaches 4000 nits but at the expense of accurate luminance control and resolution (2K).


Here comes QD-OLED
Flanders Scientific is proposing a new approach with its XMP550 featuring the 2023 QD-OLED panel from Samsung Display. Flanders says that XMP550 reaches up to 2000 nits peak brightness, presumably with some extra cooling involved.

- "Flanders Scientific is pleased to introduce the new XMP550, a 55" UHD resolution professional HDR Mastering Monitor built around a groundbreaking new QD-OLED panel featuring 2,000nits peak luminance, 2,000,000:1 contrast, and our widest color gamut to date," the company announced.

The good news for consumers is that at least some Hollywood filmmakers will soon be using the same display technology found in their own living room to grade HDR movies and series.


 The Flanders Scientific XMP550. Photo: Company

"The best of both worlds"
Some Hollywood studios were already using consumer OLED TVs such as those from LG, Panasonic and Sony as secondary displays to confirm how HDR movies and series appear in a consumer environment. 

- "The XMP550 brings an end to the days of compromising between smaller reference grade HDR displays and larger non-reference client displays. The XMP550 delivers the best of both worlds with truly reference grade performance and professional connectivity in a form factor large enough for both colorists and clients to view at the same time," said Flanders Scientific.

The launch will strengthen the HDR chain from studio to home – movie theaters are now the weak link. At the same time, it will allow content creators to do more with HDR.

The new monitor qualifies as a Dolby Vision mastering monitor. Dolby Vision supports up to 10000 nits peak luminance, but that is something for the future. Both mastering monitors and TVs capable of 10000 nits are missing at this time.

XMP550 deliveries are expected to start in September.

Flanders Scientific XMP550 – display specifications
Screen Size: 55" Diagonal
Resolution: 3840x2160
Bit Depth (Color): 10bit (1.073 Billion Colors)
Contrast Ratio: >2,000,000:1
Panel Type: Quantum Dot OLED
Pixel Efficiency: 99.99%
Max Luminance (Typical): ~2,000cd/m2 @ L20
Viewing Angle: 179°

Max Native Color Gamut:

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