The Farm chooses Leader LV5490 4K monitors

The Farm Group has purchased three Leader LV5490 4K 3G/HD/SD-SDI waveform monitors with HDR capabilities as part of a 4K/HDR upgrade to its 'William' post-production facility on Marshall Street, at the heart of London's Soho post-production community. 

By Liz Sunter March 22, 2018

"We evaluated the Leader LV5490 waveform monitor earlier this year after increased demand for more UHD/4K and HDR capabilities," comments The Farm’s engineer, Paul Chapman. "Dutch facility company United introduced us to the instrument, as they are using LV5490s on their location productions for Amazon. We did some evaluation and found the LV5490 to be the ideal test and measurement tool for UHD/4K production. Once customer demand reached a tipping point, it was a simple choice to select Leader." 

Colleague engineer Ben Beard confirmed that The Farm has deployed all three of its LV5490s. One is located in a traditional grading suite, where the realtime false colour HDR display and CIE colour space display complement the traditional waveform display, allowing colourists to maximise the impact of HDR images. 

The second LV5490 is being used in a quality control suite where the realtime false colour gamut error display ensures that finished programmes conform with ever more demanding broadcast standards. 

Installed in The Farm’s central equipment room, the third LV5490 feeds its HD-SDI rasterising display to the facility's central router. From there, the LV5490 can be routed to any edit suite in the facility and controlled remotely via a web browser interface. 

The test instruments were supplied via Leader Europe UK channel partner Jigsaw24. 

"Leader's LV5490 has by far the most advanced and easy to use 4K and HDR measurement tools currently available," adds Jigsaw24 Chief Engineer Phil Crawley. "We recommend that any production and post-production companies involved in 4K and HDR take a serious look at this instrument." 

"It is great to see the initial interest in 4K/UHD TV and HDR production finally starting to turn into real projects," says Leader's European Regional Development Manager, Kevin Salvidge. "Once broadcasters have delivered HDR programming, their customers don't want to go back to SDR content. HDR is a game changer, drawing viewers in and getting them engaged with programmes in a whole new way. We are pleased that The Farm Group has selected Leader’s LV5490 for use on its most high profile and exciting projects." 

The Leader LV5490 offers 4K, UHD, 3G, HD and SD test and measurement features in a compact portable unit. Waveform, vector, five-bar and picture display can all be viewed at the same time on the instrument's 9” LCD monitor. The monitor is full 1920 x 1080 HD resolution with a wide viewing angle and high quality colour reproduction. 1920 x 1080 HD DVI and HD-SDI feeds are also provided to feed a larger monitor. Simultaneous viewing of up to four 3Gbps SDI inputs is possible, including overlays. The size and location of individual channels can be adjusted on the display using a USB pointer so the user is not limited to fixed-size quadrants. 

Recent additions to the LV5490 feature set include the world's first direct-digital 4K noise analyser. Measurement of noise in luminance or RGB component chroma channels can be performed in IP/12G/3G/UHD/HD/SD. Data obtained from the input SDI signal is converted directly without intermediate analogue processing, allowing highly accurate and highly stable measurement. 

The Farm Groupprovides complete post-production services out of its locations in London, Bristol, Manchester and Los Angeles. With over 200 suites, The Farm works on some of the world's most prestigious long-form television. The Farm's award-winning creative talent pool combined with industry leading technical knowledge, enables The Farm to take on any production, no matter how big or complex. All the facilities are fully networked, allowing for seamless and true collaboration. 

FRED, The Farm's custom designed online approval system, allows for rushes, rough cuts and finished work to be securely viewed, logged, approved or delivered to anywhere in the world with an internet connection, a computer or mobile device. 

Leader Electronics Corporationdevelops, manufactures and sells electronic measuring instruments in Japan and internationally. Leader products, including 4K HDR waveform monitors and rasterizers, are specified for research, development, broadcast, production and service applications. Since the company's establishment in 1954, Leader has contributed innovative measurement technology for sectors of industry such as home appliances, television broadcasting and mobile telephones. 

Progressing with measurement technology as the basis of our business, Leader has evolved its products and supporting services to meet the demands of each era and will continue to pursue various forms of value provision into the future. Leader test instruments are high-precision, reliable, easy to use, compact and accountant-friendly. Leader innovations include the world's first 4K waveform monitor (the award-winning LV5490) plus the intuitive CINELITE and CINEZONE monitoring tools which allow creatives to make optimal use of available dynamic range and luminance. 

Manufacturing quality is built into Leader products every step of the way. Only the finest parts are used for optimum reliability. At each production run, sub-assemblies are separately tested before they are integrated into the finished product which is then further tested. Less than 0.1 per cent of all Leader products made are ever returned for warranty repair or adjustment. 

If you want to know more, give us a call on 03332 409 306 or email broadcast@Jigsaw24.com. For all the latest news, follow @WeAreJigsaw24 on Twitter, or ‘Like’ us on Facebook.