Has anyone seen the new Sony 7.4" field monitor at NAB

[Peter Corbett]

A collegue on B-roll said Sony have a new small OLED field monitor at NAB. Has anyone at NAB sighted one (and a price?)

Cheers,
Peter

[Peter Corbett]

Found the price; $3850 MRRP

[Trell Mitchell]

Here's a Link.
NAB: Sony Debuts $3,850 Professional 7.4-inch OLED Monitor | Sony Insider

[Tim Polster]

Wow, $3850. The resolution is 960x540, not even 1:1 for 720p I would hope it looks better that its specs.

[Andrew Dean]

Its hard to describe, but OLED displays look sooo rich and somehow "deep", like you can see into the screen. They can seem really bright without looking blown out too. I know i'm usually the one yammering about resolution - and I'll be curious to see how the sony holds up for focus and whether the visibility in harsh conditions justifies the price - but I bet this sony display looks absolutely stunning indoors.

[Trell Mitchell]

Open TABS & Brochure PDF: Sony Product Detail Page - PVM740

[Doug Jensen]

I was doing PDW-F800 stage presentations for Sony at NAB this week and I had one of these PVM-740 montiors assigned to me with the camera. FANTASTIC picture. You really have to see it to appreciate how nice it is.

I had been thinking about buying the consumer 11" version a few weeks ago (which I have seen on many occassions) and it was suggested I wait for NAB. I'm glad I did because I'll be ordering a 740 as soon as they start shipping. Okay, it's a little pricey, but it fits my needs for size, features, and picture quality exactly. If you can find a way to see one in person you'll see what I mean.

[Alister Chapman]

I took a good look at the 740 and was truly impressed. Here's an extract from my blog:

One of the things that really caught my eye at NAB was Sony’s new PVM-740 field monitor. This is one of the first professional monitors to use OLED technology. Traditional LCD screens work by using a backlight that has a liquid crystal panel in front of it that uses changes in polarization to vary the amount of light passing through the panel to the viewer. While on the whole this works reasonably well there are some issues with this technology. The first is that the liquid crystals never fully block the passage of all the light, so black is never truly black, some light always seeps through. In addition brightness is limited to that of the backlight and the light is attenuated as it has to pass through the crystals and polariser. In addition if the backlight is too bright then the blacks get brighter too which limits the overall contrast range. Another issue is that LCD’s take time to change state from on to off and off to on. This leads to lag and smear with fast motion or high refresh rates. While a lot of money has been spent over the years developing LCD technology and there are some excellent LCD monitors available, these issues still exist and LCD performance still lags behind that of high end CRT’s (Tube Monitors).

Enter OLED. Organic Light Emitting Diode displays use a grid of light emitting devices, each pixel is a separate emitter, so when it’s off, it’s truly off. This means that blacks are completely black. When the emitter is on the light it emits is not passing through a polariser or crystal so it’s brightness is not diminished, this means that whites are really bright. In addition you can switch an LED on and off pretty much instantly so there is no lag or smearing. When you see the new Sony PVM-740 OLED monitor side by side with a similar LCD monitor the difference is striking! It’s like looking through a window, the image is clear and crisp, blacks are… well.. black and whites are bright and sparkle. The pictures from the PVM-740 are much more like the images you would expect to get from a top spec CRT monitor, yet the 740 is light weight, compact and uses less power. It should also be more robust and will not be affected by magnetic fields like a CRT monitor.

You really need to see this monitor in the flesh to appreciate the images it produces.

[Peter Corbett]

Thanks Alistair. I'll be at Broadcast Asia next month and will check the Sony out. Looks like it's The One.

[Bob Grant]

We bought a couple of the Sony 11" OLED HDTVs at a bargain price. As others have said stunning pictures. Given that we got these at around 25% of the original retail price I don't understand Sony's stratergy in having such a huge markup on these things. Needless to say at around $5K there was not too many consummers interested in a 11" HDTV no matter how good the pictures looked.

The asking price for these new monitors does seem a bit too high as well. OLED is still very new tech so there's going to be some reluctance, on top of that there was (is??) issues with the life expectancy of OLED displays. One would think Sony would make the price more competitive to garner more interest in the technology.

[Paul Cook]

Bob what about anything Sony EVER make in the Pro to high end arena would lead you to believe they would try and be price competitive? I mean did you see their brand new SRW-9000 - essentially a CineAlta camcorder with a PL mount and 35mm sensor?

Kind of like a Red Epic, only no 4k, and no 3k, and no 2k, and with less dynamic range, and minimal over-crank, and none of the Red options...

BUT

..its 4 times bigger than red, which is what Sony must be basing the price on as its over 4 times the cost of a Red Epic at $125,000

Yup, im an idiot, put me down for 2!

[Duncan Craig]

Is OLED a proprietary Sony thing or can we expect to see cheaper manufacturers move into this market in a year or so?

[Trell Mitchell]

Hi Duncan,
I do recall Marshall introducing an OLED field monitor at NAB 2009,
I don't know if it ever came to market.
See Link below.
Marshall Electronics - V-OL761-HDA 7.6" OLED Camera-Top Monitor

[Mark Joseph]

I just unpacked our PVM-740 yesterday and with a quick play am confused by the warmer hues compared to HVR-Z5P LCD (haven't tried it with EX1R yet) - using HDMI.

Our PVM-740 is set to D65 (6500k) with EBU colour space (as recommended for PAL Australia zone) but it appears as if the camera's LCD is default to 9300k as it's much cooler. Even changing 740's colour space to OFF (the panel's own colour space) didn't change things markedly. I also tried SMPTE-C, ITU-709.

It doesn't seem right, because the LCD panels on the cameras are pretty accurate - at least in terms of what I see playing a finished DVD on our 42" Sony Bravia displays.

[Andy Shipsides]

The 740 is truly an impressive monitor to look at, I believe that OLED panels will become the standard for on set monitoring. OLED screens are expensive to produce right now - which explains the price tag. I'm looking forward to larger ones in the future.