Leader LV5490 Takes Center Stage at Digital Cinematography Training Centre

Leader’s LV5490 4K/HD/SD multi-screen signal monitor has been chosen as the core technical reference at one of Europe’s most advanced digital motion picture training centers. Located on the campus of a major film production studio near London’s Heathrow airport, the centre enables European cinematographers to get practical experience of high-end cinematography.

Among the training resources are a variety film sets, including a living room and bar area. These are fully equipped with lighting, 4K cameras and a range of cinematic lenses. Students attending courses are given plenty of opportunity to try the cameras out for themselves.

“The courses are split into three or four parts,” says Leader’s European Regional Development Manager Kevin Salvidge. “The beginning is an introduction to 4K and what it offers the producer. Then the students are shown the actual camera operation practicalities, the menus, how to correctly expose and how to use look-up tables.

“The Leader LV5490 provides every facility the training centre needs to check video signal parameters in all current display resolution and colour space standards. That includes 4K UHD and high dynamic range. It is being used both for testing and to show students the elements of video signal manipulation.

“One of the LV5490 features the tutors particularly like is the ability to view four display modes in one multiscreen display. The combination they are using most frequently is Leader’s CINEZONE together with the vectorscope and waveform monitor. CINEZONE is recognised to be one of the best production tools available, especially for mastering in high dynamic range colour spaces such as Hybrid Log Gamma and SMPTE ST 2084. The logarithmic signal mapping technology used in latest-generation cameras gives producers much greater creative freedom than was possible with standard dynamic range cameras. Not many tools show how the logarithmic exposure values are actually working. CINEZONE performs this role perfectly.

“Another highly appreciated feature of the LV5490 is its CIE colour chart vector display. This is especially useful for demonstrating what the ITU-R BT 2020 standard can deliver in terms of UHD colour space. It allows the colorimetry and gamut of the various cameras to be checked easily, confirming that the results will meet the expectations of programme distributors.

“The tutors can view the LV5490 via an HD-SDI rasteriser output to an HD display or on the LV5490’s internal display screen. ITU-R BT.2020 colour space can be monitored as a loop-through large-screen waveform display or a different display mode in each screen quarter.

“The combination of 4K and HDR allows television viewers to experience real-life colour levels and a greater sensation of depth. It creates a massive wow factor and is a real game changer for broadcasters.”

The Leader LV5490 supports the full range of standard video production and transmission resolutions from 525 and 625 standard definition up to 3840 x 2160 and 4096 x 2160 4K ultra-high definition. It incorporates a 1920 x 1080 9 inch LCD monitor with a wide viewing angle and high quality colorimetry. This allows simultaneous analysis of up to four video channels. The instrument’s 4K capability is particularly useful to people working with latest generation cameras, whether for digital cinematography or high-end broadcast applications.

Equipped with eight input connectors, the LV5490 accepts up to two 4K signals simultaneously. In the 4K video format mode, 3G-SDI dual link or quad link is supported. Up to four 3G-SDI dual link 4K video inputs or up to two 3G-SDI quad link 4K video inputs can be selected for display, or two sets of HD-SDI dual link signals. In the SDI mode, up to four signals can be displayed simultaneously. The LV5490 is also equipped to handle video signals via two-sample interleave as well as square division. Two-sample interleave is the approved standard for 4K.

The LV5490 can be operated in a very wide selection of test and measurement roles. These include waveform, vector, picture monitoring, SDI signal status (which looks for cyclic-redundancy-check errors and embedded-audio errors), an event log, data dump and four-channel timing display. Waveform, vector and picture can be viewed simultaneously on the LV5490 screen. Simultaneous display and overlay display of multiple SDI inputs is possible. Size and location of individual channel displays can be adjusted using a USB mouse. The LV5490 can also be controlled remotely using standard KVM tools.

The integral CINELITE feature allows the user to measure the luminance levels at different points in a scene (up to three points). CINEZONE uses false colours to indicate luminance levels in a scene and is particularly suited to green screen chroma-key virtual-set alignment.

In addition to its video test and measurement capabilities, the Leader LV5490 incorporates a versatile selection of audio monitoring and analysis tools, which are available with the Digital Audio option. These include 4 x 4 channels of SDI audio de-embedding, lissajous display, surround-sound display and volumetric display. Up to 16 channels of de-embedded SDI audio can be displayed on screen and output as discrete AES3 feeds.

Additional features of the LV5490 include video frame capture, instrumentation screen capture, timecode display, ID display and a 4K pattern generator with embedded audio.

Eye pattern, including jitter waveform display and Dolby decoding, can be ordered as optional facilities along with a CIE 1931/1976 color space chart which can display BT.709, DCI (P2) plus BT.2020 (the 4K standard’s full ITU recommended color space).

LV5490 operators can adjust the size of up to four displays on the screen to suit specific tasks. This allows easy magnification and inspection of detail on the instrument’s 9 inch 1920 x 1080 LCD screen instead of being limited to fixed size quadrants. The LV5490 also comes with a 1920 x 1080 HD DVI and HD-SDI rasterised output for display on a larger monitor.

Fully portable, the LV5490 has a footprint of just 8.77 inches wide by 14.7 inches deep and a height of 7.44 inches (223 x 360 x 189 mm). The instrument weighs only 10.4 pounds (4.72 kg). A rack mounting adapter is available.