Portrait Displays announces first Calman Ready reference monitor with SmallHD

Portrait Displays, the global leader in colour calibration solutions, announces its partnership with SmallHD, a leading manufacturer of on-set monitors, to introduce the first Calman Ready reference monitors. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in the industry, revolutionising the calibration process for professionals in the film industry.

As part of the Calman Ready family, SmallHD displays possess the ability to directly communicate with Portrait Displays’ Calman colour calibration software. This seamless connection enables quick and precise calibration by leveraging Calman’s advanced capabilities. Calman Ready displays significantly reduce calibration time, delivering accurate results with unmatched efficiency. Through close collaboration with SmallHD’s engineers, this partnership yielded the first Calman Ready monitor family specifically designed for the cinemarket.

Utilising Portrait Displays’ acclaimed Aurora Color Engine™ and the power of Calman, the calibration process for monitors has never been easier or faster. In a fast-paced production environment, time is of the essence, and SmallHD’s Calman Ready monitors ensure professionals of minimum downtime.

With Calman’s exceptional colour accuracy available at every stage of the production chain, starting from on-set monitors used by directors, cinematographers, and DITs, technicians responsible for calibrating reference displays in the colour grading bay can now achieve consistent color accuracy throughout the entire production process.

SmallHD’s PageOS 5 operating system seamlessly integrates with Calman, allowing the calibration to be scaled across various modes. A single calibration can derive both SDR and HDR modes, eliminating the need for separate calibrations and ensuring consistent color accuracy across different viewing scenarios.

Calman’s customised calibration workflow provided by this partnership empowers users to achieve their desired results with ease. Calman offers compatibility with a wide range of calibration tools, including the affordable Portrait Displays C6 HDR2000 colorimeter, providing professionals with flexibility in their calibration hardware choices.

“We are thrilled to welcome SmallHD as our first Calman Ready reference monitor partner,” said Eric Brumm, President & CEO of Portrait Displays. “This partnership represents a significant milestone, with the ease of Calman’s AutoCal™ workflow, filmmakers can save time on-set by calibrating with record precision and efficiency.”

The collaboration between Portrait Displays and SmallHD allows for broader creative freedom in look management, as the calibrated monitor can accurately represent the intended look throughout the entire production workflow. By loading the Look Up Table (LUT) onto the calibrated monitor, all members of the creative team, from on-set to post-production, can make colour-critical decisions based on consistent visual representation.

“The Calman Ready integrated workflow simplifies the SmallHD calibration process and helps eliminate common calibration mistakes including limited-range vs full-range sources as well as incorrect patch size and LUT bit depth settings. Accurate calibrations can be achieved in only a few minutes without the need for an external pattern generator,” said Michael Claes, Director of Analytics and Color Science at SmallHD.

“Calman’s strength is its ability to simplify the complex task of calibration, and our integration with SmallHD is a testament to that,” said David Abrams, Senior Calman Product Manager at Portrait Displays. “We’ve built a ‘SmallHD AutoCal’ workflow that provides a step-by-step guide to calibrating supported SmallHD monitors allowing for the novice, or the professional, to achieve highly accurate results quickly and efficiently.”