SX40 JOURNEY TO THE EMMYS

It’s been an epic journey for the SX40 since its launch in 2018, and Adam Callaway, our Technical Solutions Manager, was there from the start.

On 15 August 2023, the SX40 was recognised with an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy – five years after its launch. Adam Callaway, our Technical Solutions Manager, has travelled an epic journey with the SX40, from the 2018 Geneva Motor Show to the most renowned shows of 2023. Adam recalls that there was a massive demand for the SX40 even ahead of its launch, “People were jumping up and down to get hold of it, especially with the XD data distribution unit. The XD is one of the things that makes the SX40 so special – you’ve got a distribution unit that goes along with it, and that means you don’t have to run as many cables. This was game-changing when we launched it and a big thing that people were looking forward to using.”

Ed Sheeran, Divide Tour

Ed Sheeran has done several tours with the SX40. His Divide tour, which had started on M2 processors, switched to SX40s mid tour, soon after the 4K processor launched. Adam adds, “Seeing them upgrade parts of that show through our hardware was fantastic. Colonel Tom Touring could see the benefits of transitioning to the latest Brompton offerings, and they worked hard to get the new hardware on the show.”

Metallica did the same – switching from the M2, which they used on the WorldWired Tour, to the SX40, which they’re still using today. Adam expands, “The WorldWired Tour was an arena tour with 52 flown LED cubes, which would have been nearly impossible to tour without Brompton. Metallica’s current M72 World Tour utilises SX40s and XDs throughout their system and has just broken the single-show attendance record at LA’s SoFi Stadium. It’s amazing to see the love touring crews have for Brompton, the SX40 and especially the XD.”

Another SX40 highlight is its success in theatrical environments, for productions such as Disney’s Frozen: The Musical, Back to the Future: The Musical and ABBA Voyage. Adam adds, “Post Covid, spectacle has become even more important in theatre and these shows are absolutely delivering on that. ABBA Voyage is probably the coolest use of LED I’ve seen in a long time. Everyone walks away from that show saying, ‘How did they do that?’. Whether they’re from a technical background or not, there’s this fascination with how clever the show is technically. If I had to pick a favourite and the most unique thing the SX40 is doing at the moment, ABBA is probably it.”

Since 2018, the SX40 has been deployed into some of the world’s most advanced and technically demanding virtual production LED volumes. “It’s been incredible to see how the innovators of this industry have leveraged the power of the SX40,” says Adam. “We’ve seen workflows mature and the adoption of LED within the film industry become more widespread, with the boundaries of what’s possible being pushed and the SX40 stepping up to deliver every time.”

The SX40 has had the benefit of many feature updates over the years. “We’ve added so many game-changing features within the SX40,” comments Adam. “We were the first to drive panels up to 250Hz, which unlocked a whole range of applications from eSports to in-camera, including the ability to support multi-cam workflows using Frame Remapping. We also introduced ShutterSync, which for the film industry has changed the way they are able to use cameras alongside the LED. We’re now able to match the LED to the exact exposure time of the camera, giving the DPs and production way more flexibility in terms of how they want to shoot when they’re in the volume.”

There are also the many image quality tools that have been introduced since the SX40 was launched. Adam notes, “You can get performance out of an LED you just didn’t think was possible. HDR on LED 10 years ago was unthinkable, and now here we are showing people just how possible HDR workflows are on LED!” Brompton launched Hydra in 2019, which was fully backwards compatible with the SX40. “Users got the upgrade via free software to support HDR, and that was huge for the industry,” says Adam. “It’s given them the ability to unlock the true colour performance of their tiles. They were clamped down to using the lowest-performing pixel pretty much, whereas now we can open it up to reveal the true performance of a panel and give the user dynamic choices for how they want their screen to perform, while maintaining pinpoint accuracy.” He adds, “Reimagining LED calibration to give the freedom and flexibility back to the user is one of the coolest and most unique things we’ve done from a colour pipeline point of view.”

True Light Technology

Adam is equally enthusiastic about the recent launch of TrueLight. “This is going to change the game. And it’s fully backwards compatible with the SX40,” he says. “Clients who purchased the SX40 five years ago get a free upgrade that will completely change the way we use LED on set with the transition from RGB to RGBW for virtual production. The really clever aspect of TrueLight is that the RGB to RGBW conversion happens within the Tessera G1 receiver card, so not only is TrueLight completely backwards compatible with the SX40, it’s also completely backwards compatible with every element of the video pipeline!”

The importance of the SX40 has been acknowledged with multiple awards across Brompton’s market segments, with two recent highlights being the Advanced Imaging Society’s Lumiere Award in 2022 and now the Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award. “Both of these awards were an honour for us to receive,” says Adam. “They drive the small army of talented and dedicated team members to continue to deliver for our users around the world who work with the SX40 at the bleeding edge of what’s possible using LED.”