Portkeys CINENORM Introduced – Software Update for Monitors Featuring New Interface

by Mascha DeikovaApril 21^st, 2024

Good news for the Portkeys fans! A new software update called CINENORM is coming to the company’s monitors (and their upcoming products). It offers a completely different menu interface and is claimed to vastly improve and simplify user experience. My CineD colleague Graham stopped by the Portkeys booth at NAB 2024 and got a quick demo of all the new features Portkeys CINENORM will bring to the table.

Right off the bat: no more annoying swiping and guessing which menu you will land on. The Portkeys team based the software update completely on customers’ feedback. Their central goal was to improve the usability of their monitors. Well, the first demo looks indeed promising. Let’s dive in!

The first look at the Portkeys CINENORM menu

What you will notice straight away with the CINENORM update is that the monitor menu looks completely different. Tapping once on the screen will open the following overview:

On the left-hand side, the menu offers quick access to the monitor’s brightness and the light bulb icon, which controls the speed of the fan. Right below you see the chainlink picture. Clicking on it opens the sub-window with different types of connections. As Dariel Resendez from Portkeys explains, their goal was to make navigating through monitor features visually responsive and intuitive. Seems like a success to me:

Let’s go back to the main menu. The top and bottom bars show the setup for a particular camera that is connected to the monitor (Red Komodo in the example above). There, you can see all the camera settings available to control from the monitor, including the record button.

Precise control over shortcuts

On the right side of the menu, Portkeys placed the shortcuts for their software features. The first four in this list are also mapped to the physical hard buttons on the monitor’s top side.

You can add as many shortcuts as you wish by flicking this sidebar up and clicking on the “Plus” button. Every available feature (peaking, false color, etc.) has a little description of what it does and a text title – for those unfamiliar with them. Additionally, in Portkeys CINENORM software, you can get to the feature’s additional options directly from the same screen. For that, you just have to enable a particular feature and click on the “Settings” icon in the right corner at the bottom:

Which monitors will support the software update?

The CINENORM software will work with the new and upcoming Portkeys models such as BM5 IV, and BM5 IV WR. The owners of some older monitor versions will be also able to install the update. According to the information we got at NAB 2024, it includes Portkeys BM7 II DS, and BM5 III WR. More information as well as the software release date will be announced, so stay tuned.

How do you like the demonstration of Portkeys CINENORM software update? Do you find it more convenient than the current version from the first look? What else do you wish was changed? Let’s talk in the comments below!