by Fabian ChaundyApril 29^th, 2016

With their new SmallHDR range of production monitors, SmallHD departs from its usual line of portable on-camera solutions. These rugged, full-sized displays come with a whole lot of professional features… and a price tag to match. We caught up with SmallHD founder and CEO Wes Phillips at NAB 2016 to find out more about them.

The company name had, until now, been a fairly clear indicator of the niche that SmallHD had carved out for itself in the market: small external monitors in the 5 and 7-inch range, offering shooters an additional display with excellent image quality and professional features.

Introducing their new SmallHDR range shows that their ambitions are anything but small. These new full-sized, c-stand mountable production monitors aim to bring the SmallHD viewing experience from the operator to the whole set, offering three different sizes at 17, 24 and 32 inches. You can read Tom’s full article from earlier this month here!

SmallHDR – an overview

A body construction from milled aluminium makes them rugged and solid, ideal for withstanding the rigours of everyday professional use. The material also allows for the introduction of the RapidRail system: cold shoe-sized slots into which you can insert all sorts of accessories, such as handles, receivers, and cable management solutions. The monitors also include a V-lock battery mount, as well as XLR power input and a 12v Lemo power output, providing ample powering solutions.

The company takes great pride in the brightness of their SmallHDR screens, a feature found also in the original SmallHD range. Intended to be viewable in daylight without the need for a sun hood, the smaller two models claim a brightness level of 1000 nits while the 32-incher brings it all the way up to 1500.

The design of the SmallHDR range also borrows from its smaller lineage in the design of its back button and joystick controls, but adds extra buttons for the new multi-page view. This, in addition to the added functionality under the hood, makes them highly customisable in terms of how they display various inputs (2 x SDI and 1 x HDMI), scopes, LUT support and assist tools.

These high-contrast displays are great monitoring tools for everyone on set, but the 10-bit capabilities of the larger two models really make these the ideal choice for displaying HDR material, a technology that is emerging fast. But bear in mind, these are truly professional tools, and are priced accordingly: the 17, 24 and 32-inch models are $4,000, $5,500 and $8,000 respectively.

The displays will be released in May, and are already available for pre-order.