Wohler Expands HD Monitoring Line
George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 9/2/2008 11:45:00 AM
Wohler Technologies has expanded its professional HD monitoring line with the addition of the HDMon-260, a new 26-inch widescreen TFT display that the company hopes will tap into a growing demand for larger screens.
Wohler’s chief technology officer John Hartwell said the HDMon-260 is a production grade monitor that compliments the HDMon line, which already included a 9-inch, 17-inch and 19-inch monitors.
“The reason we decided to get into larger screen sizes is that there is an interest in the market place to have a few other vendors for quality monitors beyond by Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, NEC and others,” Hartwell explained. “They don’t really want to have to buy a consumer version.”
A key selling point for the 26-inch monitor is that “it accepts almost any known video format as its input,” Hartwell said. The HDMon-260 will take such formats as digital HD-SDI, SD-SDI and DVI signals, as well as analog composite, component, and RGBHV video and CGI images up to WUXGA resolution without the need for additional cards. It also offers users a choice of 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios and accepts video signals up to 1920x1080/60p.
“There are very few other monitors on the market that can deal with all the different video formats,” he said. “Usually you have to have some converters for them.”
Another important feature is that the monitor offers network connectivity, which makes it relatively simple link various monitors and copy the configuration of one monitor to another.
The HDMon line of monitor is dubbed production grade, which means they are designed to allow customers monitor the quality of the signal in a production control room and will be used by clients as line monitors and preview monitors in field and studio settings. They are not, however, built to reach the level of what Hartwell calls evaluation monitors that are used to make “critical color decisions.”
