Sony and Gwantsi Technology Team Up to Create First Crystal LED Virtual Production Studio in China

Located in central Shanghai (Yuyuan Road), the new virtual studio powered by Sony and Gwantsi Technology occupies a total area of ​​83 square meters with a 5.47 meter high and 15.2 meter wide B-series Crystal LED screen, a CineAltaV 2 cinema camera and a 4K HDR monitor.

They attended the inauguration Takeshi Yoshida, president of Sony (China); Zhang Xueqin, directora general de Shanghai Gwantsi Technology y Zhou Chengqing, chief technical director of Epic Games (China), who were able to attend, along with the guests of the event, one of the technologies used in virtual production.

At the opening ceremony, Mori Kenichi, Marketing Director of Sony (China), said that by sharing the same vision of the industry as well as a strong sense of responsibility and work, Sony and Gwantsi are making joint efforts to build a high-quality virtual production studio. in China and contribute to virtual filming in the country.

Sony aims to create high-end virtual production solutions. The virtual production studio is equipped with Sony's three main products, a screen Crystal LED, a film camera CineAltaV 2 and a monitor 4K HDR from Sony, setting a high-quality studio standard, offering the market and customers exceptional products, providing content creators with an excellent user experience and optimizing content creation through technology.

On the one hand, the 83 square meter LED screen meets the demand of creators in terms of size. Even with interference from studio lighting and focos Photoflood During filming, the LED screen can accurately reset the scene on various occasions and illuminate with intense and delicate colors.

The display delivers accurate colors and cinema-quality images even without the need for complicated tone correction processes, making it impossible for audiences to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds.

All those invited to the event praised the demonstration, highlighting that the virtual production studio can considerably reduce the stage preparation in traditional studios to facilitate creation, shorten the break-in period y save filming costs.

Futuristic technologies

This demonstration is proof of Sony's success in offering a virtual production model. Furthermore, the Japanese company achieves this thanks to its many years of experience in film and television production, and the R&D of its “futuristic technologies” for virtual production.

For example, Sony engineers have made numerous product improvements to adapt the Crystal LED display to the virtual studio. It can display images with a Brightness up to 1800 nits to suppress lighting interference. Furthermore, it offers excellent anti-reflective performance with a DOI index of 0 and little reflection.

The Crystal LED display also features a high contrast of 10000:1 to detail shadows and capture their subtle changes, and to increase image intensity. Its wide 170-degree horizontal/170-degree vertical viewing angle helps prevent color drift when shooting from the side, giving directors more creative freedom when shooting from a wide angle.

Thanks to the powerful chip X1 Crystal LED, the screen shows intense and bright colors. Industry-leading chip powers excellent LED display performance with a wide gamut including sRGB, DCI-P3 and BT.2020.

In addition, Sony has also developed two functions for virtual production. One of them is the conjunction of Camera Sync, the B-series Crystal LED display and CineAltaV/CineAltaV 2 by adjusting the camera shutter angle and frame rate on the screen through advanced algorithms. This function can effectively reduce unwanted phenomena when the camera films the LED screen, providing the audience with ideal images behind the monitor.

The other is Art-Net to support the conventional lighting control protocol, which allows controlling the LED display as lighting and adjusting the color temperature and RGB of the LED display, together with other lighting equipment, in the same use interface to streamline the flow of job.

In addition to these futuristic technologies, the virtual production studio also adopts a unique design; Inside the studio, a movable LED screen allows directors to conduct dual-camera filming, reduce processing pressure, complement images from different positions, and complete tasks such as filling light and positioning in high-quality real-time.

motion capture

Additionally, at the opening ceremony, guests were shown how motion capture works in real time. Motion capture has become one of the most common cutting-edge technologies in film and television creation. The virtual studio offers this cutting-edge technology thanks to the advanced system of UE5 real-time processing and optical motion capture tracking system OptiTrack.

A total of 24 high speed cameras They can accurately capture motion from the trail camera and send it to UE5, while the processing can be displayed in real time on LED screens with low latency.

It should be noted that the virtual studio was not built in one go, but after a preparation and design period of almost four years. Before the introduction of virtual production, Sony has carried out extensive research, testing and verification of related products and systems, strived to create high-level products and solutions in the industry, and followed the market demands for virtual production solutions. . To this end, it has carried out tests with Epic Games for virtual applications and has published a technical white paper. Sony equipment has proven to be excellent in key technologies such as moiré effect, shadow details and visual angle.

Zhang Xueqin, general manager of Shanghai Gwantsi Technology, is satisfied with the study, and believes that virtual filming will greatly shorten the production period and reduce the costs of public relations and prop departments, as well as the pressure of location and set assembly. , which will allow you to complete about 40 feedings a day. Furthermore, the studio has already collaborated with several famous brands for filming.

Mori Kenichi, Marketing Director of Sony (China), also stated that Sony will continue to invest in research and development to offer more sophisticated virtual production solutions to creators. At the same time, the virtual production studio Crystal LED also intends to participate in the production of advertising, films and television series. For customers who want high-quality production, the features of the Crystal LED virtual production studio can meet their high-level requirements.

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