In its engineering of an award-winning LED video processor, Brompton Technology brought extensive experience to support the pioneers of in-camera visual effects.
LOS ANGELES—The LED video processor manufacturer Brompton Technology was recognized by the Television Academy with an Emmy® Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering, Science, and Technology, the company said in a release.
Brompton Technology received the award for its Tessera SX40 LED video processor, which the company said has “played a crucial role in the widespread adoption of LED screens for virtual production” in the television industry. It is also said to have elevated the storytelling process through its impact on how television programs are created.
According to Brompton, its product and feature designs come from years of industry and engineering experience, coupled with a dedicated focus on key design objectives for each product.
“Our mission is to deliver the best possible image quality, breadth of functionality, usability, and reliability in every product we build,” said Brompton Technology founder and CEO Richard Mead, in the release.
Since its debut in 2018, the SX40 has been used across many technologically advanced television series, including The Mandalorian, House of the Dragon, The Book of Boba Fett, Westworld, Foundation, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the company said.
The Television Academy named Brompton Technology’s founders, Mead and Chief Technology Officer Chris Deighton, alongside Director of Engineering Adrian Jeakins and Engineering Manager Evangelos Apostolopoulos, as the core team responsible for the Tessera SX40.
“The entire Brompton team is incredibly thrilled and humbled to receive such a prestigious award from our industry peers, and for the recognition of the vital role that LED processing plays for in-camera visual effects,” said Mead in the release. “It is a demanding medium that aims to recreate reality within a studio, and that is exactly the kind of challenge that Brompton Technology has always sought to meet.”
According to the release, the LED processor’s role is to faithfully reproduce the creative team’s intended visual content on the LED panels, to be captured in-camera, without any visual artifacts that would destroy the illusion of realism. To support the pioneers of in-camera visual effects as it engineered the Tessera SX40, Brompton applied its extensive experience in LED processing for live events and concert touring. Brompton said its “color accuracy and deep understanding of how LED panels and cameras interact were the foundation for an ever-expanding toolset that has helped establish in-camera visual effects as a mainstream filmmaking technique.”
Peter Canning, an Emmy Award-winning lighting designer and virtual production specialist, noted in the release that in television and film, “it is all about getting the LED screen as close to reality as possible, which is where the Tessera SX40 is perfect. It is the one part of our pipeline which has never let us down.”
Brompton said that since the Tessera SX40 launched, its team has continued to develop improvements that are available via free software upgrades. These improvements are helping to keep the Tessera SX40 “ahead of the curve as the industry’s gold standard for color accuracy and on-camera visual performance,” according to the release. As virtual production has become more widely adopted, specific features were also designed to address common challenges facing directors and cinematographers, the company said.
The company’s key Tessera software features include ShutterSync®, which allows the refresh of the LED screen to be tuned to the preferred camera settings; Extended Bit Depth, said to improve the dynamic range and low brightness performance of LED panels; and 3D LUT import, for advanced color control and grading. Together these continued advancements are said to ensure “the greatest possible flexibility and collaboration for the creative team, enabling them to focus on the storytelling rather than the technology,” according to the release.
At press time, the 75th annual Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards were scheduled to be presented on October 18, 2023. Additional information and the full list of winners are available at the Television Academy’s website: https://www.emmys.com/awards/emmys/engineering-emmys.