New Boland DayBrite

[Walter F. Rodriguez]

What is the native resolution of the 9"?

[Gary Litwin]

Hi Everyone,

 

Hope all is well...and hoping to see many of you in Vegas next week.

 

The new BVB07's for NAB are finished, so I wanted to give you some updates.

 

We have added a digital level, a volt meter, and a dedicated 8 pin lemo input that can handle power, composite signal, and tally.

 

There are 1/4-20 holes now on ALL sides.

 

False color, focus assist, waveform, "ramp speed" of marker adjustability, and zoom = all made even better than the prototypes.

 

Walter, above you had asked about the native resolution of our BVB09....it is 1280x768.

 

To be up front and honest, because of all of the changes, we have had to raise the price a little...from $2140 to $2295. Just wanted to make sure that you knew this ahead of time.

 

And of course, the brightness and anti-glare we have not changed at all :-)

 

If you have questions, please feel free to give me a shout or email whenever convenient.

 

Best,

Gary

949-465-9911

gary@bolandcom.com

NAB booth SL4905

[Walter F. Rodriguez]

Looking forward to checking both monitors out at NAB.

[Martin Stacey]

Has a flip function been added to the monitor as well and us the digital level gyro stabilised?

 

Cheers

[Peder Torp Mathisen]

Anyone who have something to say about the monitor after NAB?

 

Would love to see some more pictures if someone have any.

[James Davis]

Same here, would love to see more info.

[Alan Rencher]

I talked with Gary at NAB, and he gave me a tour of the monitor. It's very bright! We took it out when the sun was high in the sky, and it was perfectly usable.

 

Since there is no glass over the LCD panel, there is no glare and no need for AR coating. Some people might prefer to have glass over the panel to protect it, but the way I look at it is, it would only ever be damaged when not framing a shot. I always keep a poly carbonate cover over my screens when not in use to protect them, so that's not an issue for me. An LCD panel can also take a little bit of moisture with no problem, and I've found that replacing a broken panel is very inexpensive and easy when there is no bonded glass involved.

 

As far as the other features of the monitor, most of the usual suspects are there: They made the scopes more transparent when overlaying them, it has conversion to and from HDMI and SDI, they've added an 8-pin connector with a pinout matching the Pro Monitor (power, composite, and tally). Be aware that their tally protocol is short to ground, which is opposite from some other monitors. You'll need an adapter (which over made before) when using a Tiffen tally system or a Zalex style tally.

 

The level needs work. I gave them some feedback, so hopefully it will be refined more. I didn't find it to be useful at the time of testing as it has a bit of a lag, and the sensitivity couldn't be adjusted. I also don't think it has any sort of gyro compensation yet. I still think it would be cool to be able to plug a Wagner into it for level readout.

 

The monitor itself is bulkier than a DP7, but it's actually lighter than it looks. It has mounting points on all sides, and it looked like it was made from a brake metal casing. It has lots of useful buttons, and some are assignable.

 

Overall, I think this is an excellent monitor for the price bracket, and they are still tweaking it specifically for Steadicam operators. I want to say thank you to Gary and the Boland team for taking the time to show me everything! Oh, and their stuff is made on the USA, which is a big deal to me. I would call it a great selling point, actually. - Alan

[James Davis]

I hope they switch to a machined housing, i've seen lots of monitors made out of that kind of construction look really old/crappy/dented really fast after taking a few dings on fast paced music videos/promo jobs, or catching the odd door frame here and there.

 

I hope they fix the level, remove the speaker ports they had on the housing before and change to a machined housing, then I would definitely be interested in a couple.

[Gary Litwin]

Hi all,

 

Thanks to everyone who made it out to NAB and reviewed our new models in / out of the booth. It was really nice meeting all of you in person.

 

With regard to some of the above questions and feedback....much of it is covered by Alan above....and I think he is exactly spot on.

 

The new level that we tried out is really still version uno. I think it needs to be made more sensitive and reactive to user movement.

 

Also...earlier in the blog, Martin had asked about flip function (AKA scan reverse). Although it has been requested, at this point there is only a horizontal flip built-in. The vertical flip will hopefully be added later in the year, but I can't promise that just yet. All of our new models are upgradeable in the field, so if it is added, it will be easy to load the new features.

 

As requested by James, it would not be an issue to take the speakers off the front, but we would need to make a special run with "no speakers." I could probably run production for this for around 24 units. Those of you that would be interested in doing this.....let me know and we can see about putting together a group order, maybe with a nice discount.

 

As always...many thanks.

 

Gary

[Martin Stacey]

Thanks Gary and Alan for the further information on this. It is so good to see a company going out of their way to listen to the needs of their customers and doing their best to offer a great level of service and communication such as this. Certain other would be monitor manufacturers could learn a lot from you Gary.

I for one would be one who would opt for no speakers. In my experience if audio is required on set through the monitor a headphone jack is the preferred option and is far easier to seal for water resistance.

Thank you Gary for all of your communication. It's good to know that you're working on the level. I expect to be adding one of these to my kit in the not too distant future.

[Brant S. Fagan SOC]

I've finally gotten my hands on one of the BVB07s and even though I have only used it on one exterior job so far, I love it! Alan's points above are good, solid advice that Gary has listened to. It is surprisingly lighter than my other Boland 8.4" daybright unit so I will be machining up some longer rods to support this monitor in a dynamically balanced position for my custom sled. Love the multi function of the knob and the user-assignable buttons. Count me in for one of the speaker-less units when the run is up! Maybe two!! Looking forward to owning and using the heck out of yet another quality Boland monitor!

[Jarrett P. Morgan]

I am looking for a backup monitor soon. I am certainly keeping an eye out on this one!

[Gary Litwin]

Hi everyone,

 

Just wanted to give a shout out to all my old and new friends that came to visit us this year at Cinegear, and wanted to say thanks for the opportunity to demonstrate that a conservatively priced DayBrite can really be "scene" well in the California sun.

 

Your support has been overwhelming since NAB...and we should have more models finished up and available in a few weeks!!

 

As always....any questions? Please let me know any time....

 

Best,

Gary

[Chris Loh]

On a job today with my new boland monitor! Will report back end of this month once I've used it a bit.

[Chris Loh]

On a job today with my new boland monitor! Will report back end of this month once I've used it a bit.

Back again with a few solid days of operating in direct sunlight. My review is biased because my preferences are specific and I'm sure they are different than yours.

 

Firstly I should mention Gary Litwin's awesome costumer service, and how well priced this monitor is. Customer service from Boland has been great. The price of this monitor is incredible at under $2500.

 

Perhaps more important than customer service is the functionality of the monitor, and this monitor functions exceptionally. The Boland BVB07 is viewable at all angles in direct sunlight. Enough said, viewability is almost priceless.

 

Here are a few cons. I am more than happy to live with them, because as I stated above I can see the monitor from any viewing angle, in any situation. These are also fixes that can be implemented in future models

The build of the monitor is less than desirable. The monitor is too light at under 2 pounds.

The AB plate on the back is off center. I don't mount batteries back there often, maybe for some ballast when flying a heavier camera up top. However if a battery is mounted, don't expect to achieve dynamic balance.

The shell doesn't seem as durable as the CNC machined aluminum on other monitors. If the materials used were heavier, all of the above quirks would not exist. I'd be willing to pay the extra money for this.

 

Here are things that can be fixed with firmware. Still not a big deal to me, but would be nice to have an update for soon.

There is no option to shade or black out the areas outside of the frame markers. The custom marker function works fine, but it would be nice to adjust top, bottom, left, and right independently. I'd also like the option to move the center crosshair around.

The digital level is completely useless. I would gladly pay the extra money to have a useable level on this monitor. Like Alan mentioned, maybe make it compatible with Tiffen's digital level unit?

The Boland lacks custom zoom/aspect ratio. When you take composite video from a camcorder or DSLR you will not be able to fill the entire display with the proper aspect ratio. Either leave it smaller or look at a stretched image.

The video signal will not pass through. This monitor will cross convert from SDI - HDMI and the other way, but it will not loop through from SDI to SDI or HDMI to HDMI.

No anamorphic desqueeze.

 

Enough with the cons, this monitor does have a lot of great functions. It does everything you'd want it to, plus more. All the standard features are there. Image flip, zoom, peaking, false color, scopes, ect..

 

 

There are a lot of things I cannot cover with my review. I can't speak for the tally signal or scopes, I don't use them. While this isn't a perfect monitor, I can see it in midday desert locations and that's enough for me. I am more than happy with my purchase and I would make the purchase again if I had to. I likely will when I decide to invest in a director's monitor. Go get yourself a Boland BVB07, at under $2500 it is well worth the investment. This is my favorite monitor on the market and I've used quite a few.

 

-Chris Loh