Tessera SX40, ShutterSync

Brompton Technology has been recognised by the Television Academy with an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering, Science & Technology. The Emmy was awarded for its Tessera SX40 LED video processor, which has played a critical role in the widespread adoption of LED screens for virtual production and elevated the storytelling process through its impact on how television programs are created.

The Television Academy named Brompton Technology’s founders Richard Mead (CEO) and Chris Deighton (CTO), alongside Director of Engineering Adrian Jeakins and Engineering Manager Evangelos Apostolopoulos, as the core team responsible for the Tessera SX40. Since its debut in 2018, the SX40 has been used across many popular, technologically advanced television series in recent years, including House of the Dragon, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, Westworld, Foundation, Our Flag Means Death, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, among others.

“The entire Brompton team is 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 Richard Mead. “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. Our mission is to deliver the best possible image quality, breadth of functionality, usability and reliability in every product we build.”

With a long legacy and solid reputation in LED processing for live events and concert touring, Brompton brought its extensive experience to support the pioneers of in-camera visual effects. 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 visual artifacts that would destroy the illusion of realism.

Brompton’s colour accuracy and deep understanding of how LED panels and cameras interact, were the foundation for an expanding toolset that has helped establish in-camera visual effects as a mainstream filmmaking technique.

Emmy Award-winning lighting designer and virtual production specialist Peter Canning noted 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.”

Continuing Development

Since the Tessera SX40’s launch, the Brompton team has continued to develop a variety of improvements, available via free software upgrades, keeping ahead of the curve as the industry’s standard for colour accuracy and on-camera visual performance.

As virtual production has become more widely adopted, specific features were also designed to address common challenges facing directors and cinematographers. Some of 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, which improves the dynamic range and low brightness performance of LED panels; and 3D LUT import, for advanced colour control and grading.

Together these continuing developments lead to greater flexibility and collaboration for the creative team, enabling them to focus on the storytelling rather than the technology. www.bromptontech.com

The 75th annual Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards will be presented on 18 October 2023. For more information and the full list of winners, please visit the Television Academy’s website.