Calman calibration software developer Portrait Displays has revealed that it has become the latest member of the UHD Alliance. 

Portrait Displays is the creator of the popular Calman software that’s the number one choice of leading colour professionals across the world. Calman software is used in the broadcast, production and post-production industries, including by many Hollywood professionals. It’s seen as the industry standard for ensuring that content is displayed accurately across TVs, monitors and other screens, with colour and detail represented exactly as the creator intended. 

Given its penchant for ensuring content is depicted with incredible accuracy, it’s no surprise that Portrait Displays has signed up to become a member of the UHD Alliance, which is a coalition of leading consumer electronics firms, film and TV studios, content distributors and tech companies. Its members include Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Sony, TP Vision, MediaTek, BenQ and others. 

One of the primary tasks of the UHD Alliance is to create performance standards for resolution, high dynamic range and other video and audio attributes. The Alliance’s most notable achievement has been the creation of Filmmaker Mode, which is a preset mode available on many new TVs that aims to preserve content creator’s original intent by depicting video as close as possible to the original. 

The UHD Alliance says the array of processing techniques, panel technologies and lighting arrays means that no two TVs display exactly the same image. Moreover, default settings tend to alter or distort the images we see on screen, meaning they fail to reflect what the film director or colourist created in the studio. 

Filmmaker Mode fixes this by correcting these picture setting alterations. For instance, it disables high contrast ratio settings that don’t reflect the creator’s intent, while ensuring images are displayed at the correct aspect ratio and frame rate. It also cuts out special effects such as motion smoothing. 

Portrait Displays said it has long been an advocate for preserving creator’s original intent, and that considering how its mission is aligned with that of the UHD Alliance, it was inevitable that it would become a member. 

Portrait Displays’ vice president of marketing Marcel Gonska said that enabling consumer access to an “outstanding lens to living room experience” has always been a primary goal of the company. "To be able to work next to many of our own clients and partners in order to push industry-wide efforts forward into the next generation of home entertainment is very exciting to Portrait Displays,” he said. 

UHD Alliance President Michael Zink said Portrait Display’s expertise with regards to colour calibration, and its commitment to improving home entertainment experiences make it a very welcome addition to the Alliance. “We look forward to their involvement,” he said.