Based in Mississauga, Ontario, SP Studios is a full-service production facility best known as the home of Canada’s highest-resolution LED virtual production stage, featuring an approximately 58-foot-wide by 15-foot-high (17.7-metre-wide by 4.6-metre-high) 1.9mm pixel pitch LED wall. The facility also includes a cyclorama and motion-control systems, alongside its own inventory of cameras, lighting and grip equipment. Its in-house designers and artists create custom virtual environments for productions. Clients include American Express, Apple, Delta Casino, DoorDash, Ford, Hyundai, M&M’s, TD Canada, and Wendy’s among many others.
The studio’s LED wall was originally constructed in a J-shaped configuration, with an additional batch of panels purchased later to extend the curved section. As the original inventory had experienced significantly more operating time, differences in colour and luminance had developed between the older and newer panels. This meant the team had to make additional camera and image adjustments to achieve a consistent on-screen result.
“Before the Hydra recalibration, the colours of the newer and older panels were different because the age of the panels was different,” explains Benjamin Valiquette, Executive Producer and Chief Operating Officer at SP Studios. “We had to make in-camera changes so that the image looked unified.” Now, he added, “We can use the entire wall with confidence”.
Hydra is Brompton’s award-winning, all-in-one measurement system, custom-designed for LED panels and exclusive to Brompton Technology. It uses multiple measurement instruments simultaneously and can complete a full measurement cycle in just seconds per panel, combining efficiency with detailed colour and performance data.
“As LED panels accumulate operating hours, their output gradually degrades, which can lead to differences in luminance,” says Angel Banchs, Owner and Lead Colour Engineer at Red Rock OPS. “When we got there, that was apparent. Hydra calibrates out those deviations that develop through use, and it also helped us level off the newer panels, which had been a pain point because the colours were so vastly different.”
The Hydra system also provides the measurement foundation for performance-enhancing Tessera features including Brompton HDR, PureTone and ThermaCal. PureTone is particularly valuable in virtual production environments such as SP Studios, as the studio’s LED wall is often operated at lower brightness levels to suit camera exposure. The Hydra measurement data enabled PureTone to hold a neutral colour balance across the greyscale at those low brightness levels, while Dynamic Calibration addressed the variations between batches.
Valiquette confirms that, since the Red Rock OPS team did the calibration, there have been no issues between the newer and older panels. The studio can now use the entire LED wall with confidence, rather than having to concentrate production on the flat section of the original J-shaped wall. The team can prepare multiple environments and physical set elements across different areas of the volume, then move the camera between them with minimal disruption.
“The fact that we can use the whole wall now is great because it means we can do multiple setups on the wall and shoot more in a day,” he says. “We can make a simple camera move over to the other location and use smaller set builds. We don’t have to worry about shooting on the wall as much as we did before.
“It has essentially doubled the amount of shooting SP Studios can do each day and has made clients happier because there is more predictability and less need for post-processing.”
Hydra’s portability allowed Red Rock OPS to undertake the entire project at SP Studios’ facility.
“Bringing Hydra to the studio kept them from putting all the panels in cases, loading them onto a truck and shipping them away, which could have meant two or three weeks, maybe even a month, of lost time,” says Banchs. “For a studio like SP, that is revenue they’re not going to regain. That’s one of the things we always pride ourselves on: we come to you and not the other way around.”
The on-site process also allowed SP Studios’ technical team to work alongside Banchs, observe the measurements and gain a deeper understanding of both the LED panels and the Brompton processing system.
For SP Studios, the benefits have extended beyond image quality and production efficiency to greater confidence in the service it can offer its clients.
“It was hard to shut the studio down for a couple of days because it meant seeing the jobs that we had to pass up, but it has been well worth it,” says Valiquette. “I feel like we accomplished so much in those few days. Everyone was in a better mood, our technician was re-energised and we were all prouder of the product that we could provide to our clients.
“We are definitely more confident in the wall and the technology now. We pride ourselves on having the highest-resolution wall in Canada, and we want it to be the best wall it can be. That’s why working with Red Rock OPS was amazing.”
“SP Studios is a powerful example of how utilising our Hydra measurement system can translate directly into creative and commercial benefits,” concludes Webster Moyle, Technical Sales Manager at Brompton Technology. “By taking Hydra directly to the facility, Red Rock OPS was able to bring SP Studios’ entire LED inventory into alignment, minimise downtime and unlock access to additional Tessera features. The result is not simply a more consistent LED wall, but a more flexible and effective production environment that helps the studio protect its investment and deliver an even stronger commercial offering for its clients.”