One of the reasons I favor HP workstations is because HP practices the Japanese art of kaizen, or continuous small improvements. A great example is the recent update to HP’s entry level desktop tower, the Z240 (on the left, click to see full rez picture), which has been upgraded to accept CPUs running at up to 4.2 GHz and several …
Read More »Choosing a Workstation for Editing, Encoding, or Analysis? Check out the HP Z840
Though cameras get most of the hype and headlines for video producers, workstations are where the rubber meets the road, helping us meet our deadlines and get our work done during normal (or mostly normal) business hours. Recently, I put the new HP Z840 through its paces, and in three separate reviews, discussed its performance for video editing, streaming encoding, …
Read More »Much Video Processing Performance Boost Do the Latest PC Processors Deliver?
Back in 2009, when HP shipped new workstations powered by the Nehalem line of CPUs, the performance boost was so significant that they instantly rendered obsolete workstations based upon previous architectures. Now that Intel has launched Ivy Bridge-
Read More »HP Releases New Z1
On January 6, 2014, HP announced a new version of their Z1 all-in-one workstation. I love the first version because it’s beautiful, powerful and field upgradeable; but it lacked high-speed external connectivity, so your capture options for live production were limited. You can see my experience with the unit here and my colleague Tim Siglin’s review of the Z1 here. …
Read More »Buyer’s Guide: Windows Production Stations
If you’re an editor or a compressionist, your livelihood depends upon the stability and throughput of your production station. If you plan to buy a new Windows workstation in 2012, here are some thoughts to consider when choosing and configurin
Read More »Buyer’s Guide: Windows Production Stations
From the operating system to the graphics card, here is all you need to know to buy the best workstation for your budget.
Read More »I’m Rosie’s Dad (on the power of video)
I’m at a conference in Las Vegas visiting with the HP workstation group. Great folks, nice hotel, fun meetings, Cirque de Soleil tonight. So all the workstation VPs make their sweep of the dining room last night, saying hello, getting some face time with the various press folks. Some kind of know me; I’ve reviewed plenty of HP workstations and …
Read More »HP EliteBook 8760W – the Ideal Mobile CS 5.5 Workstation
Summary Depending upon the project type, rendering with GPU-acceleration in Creative Suite 5.5 can reduce rendering time by up to 92% over CPU-only rendering. Since NVIDIA’s CUDA technology is the only GPU that currently accelerates rendering in the Adobe Media Encoder and Premiere Pro, buying a notebook without NVIDIA hardware for CS5.5 production is a huge mistake. If you’re in …
Read More »What Makes a Workstation a Workstation – My visit to HP
HP invited a bunch of journalists, myself included, out to visit their facility in Fort Collins, CO, the headquarters for workstation design, support and marketing. Beyond the desire to meet and greet friends old and new, I had one goal – to learn what makes a computer a workstation. To explain, in the bad old days, workstations had proprietary RISC …
Read More »Apple Mac Pro – How Much Memory is Enough?
In the first edition of this month’s Affordable HD enewsletter, we keep the focus on the Apple Mac Pro, specifically analyzing the optimal memory configurations for editing and encoding with Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite 4, and Telestream Episode Engine. I looked at several scenarios. Figure 1. The Apple Mac Pro’s memory tray. First, I tested performance at …
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