Friday, February 22, 2008

Scott Gentry | 02/22- 07:04 AM

SANTA CLARA, CA — FEBRUARY 21, 2008 – NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies, today introduced the NVIDIA Quadro® FX 3600M professional GPU for notebook and laptop workstations. This new graphics solution defines a new level of graphics performance and advanced visual computing for designers, engineers, and scientists who demand the functionality of a desktop workstation on a notebook platform.

“Design professionals, who rely on the high-performance and advanced features of NVIDIA Quadro graphics in a desktop workstation, can also experience this same level of performance in a notebook workstation,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. “With the new NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M GPU, the notebook becomes a powerful workstation, allowing professionals to work anywhere, anytime without sacrificing graphics quality or performance.”

“The HP Compaq 8710w mobile workstation, with the new NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M GPU, is our most powerful mobile workstation to date,” said Dan Forlenza, vice president, Business Notebooks, HP. “The implementation of high-performance features such as CUDA and Shader Model 4.0 technology on the mobile GPU, gives professionals the workstation-caliber processing and graphics performance they need to go wherever their work takes them.”

These new platforms deliver a uniform feature set, which include Shader Model 4.0, CUDA™ technology and GPU computing for visualization. Professionals working with large datasets, models, and images in markets such as computer-aided design (CAD), digital content creation (DCC), imaging, computing, and the sciences, are now unchained from their desktop workstations with notebook solutions that feature the latest Quadro professional graphics architecture.

Engineered to deliver high performance and visualization of extensive datasets with extremely high image quality in an ISV-certified, notebook platform, the Quadro FX 3600M is available as a fully qualified MXM v2.1A type-III form factor mobile workstation graphics board with:

512 MB G-DDR3 memory
256-bit memory interface
51.2 GBps graphic memory bandwidth
OpenGL 2.1, Shader Model 4.0, and DirectX 10
PowerMizer™ adaptive power management tools

The complete line of NVIDIA Quadro FX notebook solutions are widely available through leading OEMs such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Fujitsu Japan, and FSC as well as workstation system integrators. For more information about the entire series of NVIDIA professional Quadro solutions, please visit http://www.nvidia.com/quadro.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Adam Wilt | 02/20- 08:34 PM

On this, the first “real” day of the HPA Tech Retreat, we were treated to 3D cinema demos and discussions, a CES review, a phased-array mic for sports recording, and more.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Adam Wilt | 02/19- 08:35 PM

This 3M film is used in the diffuser of a 23” LCD panel

“Day 0” of the 2008 HPA Tech Retreat in Palm Springs offered four sessions; I attended three: Euredjian on LCDs, Poynton on Radiosity, and AMPAS on the Image Interchange Format.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Chris Meyer | 02/15- 07:45 PM

The video industry has saddled us users with some truly ugly numbers to deal with (such as 720x480, 29.97, and so forth) when working with digital video. Making matters worse, these numbers are often misquoted or misunderstood.

Thankfully, there are a few web sites out there with some truly valuable, correct information on digital video standards. Here are the sites we refer to most often when we need to know the inside scoop:

Monday, February 11, 2008

Scott Gentry | 02/11- 07:03 PM

First things first, I completely agree with Mike Curtis, that the MacBook Air isn’t for us.  Except that....

Excuse me while I hit the way-back machine and meander down memory lane to the days of yore, when if you wanted a great NLE machine, it made sense to make that machine, your only machine.  If you planned to do any business, script writing, Quickbooks, spreadsheets, well then you must have another machine my friend, as the NLE will likely crash if things aren’t just so.  Perhaps you remember those days?  Or perhaps you’re lucky enough to only live using a new MacBook Pro (or insert top of the line PC here), with the latest Office, Logic Pro, FCP Studio, After Effects, Photoshop, InDesign, etc.  I could go on and on, but you get the point.  Today’s top end PC or Mac could run a small country, and at the same time, slice bread, produce the next Grammy-winning album, er CD, er, MP3, oh - and concurrently output the next top grossing feature film.  Perhaps I want my ultra-portable computer to write scripts, handle my day to day email on the road and not have to worry about lugging around my editing machine, when maybe my next trip is finding the right client, not editing on the airplane.

Bear with me here....

Friday, February 01, 2008

Chris Meyer | 02/01- 03:47 PM

We’re having the hardwood floors in the office refinished. They brought in a huge electric sander that didn’t even have a plug; they wired it straight into the circuit breaker panel. Needless to say, every time they turned it on, the lights dimmed.

This brings up the subject of battery backup power for your computer workstations, commonly known as a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). In short, you should have one on each computer, keeping it and your drives alive when the power blips. You can’t work all day off of them (unless you have a truly huge one), but they’ll keep you up long enough to hit “save” - rather than suffer through a data loss.

We used to have UPSs in the 450 to 650 VA (volt-amp) range. They were fine for our Mac G3s and G4s. Things weren’t so rosy when we started getting multi-processor G5s a few years back: One power blip, and everyone was dead. We’ve had to move up to supplies with at least a 950 VA rating. Higher ratings mean longer running times, plus more future-proofing for when you buy an even more powerful (and power-hungry) computer in the future.

These beasts are a lot less expensive than they used to be, especially if you buy refurbished models. We get ours from UPS For Less, where used units are dirt cheap - roughly $100 for a 1000 VA unit (normally $500+) is a common price. Replacement batteries (which you will need every few years) can be had from a number of places; just Google them.

Here’s a dark secret about most UPS devices: The power they output is not as “clean” as the outlet on the wall; they fake the sine wave of the alternating current. This isn’t a problem with computers, but can cause noise in sensitive audio devices. If this is an issue for you, look for supplies that say they have a “true” rather than “simulated” sine wave output.

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