status
cartNews a Safe Harbor blogMatrox Announces Adobe CS5 Support on MXO2 Family for MacBook Pro and Mac Pro
(Montréal, Canada—August 5, 2010) Matrox® Video Products Group today announced support for Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium software with Matrox MXO2 I/O devices for Mac OS X. The key features of this new release include professional audio and video input and output with 10-bit hardware up/down/cross conversion and HDMI video monitoring with the unique Matrox calibration controls including blue-only. In addition, WYSIWYG support for Adobe Photoshop and After Effects is also provided. "Users of file-based workflows will love the built-in color calibration tools on the MXO2 devices that turn their inexpensive HDMI displays into professional-grade HD monitors they can trust, even for color grading," said Wayne Andrews, Matrox product manager. "When they need to capture from analog or SDI sources, we have them covered too, with the new Matrox Vetura Capture application and the high-quality, highly-efficient Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame intermediate codec." ‘This release rounds out the Matrox MXO2 cross-platform story," said Alberto Cieri, Matrox senior director of sales and marketing. "We are the only I/O hardware manufacturer that can claim support for the three most popular professional editing applications: Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Avid Media Composer." The entire family of Matrox MXO2 devices will be demonstrated at IBC 2010 in Amsterdam, September 10-14, on the Matrox stand 7.B29. Key features of the Matrox MXO2 family for Mac with Adobe CS5 Production Premium
Availability Matrox products are available from Safe Harbor at: http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/MTX.html. Adobe CS5 support for the Matrox MXO2 devices for Mac (release 2.1) will be available to registered users as a free download from the Matrox website in October 2010. About Matrox Matrox Video Products Group is a technology and market leader in the field of HD and SD digital video hardware and software for accelerated H.264 encoding, realtime editing, audio/video input/output, DVD/Blu-ray authoring, scan conversion, capture/playout servers, clip/still stores, and CGs. Matrox's Emmy award-winning technology powers a full range of content creation and delivery platforms used by broadcasters, post-production facilities, project studios, corporate communicators, and videographers worldwide. Founded in 1976, Matrox is a privately held company headquartered in Montreal, Canada. For more information visit http://www.matrox.com/video. Matrox Announces Vetura Capture Application
(Montréal, Canada—August 5, 2010) Matrox Video Products Group today announced Matrox Vetura Capture for Mac OS X, a stand-alone capture software application compatible with the Matrox MXO2 family of I/O devices. Matrox Vetura Capture lets users quickly and easily capture QuickTime files using popular codecs installed on their editing systems. With Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 the Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame codec and Apple Uncompressed formats are supported. With Final Cut Pro 7, ProRes, DVCPRO HD and other popular Final Cut Pro codecs are supported. With Avid Media Composer 5, the Avid DnX, DnXHD, and other popular Avid Media Composer codecs are supported. "Matrox Vetura Capture enables new on-set workflows when used with a Matrox MXO2 device and a Mac Pro equipped with a Matrox CompressHD H.264 encoding accelerator card," said Wayne Andrews, Matrox product manager. "While recording XDCAM EX, P2, or RED footage as usual, users can also feed the output of their camera through their Matrox MXO2 device and capture directly into H.264 .mov files using Matrox MAX technology that is built into the CompressHD card. Dailies are immediately available as low bit rate, manageable-sized files for delivery to the client." "We’re continuing to add value to the Matrox MXO2 product line," said Alberto Cieri, Matrox senior director of sales and marketing. "With Matrox Vetura Capture we have started to implement our vision of expanding the capabilities of Matrox MAX technology beyond simple H.264 export acceleration." Matrox Vetura Capture will be demonstrated at IBC 2010 in Amsterdam, September 10-14, on the Matrox stand 7.B29. Availability Matrox products are available from Safe Harbor here: http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/MTX.html. The Matrox Vetura Capture application for Mac will be available in release 2.1 to registered users of Matrox MXO2 devices as a free download from the Matrox website in October 2010. About Matrox Matrox Video Products Group is a technology and market leader in the field of HD and SD digital video hardware and software for accelerated H.264 encoding, realtime editing, audio/video input/output, DVD/Blu-ray authoring, scan conversion, capture/playout servers, clip/still stores, and CGs. Matrox's Emmy award-winning technology powers a full range of content creation and delivery platforms used by broadcasters, post-production facilities, project studios, corporate communicators, and videographers worldwide. Founded in 1976, Matrox is a privately held company headquartered in Montreal, Canada. http://www.matrox.com/video Help Raise Money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association!
Hello, I am Dennis Hoffman, President of Safe Harbor Computers. I have (been) volunteered to go behind bars for the MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) Lock-Up on August 19th. This lock-up is all in good fun in an attempt to gather donations for a very worthwhile cause! My bail (donation target) has been set by the jailers at $1895 so I need your help to regain my freedom and avoid a public flogging! All kidding aside, your donation will help the victims of the many neuromuscular diseases covered by the MDA. Any donation amount is welcome and it is tax-deductable. Donations must be received before August 18th. You can donate in one of two ways. You can use your credit card to make a donation on MDA's secure website at this link: Bail Dennis Out! Or You can make a donation using a check (no cash please!) and I will slip the check to the guards on the 19th. Make your check payable to MDA and mail it to: Dennis Hoffman Thank You! Noise Industries Ships FxFactory Pro 2.5
(Boston, Massachusetts) Noise Industries, developer of visual effects tools for the post-production and broadcast markets, is pleased to announce the release of FxFactory Pro 2.5 for Apple® Final Cut Pro®, Motion®, Final Cut Express®, and Adobe® After Effects® applications. FxFactory is an award-winning, revolutionary platform, powering over 300 visual effects plug-ins optimized for real-time performance on the Macintosh platform. The new FxFactory Pro 2.5 introduces 8 new visionary filters and transition plug-ins, as well as significant enhancements to the platform's unique slideshow generator, which includes a sleek new user interface for selecting and arranging images. The update is free for current FxFactory Pro 2.0 users at: http://www.noiseindustries.com/support/fxfactory250. "The latest update to FxFactory Pro features some extremely creative and stylistic new plug-ins, as well as important improvements to the platform's popular slideshow generator," comments Niclas Bahn, director of business development, Noise Industries. "As with each new release, customer feedback has played a huge role in developing Version 2.5. The new filters and transitions create eye-popping graphic effects, while the slideshow generators' innovative new user interface allows users to choose, re-order and re-name sets of images directly within the Final Cut Pro application. This is now the easiest and most efficient way to create captivating slideshows in Final Cut Pro, Motion and After Effects. With the Version 2.5 update, users have more flexibility and control than ever before." What's New in FxFactory Pro 2.5 FxFactory Pro 2.5 introduces users to 8 brand new visually stimulating distortion, color correction and transition plug-ins, as well as major quality and performance improvements to its distinctive slideshow generator. FxFactory Pro 2.5 features and benefits include: New Filter and Transition Plug-Ins
Significant Slideshow Generator Updates An innovative new user interface gives users increased flexibility in selecting and re-ordering image files, and complete creative control to produce stunning slideshows in Final Cut Pro, Motion and After Effects. The newly enhanced slideshow generator also includes 4 new transition effects applied automatically between slides. For more information FxFactory Pro 2.5 please visit: http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/NOI.html. Availability and Pricing of FxFactory FxFactory Pro is available today for $359.99 USD. Additional plug-ins are available for free or commercially starting at a price point of $29.00 USD. FxFactory products can be purchased via the Safe Harbor website at http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/NOI.html. Adobe After Effects, Apple, Final Cut Studio, and Apple Final Cut Express users can also test drive hundreds of FxFactory plug-ins by downloading the trial version from: http://www.noiseindustries.com/fxfactory. About Noise Industries, LLC Established in 2004, Boston, Massachusetts-based Noise Industries is an innovative developer of visual effects tools for the post-production and broadcast community. Their products are integrated with popular non-linear editing and compositing products from Apple and Adobe. For more information about Noise Industries, please visit: http://www.noiseindustries.com. ATTO RAID Adapters Now Available with Battery-less Cache Memory Data Protection
(Amherst, New York) ATTO Technology, Inc., a global leader of storage connectivity and infrastructure solutions for data-intensive computing environments, today announced the immediate availability of its ExpressSAS 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID adapters featuring exclusive CacheAssure™ Technology that safeguards against the loss of cached data in the event of a power or system failure. With CacheAssure, ExpressSAS RAID adapters provide a high-performance, single controller storage connectivity solution that delivers significant advancements in data preservation in an environmentally-friendly and maintenance-free design. CacheAssure Technology is designed to overcome the performance, maintenance and useful life limitations of Lithium ION battery backup solutions for cached data. With CacheAssure, ExpressSAS RAID adapters offer enterprises a more substantial return on investment (ROI) by providing cached data protection for up to 10 years, eliminating the expenses involved with purchasing and disposing of batteries year after year, and drastically reducing the resources required to monitor and maintain battery charge levels. Furthermore, operating costs associated with downtime resulting from a power failure, or during the process of replacing or charging a battery, are eliminated by using ExpressSAS RAID adapters with CacheAssure Technology. "ATTO’s ExpressSAS 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID Adapters provide an innovative solution for optimizing system performance and drastically reducing data storage maintenance," states Mark Valentino, product manager, ATTO Technology. "Our CacheAssure capacitor based technology instantly detects power or system failures and preserves cached data on the RAID adapter, providing a seamless data protection solution." ExpressSAS 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID adapters offer businesses the highest consistent RAID performance and maximize the availability of data in storage and server environments. With CacheAssure Technology, along with other exclusive power-reducing and performance-enhancing technologies like Advanced Data Streaming (ADS™) and DriveAssure™, ExpressSAS RAID adapters offer a cutting-edge approach to improving data protection and sustaining productivity levels. "Using CacheAssure eliminates the hassles of dealing with batteries and the hazardous materials they contain," says Mark. "We are providing our customers with innovative technology that allows them to reduce their costs, while giving them the peace of mind that their cached data will always be there when they need it." For more information on ATTO’s ExpressSAS 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID adapters featuring CacheAssure Technology visit: http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/ATO.html About ATTO Technology, Inc ATTO Technology, Inc. is a global leader of storage connectivity and infrastructure solutions for data-intensive computing environments. ATTO provides a wide range of solutions to help customers store, manage and deliver their data more efficiently. With a focus toward markets that require higher performance, ATTO manufactures host and RAID adapters, converged network adapters, bridges, switches, RAID storage controllers, and management software. ATTO solutions provide connectivity to all storage interfaces including Fibre Channel, SAS, SATA, SCSI, iSCSI, FCoE and 10GbE. ATTO distributes its products worldwide directly to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), systems integrators, VARs and authorized distributors. Contact ATTO Technology, Inc. world headquarters, at: 155 CrossPoint Parkway, Amherst, New York 14068; Phone: (716) 691-1999; Fax: (716) 691-9353; Website: attotech.com. 3Dconnexion Brings Intelligent 3D Navigation to Autodesk 3ds Max Artists
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – 3Dconnexion's newest driver update for Autodesk® 3ds Max® brings intelligent 3D navigation to the design process, delivering the ultimate level of control to game developers, visual effects artists and graphic designers. Whether working with larger models or focusing on intricate details in a 3D environment, 3Dconnexion’s intelligent 3D navigation feature automatically follows the point of interest to continuously determine the optimal center of rotation. In addition, the center of rotation can be seen at all times through an icon to give designers a reference point when controlling spin, tilt, and roll motion, resulting in an extremely intuitive 3D navigation experience. "Our innovative intelligent 3D navigation feature provides a new level of control over the point of interest in 3D designs" said Dieter Neujahr, president of 3Dconnexion. "By automatically establishing and displaying the optimal center of rotation, designers are free to focus more on the creative elements of their designs without having to think about navigating or positioning their model." To meet a range of design needs, there are two modes of setting the center of rotation. The new Auto Rotation Center sets the center of rotation to a point on the model that is nearest to the display screen center, which is particularly useful for use at higher zoom levels. For additional control, designers can also easily pick a new center of rotation point on the 3D model to suit their individual design task. In addition to intelligent 3D navigation, the latest driver update also streamlines the 3Dconnexion 3D mouse user interface within 3ds Max. By using the Menu or Panel button on the 3D mouse, a pop-up menu is activated to centralize all 3D mouse related options into one location. The new pop-up menu simplifies the interface by grouping functions and hiding details the designer may not be interested in. The new menu also minimizes screen clutter and provides designers with a clearer view of their design. 3Dconnexion will be demonstrating the new intelligent navigation feature in Booth 1147 at SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles, Calif., July 27–29. Availability These new features are available now in a free 3DxWare software update, and support Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 to 2011 on Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, and Windows 7 across the entire product line. The 3Dconnexion product line includes the Professional Series with the SpacePilot PRO (MSRP $399) and SpaceExplorer™ (MSRP $299), and the Standard Series with the SpaceNavigator (MSRP $99) and SpaceNavigator for Notebooks (MSRP $129), all of which are available at http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/TDC.html. About 3Dconnexion, a Logitech Company 3Dconnexion, a wholly owned subsidiary of Logitech (SIX: LOGN) (Nasdaq: LOGI), is the leading provider of 3D mice for 3D design and visualization. 3Dconnexion devices support today’s most popular and powerful 3D applications by offering users a more intuitive and natural way to interact with computer-generated 3D content. 3Dconnexion’s award-winning 3D mice serve a wide variety of industries and are used by 3D designers, animators and artists worldwide. 3Dconnexion is headquartered in Fremont, Calif. with European headquarters in Munich, Germany and offices worldwide. For more information, visit www.3Dconnexion.com. You may also connect with 3Dconnexion on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/3Dconnexion) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/3Dconnexion). NewTek Introduces LightWave™ 10
SAN ANTONIO – SIGGRAPH – NewTek, worldwide leader of 3D animation and video products, today announced NewTek LightWave™ 10, the next generation of its Emmy® award-winning professional 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software. LightWave 10 will combine ground-breaking CORE technology with enhanced Modeler and Layout to deliver the most extensive upgrade in years to LightWave's production-proven workflow. NewTek continues to innovate with LightWave 10, offering powerful new features and benefits to LightWave artists, including an amazingly photoreal real-time version of our award-winning renderer, VPR (Viewport Preview Renderer) and advanced, real-time CG hardware viewport shading, delivering Anaglyph Stereo, Ambient Occlusion, Transparency, Refractions, and Bloom. LightWave 10 will also offer extensive, new immersive real-time virtual cinematography and game development tools. These solutions evolved as a result of the virtual cinematic production techniques that were pioneered by leading Hollywood artists and technicians for films like "Avatar," "Tintin," and "A Christmas Carol." For production studios and more advanced individuals, this immersive technology includes integrated support for the InterSense VCam™, virtual camera system. The individual artist gains a similar immersive experience with LightWave 10 and its integrated support for 3Dconnexion's complete line of 3D mice. This powerful combination provides directors and artists with the ability to interact in real time within a 3D set. "As a LightWave HardCORE member, I love the power and flexibility that I get with the preview builds of LightWave 10," said Lino Grandi, feature film creature rigging and visual effects supervisor. "VPR allows me to see the complex creature rigging deformations in a beautiful real-time render. It's incredible to be able to work on a character rig and get this advanced level of visual feedback. Interactive lighting, procedural textures, reflections, transparency, radiosity, it's all there." LightWave 10 is ideal for all production pipelines-from large production facilities to small specialized studios. It offers the following new elements: Interactive Display and Rendering Tools:
Flexible Data Interchange Enhancements:
New Immersive, Real-Time and Game Tools:
Bullet Rigid Body Dynamics:
Advanced UV Mapping Tools:
"The imagery created by LightWave users and studios and the yearly awards and recognitions for that work speaks for itself," said Rob Powers, vice president, 3D development, NewTek. "LightWave has an indisputable track record in the industry and allows studios and individuals to continually turn out award-winning work on time, on schedule, on budget and with a profit. If you are doing feature film effects, prime time TV, commercial work, music videos, or a science fiction project and you're not using LightWave in your pipeline, you should reconsider your approach." About LightWave NewTek LightWave 3D® combines a state-of-the-art renderer with powerful, intuitive modeling, and animation tools. Tools that may cost extra in other professional 3D applications are part of the product package, including 999 free cross-platform render nodes, support for Windows and Mac UB 64 and 32-bit operating systems, free technical support and more. LightWave is enjoyed worldwide, as a complete 3D production solution for feature film and television visual effects, broadcast design, print graphics, visualization, game development, and Web. LightWave is responsible for more artists winning Emmy® Awards than any other 3D application. Pricing and Availability LightWave 10 will begin shipping in Q4 2010. Artists may gain access to preview builds of LightWave 10 immediately through NewTek SIGGRAPH special offers. When LightWave 10 ships in Q4 2010 it will be available for a suggested retail price of US$1,495.00. LightWave 10 upgrades will be available for US$695. Educational pricing is also available. About NewTek Benefiting producers and artists with cost-effective and groundbreaking technologies, NewTek is a worldwide leader in 3D animation and special effects tools, portable live production and video editing including LightWave 3D®, the TriCaster™ product line and 3PLAY™. NewTek has won numerous industry accolades, including two Emmy® Awards. NewTek products have been used in blockbuster films and television shows, including "Avatar," "Repo Men," "Alice in Wonderland," "Tintin," "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man," "Caprica," "V," "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Lost," "Fringe" and more. NewTek is privately owned and based in San Antonio, Texas. For more information, please visit: www.newtek.com. New NVIDIA Fermi-class Quadro Launches the Era of Computational Visualization
(SiGGRAPH 2010—July 27, 2010) NVIDIA (Booth #717) today launched the era of the ‘computational visualization workstation’ for designers, engineers, researchers and animators by introducing its Quadro® graphics processing units (GPUs) based on NVIDIA® Fermi architecture, and by also introducing the new NVIDIA 3D Vision™ Pro solution. The new Quadro GPUs deliver performance that is up to five times faster for 3D applications and up to eight times faster for computational simulation1, shattering previous benchmarks. The NVIDIA Quadro Plex 7000 array, and Quadro 6000, Quadro 5000 and Quadro 4000 GPUs feature the new NVIDIA® Scalable Geometry Engines and leverage NVIDIA Application Acceleration Engines (AXE) to enable the world’s fastest performance across a broad range of CAD, DCC and visualization applications2. Rated at an unheard of 1.3 billion triangles per second in raw performance3, the Quadro 6000 enables users to interactively work with models and scenes that are five times more complex than ever before. "For over a decade Quadro has been the choice of professionals around the world. We’ve also built Engines like AXE to enable the creation of next-gen applications," said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions Group, NVIDIA. "When you couple these technologies with our Fermi architecture, the result is a new Quadro family that’s exponentially better than anything the market has ever seen." Redesigned from the Ground Up to Accelerate Entire Workflows Combining high performance computing capabilities with advanced visualization, the new Quadro GPU is the world’s first professional graphics solution with Error Correction Codes (ECC) memory and fast, IEEE double precision floating point performance. These are intended for applications demanding the highest accuracy, such as medical imaging, finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics. "In high-end visual effects development, fast iteration is essential," said Olivier Maury, research and development engineer, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). "By using NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, we are seeing up to eight iterations each day of complex fire, dust and air simulations, representing speed improvements of ten to fifteen times. NVIDIA CUDA and Quadro GPUs have entirely changed the way we solve complex visual effects challenges." The new Quadro GPUs are built on industry standards, including OpenGL 4.1, DirectX 11, DirectCompute and OpenCL. In addition, Quadro leverages technologies that are unique to NVIDIA – such as the company’s portfolio of Application Acceleration Engines (AXE) and NVIDIA CUDA™ parallel processing architecture. The result is that software developers are able to create and deliver the next-generation of professional applications that incorporate compute-intensive tasks. Among these tasks are ray tracing, physics simulation, computational fluid dynamics and real-time video effects processing. "NVIDIA isn’t just working on building better graphics hardware, but the software tools needed to drive the needed advancements that are now changing the industry," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst, Enderle Group. "NVIDIA was committed to building tool after tool this past decade in order to drive the market where they needed it to go, and their efforts are paying off." The new Quadro professional solutions introduced today include:
Additionally, all Quadro products are compatible with the new NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro active shutter-glasses solution, also announced today, for the highest-quality stereoscopic 3D immersive experience. Widespread Adoption Workstation OEMs and System Integrators, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, BOXX Technologies and NextComputing, are among those that are offering the newest Quadro solutions. Quadro products are also available from value added resellers through master distributors PNY Technologies in North America and Europe, Leadtek in Asia Pacific, and ELSA in Japan. "As the first professional-class GPUs to integrate high performance computing with advanced visualization, NVIDIA Quadro combined with Dell Precision workstations are poised to transform workflows," said Greg Weir, senior manager, Dell Precision Workstations Product and ISV Marketing. "With this technology, we are enabling our design, research, animation and film customers to deliver higher quality results in less time." "NVIDIA continues to push the envelope on delivering cutting-edge graphics solutions,"said Rob Herman, director of product marketing, worldwide ThinkStation Business Unit, Lenovo. We’re actively incorporating these latest graphics into our newly upgraded ThinkStation C20 and D20 workstations to deliver innovative, ‘visual supercomputers’ to our customers." Availability and Pricing The Quadro 4000 and Quadro 5000 are available from Safe Harbor at http://www.sharbor.com/vendors/PNY.html. The Quadro 6000 and Quadro Plex 7000 will be available this fall. Mobile workstations based on the Quadro 5000M will be available in the third quarter of 2010 from HP and Dell. The newest Quadro solutions are being featured at SIGGRAPH 2010 in the NVIDIA booth, #717, South Hall, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, from July 27-29, 2010. To learn more, visit: http://www.nvidia.com/quadro. About NVIDIA NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from tablets and portable media players to notebooks and workstations. NVIDIA’s expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The company holds more than 1,100 U.S. patents, including ones covering designs and insights which are fundamental to modern computing. For more information, see http://www.nvidia.com. Apple Unveils New Mac Pros Coming August 2010
This morning we saw an update to the Apple site, announcing new Mac Pros coming this August. Boasting the title, "Mac. To the power of 12," Apple is calling it the fastest Mac ever, with up to 12 cores of processing power. More information can be found at http://www.apple.com/macpro/. Accelerated architecture.Choose your cores: 4, 6, 8, or 12.
The single-die advantage. Many multicore processors are composed of two separate dies, which means some cached data has to travel outside the processor to get from core to core. That’s an inefficient way to access information. Enter the Quad-Core and 6-Core Intel Xeon processors. Their single-die, 64-bit architecture makes 8MB or 12MB of fully shared L3 cache readily available to each of the processor cores. The result is fast access to cache data and greater application performance. Combine that with the other technological advances and you get a Mac Pro that’s up to 1.5x faster than the previous generation.1 Fast memory. And lots of it. System memory is often connected to a processor through a separate I/O controller. But Intel Xeon "Nehalem" and "Westmere" processors feature an integrated memory controller. By connecting memory directly to the processor, the new Mac Pro processors have faster access to data stored in memory, and memory latency is reduced.
The integrated memory controller, along with fast DDR3 ECC SDRAM at either 1066GHz or 1333GHz, gives Mac Pro an increase in memory bandwidth over previous generations. More bandwidth allows for more data to be fed to the processor faster, helping each core spend its time processing data, not waiting for information to arrive. And Error Correction Code (ECC) corrects single-bit errors and detects multiple-bit errors automatically. That’s especially important in mission-critical and compute-intensive environments. Power when (and where) you need it. The Mac Pro features Turbo Boost, a dynamic performance technology that automatically boosts the processor clock speed based on workload. If you’re using an application that doesn’t need every core, Turbo Boost increases the speed of the active ones, up to 3.33GHz on a 12-core Mac Pro, and up to 3.6GHz on a 6-core system.
Up to 24 virtual cores. The Intel Xeon processors support Hyper-Threading, which allows two threads to run simultaneously on each core. So, for example, a 12-core Mac Pro presents 24 virtual cores that are recognized by Mac OS X. Performance is enhanced because Hyper-Threading enables the processor to take better advantage of the execution resources available in each core. Path of least resistance. A bidirectional, point-to-point connection — called QuickPath Interconnect — gives the Intel Xeon processors quick access to the disk, I/O, and other Mac Pro subsystems. In dual-processor Mac Pro models, there’s a QuickPath Interconnect between the two processors as well. This connection acts as a direct pipeline, so processor-to-processor data doesn’t need to travel to the I/O hub first. It’s another way the Mac Pro boosts performance across the board. Powerfully efficient. The Mac Pro meets the stringent low power requirements set by the EPA, giving it ENERGY STAR qualification. ENERGY STAR 5.0 sets significantly higher efficiency limits for power supplies and aggressive limits for the computer’s typical annual power consumption. Faster than a speeding anything.
Even faster standard graphics. All-new high-performance graphics cards from AMD make Mac Pro graphics technology faster than ever before. Perfect for motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, the ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory comes standard. It not only provides faster performance compared to previous Mac Pro standard graphics cards — it’s also faster than the top-of-the-line graphics cards in the previous generation. Give your graphics a turbo boost. For even more graphics horsepower, upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. An ideal choice for the most demanding applications, this card features a wider memory bus and higher-performance GPU, resulting in faster performance compared with the ATI Radeon HD 5770. Don’t keep those pixels waiting. The foundation of the Mac Pro graphics architecture is the latest generation of GPUs connected to the system via a fast and wide PCI Express 2.0 16-lane bus. Couple that with Core Animation, Core Image, and Core Video technologies in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The result is a graphics platform that allows applications to seamlessly tap into a teraflop of graphics power.
Graphics on display. Every new Mac Pro graphics card features three display ports for maximum workspace flexibility. Two Mini DisplayPort outputs connect to a pair of Apple LED Cinema Displays with ease. And a dual-link DVI port connects a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display or other DVI display. And with support for two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards in the Mac Pro, you can connect more displays — up to six total. Store more.Massive storage. The Mac Pro comes with four 3.5-inch drive bays for an enormous amount of internal storage — up to 8TB when you install four 2TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s drives.1 Each bay provides its own independent 3Gb/s channel for fast access to data. And thanks to the cable-free, direct-attach installation system, adding (or replacing) hard drives is a surprisingly simple process.
New to the Mac Pro is the option to add up to four 512GB solid-state drives — or any combination of solid-state and hard drives.2 Solid-state drives have no moving parts and are capable of accessing data at speeds up to 230MB per second, which is up to twice the speed of hard drives. The result? Incredible performance on a range of data-intensive tasks, including up to 2x faster ProRes video encoding using solid-state drives compared with hard drives.3 Ready to RAID For data protection and enhanced SATA hard drive performance, add the Mac Pro RAID Card with 512MB of RAID cache, a 72-hour cache-protecting battery, and hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 0+1.2 A cableless connection and intuitive Apple software make it a snap to install this optional card. It’s the perfect solution for workgroup servers, video pros working with high-bit-rate assets, or anyone who wants to protect critical data. Even without a RAID card, Mac OS X lets you stripe two, three, or all four drives — either solid-state or hard drives — in a RAID 0 array to increase performance and create a massive volume for tasks such as video editing; or create a RAID 1 mirror to protect digital media assets from a drive failure. Double-layer burner times two. Sure it’s great to have one 18x SuperDrive at your disposal, but think how much more productive you could be if you add a second optional SuperDrive. Imagine backing up your data to two double-layer DVDs at once. Or burning Aperture projects to one DVD, while importing music from a CD into your iTunes library. With two optical drive bays in every system, the Mac Pro lets you do exactly that. Designed to be custom designed.Expansion made easy. The easy-access interior of the Mac Pro feels like the well-organized workstation it is. No rat’s nest of components here. You don’t need to turn the system on its side or struggle to reach into awkward spaces to make changes. Just remove the side panel for instant access to everything. Slide out the processor tray to add memory. Slide out drive bays to add storage. Slide a simple bar to change up to four expansion cards at once. And with plenty of I/O ports both front and back, you’ll have room for all your external devices. Tool-less PCI. When it’s time to upgrade, a quick slide of the retention bar frees up the four expansion card slots for easy access. Thanks to a thumbscrew PCI bracket, you can swap out cards without any tools. All four slots are PCI Express 2.0 for incredible performance. And since the graphics slot in the Mac Pro is double-wide, your graphics card won’t cover an adjacent slot. Slide-in storage. The Mac Pro comes with four 3.5-inch drive bays for an enormous amount of internal storage — up to 8TB.* For faster access to your data, you can also configure your Mac Pro with up to four solid-state drives. The bays are direct-attach and cable free, so it’s easy to add or remove drives. Just attach the drive carrier to a drive and slide the drive into place. There are no connectors or cables to contend with. Lock the drives with the side door latch, and you’re done. Snap-in memory. Install more memory in your Mac Pro in a snap. Literally. The easy-access interior lets you slide out the processor tray in one smooth motion, then simply snap new memory into place. You don’t have to dig around inside the computer or wrestle with wires or cables. The single-processor Mac Pro offers four slots that support up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM, while the dual-processor Mac Pro offers eight slots that support up to 32GB. Front and back I/O. There are plenty of places to connect external devices to your Mac Pro. You’ll find two FireWire 800 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and a headphone minijack right up front — where it’s more convenient to connect storage, multimedia devices, and high-speed peripherals.And there are even more ports on the back: three USB 2.0, two FireWire 800, optical audio in and out, analog audio in and out, and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. For more information please visit http://www.apple.com/macpro/. Switching to Adobe Premier Pro CS5
Learn all about switching to Premiere Pro CS5 from Adobe's new site.
Craft stories more efficiently. Benefit from unparalleled integration with Adobe® After Effects® and Photoshop® software, edit virtually anything thanks to broad native tapeless and DSLR camera support, and enjoy industry-leading 64-bit performance. Stepping up to the enhanced video editing power of Adobe Premiere® Pro CS5 software is now easier than ever. Top reasons to switch to Adobe Premiere Pro Unparalleled Adobe integration Import native Photoshop and Illustrator files complete with layers and other functionality. Use Adobe Dynamic Link to move easily between After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Encore® without delays for intermediate rendering. And get efficient script-to-screen workflows by integrating with Adobe Story, the Adobe CS Live online service for collaborative script development. Learn more about Adobe integration and Adobe Dynamic Link. Broad support for tapeless and DSLR footage Skip time-consuming transcoding and rewrapping processes when working with tapeless and DSLR footage. Get native support for virtually any video, image, or audio format, including RED, DPX, P2, AVCHD, and XDCAM. Edit native DSLR footage from Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras. Mix and match media in a sequence, whatever the format, frame, aspect ratio, or resolution. Add hardware cards from third-party vendors for uncompressed SD and HD acquisition. Import and edit all popular QuickTime formats natively. See the contents of all mounted volumes on your system with the Media Browser, and get all the benefits of real-time, on-set logging of tapeless cameras with Adobe OnLocation™ CS5, included with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. Learn more about native tapeless and DSLR editing. Blu-ray Disc authoring with motion and multipage menus Deliver DVDs, high-definition Blu-ray Discs, and interactive web DVDs with Adobe Encore® CS5 software, included with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. Cross-platform, open workflows for easier collaboration Collaborate more efficiently by easily importing and exporting projects regardless of format. Perform roundtrip editing with files from Avid Media Composer, Avid Pro Tools, or Apple Final Cut Pro software. Take advantage of EDL support for applications like Scratch as well as integration with Discreet Smoke. Streamlined encoding with the revamped Adobe Media Encoder Reach audiences worldwide on virtually any device. Batch encode in the background to a broad selection of formats, including web and video standards, using the streamlined Adobe Media Encoder. Get faster encoding thanks to 64-bit performance, discover more presets for outputting video to social media sites, and benefit from new export formats, including P2 and DPX. Industry-leading performance and stability from the new Adobe Mercury Playback Engine Enjoy blazing editing performance. The Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 is native 64 bit, optimized for multicore, and GPU-accelerated to provide real-time effects, color correction/color grading, accelerated rendering, and superior multilayer performance. Learn more about breakthrough performance with the Mercury Playback Engine. Superior color fidelity Get greater color precision, variety, and control with 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit floating point color. Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 provides higher color fidelity in program and source monitors than Final Cut Pro (which is suitable for rough color grading only) and offers better YUV to RGB conversion. Learn more about color processing in Adobe Premiere Pro. Powerful metadata features for greater editing and production efficiency Transform your editing workflow. Add intelligence to your assets using innovative new metadata features that make editing easier. Easily turn spoken dialogue into a timecode-accurate transcript, and then use keywords to quickly jump to or edit specific video segments. Use Face Detection to generate markers in footage where faces appear. Export this rich metadata with your video to make it more discoverable online. Learn more about accelerated editing with enhanced speech analysis. Real-time 3D editing Edit 3D content in real time thanks to 64-bit performance. World-class integration with CineForm provides a smoother workflow than Final Cut Pro. Smooth production work with direct-to-disk recording and on-set monitoring Use Adobe OnLocation CS5 to record directly to disk from Firewire cameras. Optimize quality with software-based waveform and vectorscope tools for camera calibration, level checking, and signal monitoring. Avoid costly reshoots thanks to automatic alerts of potential problems as you record. Use logged metadata to organize footage as you shoot, and then send your shot lists to Adobe Premiere Pro — complete with all metadata logged during the shoot. Learn more about creating a rough cut with Adobe OnLocation. For more information including tutorials, testimonials, reviews, and resources, click here.
| About This BlogSafe Harbor's video and post production news blog offers you the latest announcements and updates from the industry.Newest PostsTags3D Animation 3D Plugins & Effects Accessories - Camera Add-ons - Lightwave Add-ons - Premiere Pro Adobe AJA Apple ATTO Technology Audio & Music Hardware Audio & Music Software Audio Libraries Avid Blackmagic Design Books Breakout Boxes CalDigit Camcorders CD and DVD Authoring Software Class on Demand Computers Contour Design Craft Animations Display Cards Displays - LCD DVD and Blu-Ray Hardware E-on Software Firewire Cards Graphics Tablets Grass Valley G-Technology Hard Drives - External Hard Drives - SATA HD Video Hardware Host Controllers Image Processing Software Image-Object-Animation Libraries Jog-Shuttles Keyboards and Mice LaCie Luxology Matrox Maxon Mediastudio-Graz Memory Multimedia Authoring Software NewTek NLE Plugins & Effects Software NLE Software Noise Industries, LLC Painting & Illustration Software Pixologic PNY Safe Harbor Sonnet Technologies, Inc Sony Creative Software Sorenson Media Speakers Telestream Tutorials DVD/CD Video & 3D Utility Software Video Capture Cards Video Converters Video Encoder Hardware Video Equipment Wacom Web Tools Software Wondertouch WTools3D XLNT Idea, Inc. |
Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe by email| Join Safe Harbor's mailing list and receive special announcements, coupons and exclusive deals straight to your email. Your email address is never sold or distributed. Review our privacy policy. |
| Copyright © 2010 by Safe Harbor Computers. All Rights Reserved. No content from this site may be reproduced or publicly reposted without express written permission. All product content herein remains the licensed property of their respective distributers and manufacturers. | Questions regarding products or orders can be emailed to: sales@sharbor.com Order securely online or call: (800) 544-6599 For information & support, call: (262) 548-8120 | Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information represented on this site. Prices and specifications subject to change without notice. Not responsible for typos. Explore our site without worry - read our privacy statement. |