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HP announces 'optimised' workstations with no optimisations
FLOGGER OF EXPENSIVE PRINTER INK HP has released workstations that it claims are optimised for Adobe, Avid and Sony software with nothing more than standard kit.
HP, which only last week decided it would keep its PC business, today announced that it will release "desktop and mobile workstation configurations optimized for video editing". That sounds fair enough, until you realise what HP is pushing as optimisations, if you can call them that.
HP's press release rattles out the usual guff that its machines are for people who "value streamlined editing solutions" and "post-production professionals who need powerful tools to blaze through intricate projects". Then it gets down to the nitty gritty. Apparently HP's workstations are "tapping the power" of Intel Xeon and Core processors and using Nvidia's Quadro graphics cards.
At this stage HP could have said it had new Xeon processors or a special Quadro SKU but no. The firm's optimisations are described in a single sentence paragraph. "Tapping the power of Intel Xeon and Core processors paired with Nvidia Quadro graphics, HP Workstations deliver performance that lets the creative process flow uninterrupted from inception to final product," HP proclaims. So basically it's a machine with an Intel Xeon or Core processor and an Nvidia Quadro graphics card, hardly cutting edge optimisation from HP.
HP's next attempt to optimise "the process flow" mentions that it has a range of in-plane switching (IPS) displays. Being fair to HP, some of its high-end IPS displays are very good, but traditionally workstations are sold without monitors, and claiming it has optimised workstations for a specific application and then spending time talking about how good the display is that is bought separately is rather bad form.
HP's handywork does a pretty good job of promoting components rather than its system, with Adobe's Premiere making use of Nvidia's CUDA technology. For Avid and Sony's Vegas Pro, there is similar mention of GPGPU acceleration, with HP effectively saying that if you want to speed up Adobe, Avid and Sony video editing software, buy an Nvidia graphics card. Nvidia must be chuffed with that piece of free advertising.
So, HP's optimised workstations are essentially just Intel processors mated to Nvidia graphics cards. Since the company didn't even mention hardware support contracts, which are usually touted as a reason for buying from vendors rather than building the machines yourself, we have to say thank you to HP for giving us pointers about which components to use in a half-decent self-built video editing workstation. µ
Tags: Hardware
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Once again it pays for HP to copy, in this case PT Barnum, who had customers paying a premium to see "The Great Egress", only to learn the hard way that "egress" was Latin for Exit.
This does seem like a Fry's Electronics marketing program where they promote a product as a "1-Day Only" sale - for a standard inventory product but at the regular price. I expect Meg's team will bring more of these great consumer ideas to the table as they reshape HP marketing.
they're doing what they've always been doing. also, what else sould they be doing? they could throw in a raid controller for video editing, that's about it. that big quadros speed up avid or sony editing or even AE is absolute guff. all those cards do is allow you to blend two hd streams, and the crappiest 2005 quadro is good enough for that. fu*k all is gpu rendered but some single frame previews..
AVID has the most arcane system recommendations, I think becuase they only test on one sytem or something. Anyway AVID is a 1990s app and really doesn't need much of a system to run it. Howver they recommed these expensive workstations that are nothing more than pricy components. I run an AMD 6core with a cheap Nvidia card and it works flawlessly with AVID. However the smart thing is to switch to Sony, a modern application. Mostly AVID is used by old timers unwilling to get to the new. Much like C++ users, yuck!