DV411

Notes from Wired "Inside the Cyberattack That Shocked the US Government"

2016-10-26T15:12:00.001-07:00

Wired article, "Inside the Cyberattack That Shocked the US Government" had several phrases that rang true and seemed deserving of as much attention as daily flossing (perhaps not the most glamorous or pleasant of tasks yet with possibly dramatic improvements in one's social standing).

Main takeaways (for me):

"Basic hygiene":

...“basic hygiene”—that is, making simple upgrades that can drastically reduce an organization’s susceptibility to attack. These include measures such as keeping current with the latest software patches, reducing the number of network users with administrative privileges, and, above all, broadening the adoption of multifactor authentication.

“Don’t waste a good crisis,” - i.e. use a disaster as the motivation, driving force to implement better security such as "basic hygiene" above.
"Better cooperation" - "between public and private sector" in the article - and within the department and company: sharing information on suspected threats with all stakeholders has the potential to radically speed up both detection and mitigation.
"...fundamental flaw in our approach to security: We’re overly focused on prevention at the expense of mitigation. One reason these attackers can do so much damage is that the average time between a malware infection and discovery of the attack is more than 200 days, a gap that has barely narrowed in recent years."
"The first item groups like these usually swipe is the master list of credentials—the usernames and passwords of everyone authorized to access the network. The group’s foot soldiers will then spend weeks or months testing those credentials in search of one that offers maximum system privileges; the ideal is one that belongs to a domain administrator who can decrypt data at will. To minimize their odds of tripping any alarms, the attackers will try each credential only once; then they’ll wait hours to try the next. Since these hackers are likely salaried employees, investing that much time in an attack is just part of the job.

"There is a straightforward way to foil this approach: multifactor authentication."

Here is to better teeth - if only security-wise.

HP workstations and SFF drives

2013-05-26T17:31:00.002-07:00

Some HP servers (that are actually smaller than an HP Z820) can fit up to 16 (yes, sixteen) SFF drives.

HP Proliant ML370 G5 server with a 16-bay backplane

HP Z820

How many can a Z820 fit? Four in standard LFF (Legacy Form Factor) bays (see "8" in the illustration above) and 4-6 more, two per optical bay using an adapter like this:

HP 2.5in HDD 2-in-1 Optical Bay Bracket P/N FX615AA

...or this:

HP Z420 Handle in Top Optical Bay A9A48AA

...that fits in an optical 5.25" bays.

That's a total of ten (eight if there's a DVD drive), while the system has fourteen SAS/SATA ports. You can see where we're going with this.

Why SFF (Small Form Factor) drives? For one, they're the present and immediate future of storage. SSDs are mostly SFF or smaller. SFF drives benefit from less vibration and can be made to higher tolerances. More SFF drives can fit in the same space which means higher speeds when you stripe them, which in turn means you may not need a heavy, bulky, expensive external SAS expander box to house a bunch of drives for those uncompressed 4K workflows.

Enter HP 4-in-1 SFF (2.5in) HDD Carrier (P/N B8K60AA) retailing for $139 and what really is Icy Dock MB994SP-4S. Says so on the label.

This metal device lets you use four SAS or SATA spinning or SSD drives, and has two fans and four SAS ports in the back, in addition to a single Molex 4-pin power connector.Two of those, and you can have a total of 12 drives in the system. Not quite server grade: HP server drive trays are much, much nicer, support hot swapping with the right controller, and their activity light indicate possible fault and RAID set identification, besides, well, activity. This unit's activity lights are tiny, hard to see, and in my experience, don't always work. We've asked HP to come up with server-grade backplanes for the workstations and still hoping it might happen.

How many of these units can fit in a Z820? Theoretically three as there are three "optical" (5.25" half-height) bays in a Z820, two if an internal CD or DVD drive is used. They're a rather tight fit against the CPU fan housing so choose your SATA cables wisely: those with long necks may not work well.

Was this helpful? Leave a comment.

Did YouTube do away with 4K?

2012-07-16T20:38:00.003-07:00

Searching for 4k (4096 horizontally by 2306 or some other number vertically) videos on Youtube today, I realized there aren't any. Including those that certainly were 4K last time I watched them - probably 6 months to a year ago.

If you are interested in videos with resolutions higher than 1080p, you may remember that YouTube announced support for full 4K resolutions in their official blog post of July 2010, "What's bigger than 1080p? 4K video comes to YouTube". No subsequent blog posts seem to announce any changes to supported resolutions. In my blog post shortly after YouTube's announcement of 4K support, I pondered about the reasons YouTube decided to support 4K given the extreme rarity of computer systems and devices that were capable of displaying it. My guess was YouTube was future-proofing itself and playing with possibilities.

Here is the playlist I assembled of 4K 2K clips. In quite a few of them, you see the posted resolution of 4096xN where "N" is the vertical resolution number usually between 2160 and 3072. All of these videos now only play at 2048x1536. You can verify that by right-clicking on the video and selecting "Show video info".

Do you know why and when YouTube decided to stop supporting full 4K videos?

(A 2K video sample. To watch it in full 2K glory, click "Play" first; then select "original" in video settings - the wrench symbol in the bottom right of the player box. Make it full screen. Pause and wait till it buffers if you don't have a particularly fast Internet connection. It helps if your monitor is large with a native resolution higher than 1080p. How's the viewing experience?)

P.S. 4K is not the same as 4096P, and 2K - is not 2048p. In "4K", "2K" and similar designations, the number such as 4096 stands for horizontal resolution, i.e. 4096 pixels horizontally by 1536 vertically. Designations such as 1080p (along with 720p, 480p, 1080i, etc.) refer to vertical resolutions (e.g. 1920 horizontally by 1080 vertically). In the old analog TV days, signal resolution was also measured horizontally, i.e. in the number of vertical lines, like today's 4K.

HP Z820 memory benchmark

2012-06-26T16:46:00.001-07:00

HP Z820 is roughly 80% faster in memory bandwidth (speed) vs. HP Z800, in WinSAT memory speed test. This is very significant for memory intensive applications such as video editing, encoding, etc.

HP Z820 (B2C03UT, one Xeon E5-2630 CPU, 32GB DDR3-1600 RAM running at 1333MHz): 27.6GB/s.

HP Z820 B2C03UT, 32GB RAM

Compare that to HP Z800 (FL878UT, two E5530 CPUs, 18GB DDR3-1333 RAM running at 1066MHz): 15.2GB/s

HP Z800 FL878UT 18GB RAM

To perform the test, run "WinSAT mem" from administrative command prompt ("cmd" in administrative mode). For instructions, refer to "Quick Disk Benchmark in Windows" post on this blog.

Theoretically, Z820's quad channel configuration (vs. triple-channel in Z800) accounts for a 25% increase; so does faster memory (1333MHz vs. 1066MHz). The theoretical increase should have been roughly 50% - not quite the 80% improvement we clocked. I will try to find a faster Z800 and benchmark it as well.

What is the memory speed of your system?

PC Systems Integrators: Doomed?

2012-06-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

(image courtesy of ZDNet)

Jason Perlow's article in ZDNet entitled "Post-PC era means mass extinction for personal computer OEMs" predicts demise of PC manufacturing as we know it: Dell and HP will go the way of dinosaurs unless they make dramatic changes.

More importantly for specialty systems integrators like us, the business as we know it will dry up on several fronts. One, COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) components will be fewer to choose from due to natural migration from desktops and workstations to tablets and laptops. Two: video editing is changing dramatically as well, migrating from specialty workstations and desktops to (a) mobile platforms including tablets and even phones, and in large scale (studio) environments, eventually to (b) client-server systems where editing can be done on any screen connected to a private cloud. Considering the advances in web applications, web-based video editing can't be too far off; its feasibility mainly a question of available bandwidth and its costs. Tablet and Web-based video editing will require very little integration.

Consider the takeaways:

"Give a developer or someone in the scientific/engineering field a lot of back end server power on a private cloud and a professional monitor attached to a thin client, along with technologies like Microsoft’s RemoteFX for server-side GPU rendering of virtual desktops, and the need for those big desktops could entirely disappear."

If you have any doubts, consider that computer performance acceleration always outpaced demand for it in video applications. 10 years ago, you absolutely needed an expensive workstation to work even with mildly compressed SD material. Today, HD editing is almost child play on sub-$1K laptops, a $2K laptop will afford GPU acceleration in Premiere Pro CS6. While editing 4K on an ultrabook is probably a pain, the day is near when it will be a reality.

The demand for desktops and workstations steadily drops.

Are PC and specialty integrators doomed? Yes and no. We are doomed if we don't adapt and diversify into areas where integration and engineering will still be needed. Here are some ideas:

Private clouds. There are already remote access and VDI technologies at work that focus on speed and not just functionality. Engineering such private clouds will require serious expertise for some time to come. While no DCC vendor that I know of, expressly supports VDI, there is little doubt it's coming.
Focus on mobile. For every workstation configuration, offer at least one mobile one. "Desktop replacement" mobile solutions for high resolution video editing will likely need high-speed and possibly fault-tolerant storage and external GPUs; and those are less likely to be purchased from retail than from specialty integrators, for now.
Collaborative editing and DCC; MAM (Media Asset Management). Environments with shared and collaborative access to media assets (think Avid Unity, EditShare, Vizrt, CatDV).

Will some content creators still require high-powered desktops and workstations with stacks of expensive GPUs inside? Probably. The real question is, will there be nearly as many vendors and integrators offering them in not so distant future? As Jason points out in his article, "...to that, the answer is a resounding no."

AJA Announces Ki Pro Quad

2012-04-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

AJA Ki Pro Quad and Canon Cinema EOS C500

AJA announced today Ki Pro Quad that accepts RAW 4K over SDI, simultaneously (or subsequently) outputting that data via Thunderbolt, and recording compressed signal to SSDs. "A scaled or cropped output is also simultaneously available for 2K or HD monitoring via dedicated SDI and HDMI connections", says AJA.

The product will be available "later in 2012" for an MSRP of $3,995 US.

Some details are rather sketchy, probably on purpose:

What are the compression options? If the Ki Pro Quad is anything like Ki Pro, it will be ProRes and DNxHD. Yes, the same ProRes that is on its deathbed following a spectacular demise of Final Cut Pro 7 last year and mass exodus of editors to Avid, Adobe and even Sony. DNxHD could not have been timelier. No CinemaDNG?
Thunderbolt (TB) support is coming to Windows this month, although not on the just-released HP's flagship workstations Z820 and Z1. For now, TB is confined to Macs (iMac, Mac Mini) and Macbooks - which is fine for KPQ, a portable device by design. Still, with no TB yet on Mac Pros, does KPQ's inclusion of it means there will be a new Mac Pro this year with TB built-in?
Uncompressed 4K recording? Thunderbolt can be used to connect to a storage array. Will KPQ be able to pipe raw uncompressed 4K video straight to a Thunderbolt (TB) array bypassing a computer? Probably not, although you can connect a KPQ and a TB storage array to the same TB port on an MacBook simultaneously, which may make this uncompressed 4K recording possible.

(I hope you forgive my calling an already laconic "Ki Pro Quad", a "KPQ". It just sounds good.)

Enjoy the video: spectacular cinematography, fantastic low lighting shallow DOF, giant close ups of Japanese designers and execs. I wonder what camera it was shot on? Wow, really?

AJA Ki Pro Quad: Efficient 4K workflows. from AJA Marketing on Vimeo.

Premiere Pro CS6: what’s new and changed

2012-04-13T02:13:00.000-07:00

See Todd Kopriva's blog for an extensive list of "what's new and changed". Here are just a few points:

a trimmed, lithe user interface; less waste, more customization including customizable buttons
OpenCL support (one some systems) for GPU acceleration
expanded multi-camera editing
native support for new formats (such as ARRI Alexa)
basic color grading built-in; integration with SpeedGrade
improved dynamic-linking
full-screen playback on primary monitor - yay!
uninterrupted playback (while you fiddle with timeline, settings, etc.) - yay!
new way for hardware manufacturers (AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, etc.) to write drivers and interface with Premiere Pro; drivers for popular hardware are supposed to be ready by NAB (April 15)

There will be more; stay tuned.

Intel's 720-series SSDs

2011-06-20T15:25:00.001-07:00

Intel's new 720-series SSDs are extremely fast, equally expensive, not yet available, and you can't stick one in a laptop. Stop reading now before it gets worse.

A prototype PCIe SSD Intel demoed in 2009

(The product will only slightly resemble the photo on the right that depicts a prototype Intel demoed in 2009.)

Speed. Intel 720 Series "Ramsdale" SSDs are rumored to have 2.2GB/s read and 1.8GB/s write speeds. That's Gigabytes, not Gigabits - and represents about a 500% to 1000% speed improvement over current SSDs, not to mention being about 15 times faster than regular spinning disks. The device will easily play or record several uncompressed 4K video streams simultaneously and do many other things that previously required a humongous and energy hungry storage array.

Why do I need one. The kicker isn't the raw speed or extremely low latencies - it's the compactness of it, and the relatively low buy-in. Before this and similar devices became available, the only way to achieve such performance was a storage box with at least 24 mechanical hard drives or 8+ SSDs with a RAID controller, connected to the host computer via super-fast multi-link SAS or Fibre Channel connections. The buy-in is usually north of $10K, often $20K for an enterprise-class solution. Granted, you get a lot more Terabytes with those - however if it's portability and speed you are after vs. raw capacity - this device will likely be calling your name.

Where do I put it? As there isn't yet a cable connection fast enough to accommodate such speeds - not even Thunderbolt (aka LighPeak) - the only connection offered is 8-lane PCI Express. Thus, it won't fit inside a laptop, other than externally via a PCIe expander from Magma or JMR.

Prices. If current SLC SSD prices of over $10 per gigabyte are any indication, a 200GB version should start at over $2000. It may however boot your PC in a scant few seconds undoubtedly motivating some gamers to spring for their wallets.

Real-world applications: ultra-hi-res (like, uncompressed 4K), multi-stream and ultra high speed field video acquisition and monitoring, enterprise data caching and yes, ~~definitely~~ probably some gamers.

Exciting times we live in.

No desktop drives in RAID?

2011-04-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

WD Black Caviar

Some of the fastest and well rated large capacity desktop drives are WD Black Caviars. They also 50%-100% less expensive than their "enterprise class" RE4 series siblings. Can you use them in RAIDs? Western Digital says "no" in their spec sheet:

"Desktop / Consumer RAID Environments - WD Caviar Black Hard Drives are tested and recommended for use in consumer-type RAID applications (RAID-0 / RAID-1).
"Business Critical RAID Environments – WD Caviar Black Hard Drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. For all Business Critical RAID applications, please consider WD’s Enterprise Hard Drives that are specifically designed with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), are tested extensively in 24x7 RAID applications, and include features like enhanced RAFF technology and thermal extended burn-in testing."

Also in their KB article:

"Western Digital manufactures desktop edition hard drives and RAID Edition hard drives. Each type of hard drive is designed to work specifically as a stand-alone drive, or in a multi-drive RAID environment."

There is more detailed information in that KB article:

"When an error is found on a desktop edition hard drive, the drive will enter into a deep recovery cycle to attempt to repair the error, recover the data from the problematic area, and then reallocate a dedicated area to replace the problematic area. This process can take up to 2 minutes depending on the severity of the issue. Most RAID controllers allow a very short amount of time for a hard drive to recover from an error. If a hard drive takes too long to complete this process, the drive will be dropped from the RAID array. Most RAID controllers allow from 7 to 15 seconds for error recovery before dropping a hard drive from an array. Western Digital does not recommend installing desktop edition hard drives in an enterprise environment (on a RAID controller).

"Western Digital RAID edition hard drives have a feature called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) which stops the hard drive from entering into a deep recovery cycle. The hard drive will only spend 7 seconds to attempt to recover. This means that the hard drive will not be dropped from a RAID array. While TLER is designed for RAID environments, a drive with TLER enabled will work with no performance decrease when used in non-RAID environments."

In other words, WD is OK with Black Caviars for home and gaming use in RAID0 and 1, and is not OK with using them in external enclosures - even in RAID0.

Compare that to Deskstar 7K3000 desktop hard drives whose maker Hitachi says they are suitable for:

"Consumer and commercial computers"
"Video editing arrays"

...with no explicit warnings against commercial or enterprise class RAID configurations.

Bottom line, Hitachi supports their desktop drives in high performance arrays while WD doesn't.

What is your experience with using desktop drives in RAIDs?

Quick Disk Benchmark in Windows

2011-01-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

If you need to quickly test disk performance of an individual drive in Windows Vista and 7 without downloading any 3rd party tools, use Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) from an administrative command prompt, in the following format:

winsat disk -drive C:

Substitute "C:" with the drive letter you'd like to test. To run command prompt in administrative mode, click "Start", type "cmd" in the search box, wait till "cmd.exe" shows up in the results, right-click on it, click on "run as administrator":

A command prompt box will open:

Type: winsat disk -drive C:

Substitute "C:" with the drive letter you'd like to test; press "Enter".

The command will run a minute or two. Here is what the results will look like:

Highlighted are numbers that are most important: read and write transfer rates.

There might be a million of reasons why you may need to know your individual drives' transfer rates:

copying from one drive to another takes a long time, and you'd like to know which one is especially slow
monitoring system health
finding out if your drives are fast enough for a specific task, e.g. capture and playback uncompressed video.

There are also other tools for testing drive speeds, from benchmark software vendors and hardware manufacturers such as BlackMagic Design and AJA. WinSAT however is already included in a standard Windows installation and may be just the right tool to quickly assess disk transfer rates.

The URL has changed to blog.dv411.com

2010-09-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

The company that hosts our web site now allows custom DNS settings - and that means a new and better URL!

blog.dv411.com (the old one was dv411.blogspot.com, just in case you were wondering)

Let's celebrate! Order an HP Z800 workstation at 10% off from now until end of October. Just mention "the blog".

YouTube Goes 4K: Why?

2010-07-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

YouTube started hosting 4K clips, and I am stumped: why offer something that very, very few people can use? Here are my tops reasons to not host 4K clips:

My monitor is too small. The official YouTube blog post says that "the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet". Yes, 25 feet. That's 6 times your average Joe's 50-inch TV and most apartment walls are 10 to 14 feet unless you feel like finding an empty wall at Ralph's... good luck.

Wait, here is an idea. You go buy a 4K Red One camera ($25-50K with lenses and accessories), shoot an awesome 4K video, upload it to YouTube and... watch it on your iPhone? Oh wait, it's less than 4 inches and you need 25 feet of real estate to view it. Then go to your nearest Imax theater - they should let you fire up your 4K YouTube video after hours, right? Or, rent one of those 4K projectors and a 25' screen for something like $5K a day... There, enjoy your 4K movie. Don't forget the popcorn.

Seriously, most high resolution monitors max out at 1080p and there are very, very few monitors or projection screens out there that can display 4K. None of them are accessible to regular mortals outside of 4K post production houses and Malibu celebrity row. People attempting to view 4K clips on their supposedly high end systems will be disappointed to not being able to see the 4K quality.

Ouch.
My computer is too slow. The vast majority of computers will choke on 4K. My 3-year-old office machine (Intel Core 2 6600 2.4GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, GeForce 8800GTS graphics, Vista 64) sure does choke: choppy playback, severe compression artifacts. The monitor is the 30-inch HP LP3065 with 2560x1600 resolution. In 1080p mode, it's smooth and gorgeous. In 4K mode - horrible. Here is the 4K clip I tried - see if your results are better. I hope they are.

Ouch 2.

(Added 2010-07-10 10:57am) Current computers with high performance multi-core Intel and AMD CPUs will likely play back 4K videos in their "original" mode smoothly. HP Z800 with dual Xeon E5530 CPUs and NVidia Quadro CX card had no issues although the visual quality of the video in the original mode is still noticeably worse than in 1080p mode and even 720p mode: not as sharp, with visible gradients and pixelized lines. According to Pavel P who commented on this post, his 27" iMac with Core i7 CPU had no issues either. I can only guess that the "original" 4K mode is worse than 1080p because of Adobe Flash player processing: it may simply not know what to do with such high quality video.
YouTube says you need a "super-fast broadband" to video 4K videos although my crude calculations show that they stream at about 6Mbs, which means even a home-brew 3Mbs DSL is fast enough if you don't mind a little waiting. It took me about 4 minutes to fully download a 3-minute 4K video over a 6Mbs DSL. So to me, broadband speed isn't that big of an issue. The real issue is that most people can't enjoy the 4K quality.

Bottom line, virtually nobody can enjoy the full 4K quality. Why offer this 4K support then?

For YouTube, it's most likely a test of the potential market, a somewhat cruel tease akin to putting you in an F-22 Raptor and taxiing you around the airstrip but no flying. Lots of tease, no release, excuse my parallel. These 4K videos may be useful to few of us with access to the right display and computer equipment, and to ubergeeks to stress-test their uber-duper gaming or editing systems - but certainly not to the vast majority of YouTube users.
(F-22 Raptor image by Rob Shenk)

Another reason is future-proofing YouTube. Making the 4K option available today rather than sometime in the future, eliminates the inconvenience of re-uploading 4K clips in the future. After all, there aren't too many 4K cameras out there; 4K production (and post-production) is expensive, and the impact on YouTube's servers because of hosting 4K will be minuscule. Letting users upload 4K clips today is a smart move even if few people can enjoy them at full quality.

Have you tried YouTube's 4K videos? How do they look? Can your computer play back YouTube's 4K videos smoothly in their "original mode"? Is that "original" mode better quality than the 1080p mode? Let me know - post a comment, and tell me this:

which 4K clip(s) you tried, and in what mode (original, 1080p, etc.)?
the resolution of your monitor
the CPU, RAM and GPU in your system
What OS you are running (e.g. Windows Vista Business 64-bit), and Flash player version (right-click on the video, click on "About Adobe Flash Player")
What was the effective frame rate of the video, and how many frames were dropped during playback? (Right-click on the video during playback and choose "Video Info")
How is the quality of the video in "original" mode vs. 1080p and 720p?

Enjoy your tests!

Sample 4K video below. Click to open it on YouTube page and select "original" quality.

HP Z800: leaps and bounds over predecessors; still could be better

2010-06-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

HP Z800 has a rather subdued exterior. It doesn't manifest its power by chrome accents, edgy or flashy design. Yet its heft and build quality manifest themselves even before you pop the cover open to peer inside. And then you are really in awe.

Ever peaked under the hood of a BMW M6? That's what Z800's inside looks like. CPU/memory and card bays have separate plastic covers and are compartmentalized for efficient airflow. Hard drives are in removable trays on a backplane. Which means no wires or cables. In fact very few cables are visible - a huge departure from its predecessor xw8600. The Z800 is the only system that is better designed than a Mac Pro. Finally, someone did it.

The unusually shaped power supply at the top can be removed and swapped without any tools, much like almost anything else in this system: aside from CPU heat sinks, everything is tool-less. Yes even the hard drive trays. Among other features are gobs of RAM, PCIe slots, SAS and SATA ports, RAID5 on SATA ports. HP on-site support, its responsiveness and quality are also unmatched.

The Z800 leaps not only over its predecessors the xw8600 and xw9400 in design, features and power, but also over competitors. There is nothing like the Z800 in the market. Not from Dell, not from Lenovo, not from Apple, not from custom system integrators.

Can Z800 stand improvement? Of course - I have a shortlist. If you do, post a comment.

Noise: not as quiet as a Mac Pro. Z800 is still practically silent, even under load, despite all of its 8 to 10 fans. Mac Pro only has 3 or 4 larger ones which spin at slower speeds and therefore generate less noise. Granted, Mac Pro is radically more limited than Z800 on PCIe slots, available power, RAM and storage expansion - but still, a part of me wishes the Z800 could be as silent as the Mac Pro.

Hard drive activity lights. You can put up to six 3.5" drives in a Z800, four of them into swappable bays connected to the SAS backplane. However there is only one HDD activity light for all of them. A hard drive that is about to die or has problems, often has much more activity than it should. Having an individual activity light for each hard drive would make it much easier to trouble-shoot and diagnose. On HP servers, there are two diagnostic lights for each drive bay - for a good reason.

Storage expandability: there is room for more! There are 14 hard disk connectors on the motherboard (8 SAS, 6 SATA), but room for only 6 drives, 4 of them on a SAS backplane. How about an option for 8-10 SFF drives vs. 4 LFF ones?

Save for a few very minor gripes, HP Z800 is today's best workstation, the top dog, unmatched by anyone else.

Matrox codecs now available free of charge

2010-05-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

Video captured using Matrox products can now be viewed and editing on non-Matrox Windows systems without having to buy anything. Just download the codecs.

Fresh from Matrox:

In the past, Matrox has offered the Matrox M.Key/100 USB device that unlocks the Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame HD, DVCPRO HD, HDV, and other Matrox Video for Windows (VFW) codecs for use on 32-bit systems that don’t have Matrox editing cards. Since the launch of this product, M.Key/100 has supported only 32-bit Windows operating systems. With the recent surge of 64-bit operating systems, M.Key/100 is now incompatible in many environments. The popularity of Matrox codecs has also grown, which has increased the market demand for open codecs from Matrox. Therefore, Matrox will no longer be offering the Matrox M.Key/100 USB device. As an alternative to M.Key/100, Matrox is pleased to announce our new Matrox VFW software codec package, which will be available for download free of charge from our website. This package provides the following VFW software codecs for use on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems:
Matrox DV/DVCAM
Matrox DVCPRO
Matrox DVCPRO50
Matrox DVCPRO HD
Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame in SD and HD resolutions, with or without alpha
Matrox Uncompressed in SD and HD resolutions, with or without alpha
Matrox Offline HD
Matrox M-JPEG and HDV (playback only)
The new Matrox VFW software codec package will allow any system to use AVI files that have been captured on Matrox Axio, RT.X, and MXO2 systems, and to also create these AVI files for use on Matrox systems. This flexibility lets you use any workstation to do a rough cut, then copy the project and assets to an Axio, RT.X, or MXO2 system to finish the job. There is no need for time-consuming recapturing. As well, dedicated compositing or animation workstations can render finished elements that will play back in real time on Matrox editing and playout systems.
The new Matrox VFW software codec is available to all Matrox Axio registered users as a free download from the support section of the website.
Thank you,
Matrox Video Product Group

Intel's new Xeon 5600 series processors

2010-04-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

Intel announced new server and workstation processors last month: up to 40% faster than the current 5500 series, more cores, more features, at about the same prices. Their published benchmarks show a performance improvement ranging from 21 to 48%. The processors use the same technologies Intel introduced with the 5500 series:

The Hyper-Threading Technology doubles the number of execution threads to increase performance for workloads optimized for multiple threads, such as simulation-based design, ray tracing, rendering, etc.
The Turbo Boost Technology "overclocks" the core frequencies under heavy load, to increase performance.
The Smart Cache dynamically allocates cache resources based on the demands of each core so data is managed more efficiently to optimize execution across all cores.

(Source: "Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series workstation product brief" -- intel.com, PDF, 224KB)

The new processors will work with the same chipsets, motherboards and memory as the 5500 series making the upgrade seamless.

HP announced servers (link, PDF) with the new 5600 series processors, but not workstations yet.

Matrox Axio 4.2.1 to be released March 19th

2010-03-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Release 4.2.1 for Matrox Axio will be available for download on March 19. The Release will provide the following new features:

Support for creating 1080p @ 29.97 fps sequences.
Support for XDCAM EX split clips and XDCAM EX metadata.
Overall stability improvements.

Additional resources:

Matrox Axio download area
Matrox Axio LE on dv411.com

Color Accurate Monitors for Digital Artists

2009-11-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

Problem: you are James Cameron working on an HD trailer of Avatar; you need to be 200% confident in the picture and color quality before posting it online: it's got to be just spectacular to uphold the Titanic reputation of Mr. Cameron. What monitor(s) do you need to use to be absolutely sure the picture is color accurate?

If you find out - let me know. Given the $230m budget of Avatar, it's probably the very best of the top-shelf equipment, with some stuff custom-developed specifically for the movie, along with special equipment to verify that the picture quality is adequate. $20K for a set would not be outlandish.

For the rest of us - photographers, videographers, digital artists on a budget: what display monitors would do a good job ensuring that we don't miss a bad spot, a discoloration or an artifact? Photographers and Red camera users working with raw 10-, 12- and 14-bit images rather than 8-bit JPEGs and MPEGs, the issue is rather huge: the banding artifacts we are seeing on a computer monitor - are they just on the monitor, or in the actual file? How can I be sure before sending them to the publisher? The only way to get a better idea is to get a monitor that is capable of bit depth higher than 8. Enter IPS panels and 30-bit (3x 10-bit) displays such as HP DreamColor LP2480zx and Dell U2410.

Being a complete noob with respect to critical color applications and color calibration, I set out to do what I do best: go through specifications and manuals, google around and try to figure out the differences between two popular displays that both claim fantastic color accuracy. Do not expect a lot of depth from this article (but do expect a little): it's merely an attempt to figure out the basics based on a 45-minute research. It did turn out to be a 6-hour research - but nobody's perfect.

We'll skip highly specialized - and expensive - color-accurate displays from Eizo and Lacie, and focus on two top models from HP and Dell. Both are 24-inch IPS (In-Plane Switching) LCD monitors with 1920x1200 maximum resolution and a host of usual inputs such as DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, component and composite video. One is listed at almost $3K (street prices around $2,000), the other one - $600. Which one should I get?

Dell UltraSharp U2410 24-inch Monitor, $599 SRP
- 1920x1200 resolution
- IPS panel type
- Contrast ratio: 1000:1 (typ), 80,000:1 (Max, Dynamic Contrast on)
- 400 cd/m2 typical brightness
- 6ms Typical Response Time (gray to gray)
- 178/178º Max Viewing Angle (vertical/horizontal)
- 1.07 billion colors
- 110% (CIE 1976) Color Gamut
- 12-bit Internal Processing
- AdobeRGB - 96% Coverage
- sRGB emulates 72% of NTSC Color (100% Coverage)
- xvYCC Compatibility
- DVI-D, DisplayPort(DP), HDMI, VGA, Component, Composite inputs included

Pros: value. IPS-type monitors display a much wider color range than the prevalent TN-type ones, yet have lower brightness and contrast, and cost more. At $599 SRP, Dell U2410 is a great value with decent brightness and contrast on a par with the best monitors from other manufacturers.

Cons:

Unlike HP LP2480zx, U2410 is not a 30-bit (10 bits per color component) monitor, according to UK reviewer TFT Central. Sadly, Dell misleads in its specifications by saying that the display is capable of over a billion colors. Dell conveniently forgets to mention that these colors are not all available at the same time. Only 16.7 million colors can displayed at any given time, a feature of most 24-bit displays (8 bits per color component).
Dell calibrates this monitor at the factory but does not offer any other means to color-calibrate it. Certainly, there are 3rd party color-calibration tools you can use for this monitor, but unlike HP, Dell not only does not offer any of them, it does not mention even a possibility of it.
Dell also engages in the usual and often misleading specifications game listing only the most advantageous items: the dynamic contract ratio of 80K:1 is utterly useless while a typical one of 1,000:1 can only be found in the manual.
Same goes for 6ms response time that only applies to gray-to-gray transition while the more realistic full black-to-white-to-black number is not listed at all. HP lists all these numbers up front as if saying, we've got nothing to hide.

Verdict: Dell U2410 is a great quality IPS monitor with 24-bit color. It is not however a professional tool for color-critical applications, and is comparable to HP LP2475w rather than DreamColor LP2480zx.

HP DreamColor LP2480zx Professional Display, $2,899 SRP
(in green are the specifications where HP either trumps Dell, or that Dell does not list)
- 1920x1200 resolution
- IPS panel type
- 1,000:1 Typical Contrast Ratio
- 250 cd/m2 typical brightness (maximum white luminance)
- 6ms Typical Response Time (gray to gray), 12 ms (rise+fall, full black-to-white-to-black)
- 178/178º Viewing Angle (vertical/horizontal)
- Over 1 billion colors in native mode
- Backlight Life (to half brightness): 50K hours
- Backlight Type: RGB LEDs
- Gamma/Tone Response: Programmable from "gamma" value of 1.0 to 3.0.
- Color Gamut: Native gamut approx. 133% NTSC (in CIE 1976 u'v' space)
- Adobe RGB Coverage: 100%
- sRGB Coverage: 100%
- Lookup Table: 12 bits per entry, 1024 entries per table
- Internal Processing: Min. 10 bits/color throughout video processing pipeline.
- Color Space Presets: 7 color space presets; 1 user-programmable plus six factory programmed: sRGB, Rec. 709, Rec. 601, Adobe® RGB, DCI-P3 emulation (97%), full gamut

Pros:

HP LP2480zx specs show better color gamut (133% vs. 110% NTSC) and Adobe RGB coverage (100% vs. 96%), as well more presets and full programmability of its LUTs (Look-Up Tables) - essential for professional color applications. I'd venture that the better gamut and coverage do matter for very critical color grading applications.
HP offers HP DreamColor Advanced Profiling Solution for $349 on its web site, to calibrate the monitor, validate and trend its performance. No such thing at dell.com.
HP published a "mini white paper" about LP2480zx, "Understanding the HP DreamColor LP2480zx Professional Display’s 30-bit panel" where it explains what a 30-bit color is, and why it is better than 24- or even 18-bit color of mainstream monitor. Dell's mentions 1 billion colors on U2410, which is directly related to a 30-bit color (30 bits represent a number of a little over a billion), however UK's TFT Central in its U2410 review says that the screen "utilises an 8-bit H-IPS panel, capable of producing 16.7 million colours".
HP describes the 30-bit workflow and how to ensure that your computer configuration is fully 30-bit, from your application through the graphics card and its driver, to the cable (gotta use DisplayPort 1.1 or HDMI 1.3 for 30-bit - standard DVI is limited to 24-bit), to the monitor.
According to HP, they developed the LP2480zx in "close collaboration with DreamWorks Animation", for their color-critical applications. See PDF brochure on HP website.
HP "DreamColor and HP DreamColor LP2480zx Professional Display - Frequently Asked Questions" talks about various color spaces and the monitor's compatibility with them, the importance of low black levels, dimmability and tone response and its ability to synchronize to standard video frame rates.

Cons: lower brightness of 250 vs. 400 cd/m2; price.

Verdict: if you are James Cameron checking out biolumenance scenes of the Avatar HD trailer, you certainly need HP DreamColor LP2480zx, at the very least. In other words, if you utilize professional color grading applications requiring 100% color accuracy, this monitor fits the bill.

Windows 7's XP mode

2009-11-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

Let's get something out of the way: Windows 7's XP mode will not help running add-on PCI, PCIe or PCI-X cards that don't have Windows 7 drivers. Examples: Matrox DigiSuite (LE, DTV, etc.), RT.X100, Pinnacle Targa 3000, etc. If you have a working system with one of these cards, do not upgrade to Windows 7.

Put it simply: any hardware that doesn't have drivers for Vista or 7, still will not run in "XP Mode" on Windows 7. The "XP Mode" is a virtual machine, a whole "virtual computer" that tricks Windows XP into thinking it runs on physical hardware. It can only access devices that have Windows 7 drivers. So the "XP Mode" is primarily for software that doesn't like running on Windows Vista or 7, and insists on running on Windows XP.

That's not to say XP Mode isn't cool: it is. It's been there in various incarnations for quite some time, and on Windows 7, it adds a few perks that make it even better:

Access to USB devices, such as flash drives.
Direct access to Windows 7 hard drives.
Access "XP Mode" applications directly from Windows 7 desktop.

If you have applications that require Windows XP, such as Intuit QuickBooks 2003, Windows 7' XP Mode is for you.

See TechRepublic's video on the subject:

Windows 7 On The Cheap

2009-11-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

Ed Bott on ZDNet: Seven perfectly legal ways to get Windows 7 cheap (or even free).

DV411 Ships a Media Composer 4.0 System to US Navy

2009-10-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

DV411 shipped an Avid-qualified Media Composer 4.0 system to US Navy last week. The workstation is based on an HP Z800 model that since its introduction earlier this year won accolades for its tool-less and compartmentalized design with efficient air-flow, expandability unmatched by any other Tier 1 system manufacturer, and performance. The system shipped with dual Intel® Xeon® X5570 2.93GHz Quad-Core Processors, 12GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX4800 1.5GB PCIe graphics adapter and a 4.5TB internal storage array configured for transfer rates of over 300MB/s.

The system was configured to strict guidelines published by Avid, to ensure its smooth performance with Media Composer 4.0 editing application.

Avid Media Composer version 4.0 announced

2009-09-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

Along with the new version (4.0) of Media Composer™ software, Avid yesterday announced new versions of their Symphony™ (4.0), and NewsCutter® (8.0) professional editing software solutions.

What's new?

Mix and match SD and HD formats, frame rates, and resolutions all within the same timeline
Allow Pro Tools editors to sync with Mac-based Media Composer systems through Video Satellite
Encode and deliver final masters in Panasonic AVC-Intra format, and let projects remain in their native format from acquisition to final delivery
Instantly access and edit GFCAM 50- and 100 Mb-formatted media through AMA
Be more creative and productive with new updates to the included Production Suite: new versions of Boris Continuum Complete, Sorenson Squeeze and SmartSound SonicFire Pro.

Also:

Improved Stereoscopic 3D editing: Enables customers to view 3D material side by side in addition to over/under - ensuring greater accuracy of editing decisions and a wider choice of cost-effective monitors for stereoscopic viewing.
Monitoring HD and SD cross-and-down converted formats from 1080p24 masters: Enables customers using Mojo DX or Nitris® DX hardware to view HD material on an SD monitor, eliminating the need to incur additional hardware costs.

Pricing remains at US $2,495 box, $2,295 download, $295 students. Upgrades: TBD, but probably the same: $295-$495.

Availability: September 30, 2009.

Note: Avid Media Composer v3.5, Avid Symphony v3.5 and Avid NewsCutter v7.5 will no longer be available for purchase starting on September 10, 2009. All orders accepted after this date will ship Avid Media Composer v4.0, Avid Symphony v4.0 and Avid NewsCutter v8.0.

Customers who purchased current software after September 1, 2009, are entitled to a free upgrade to the new version. Contact avid.com/protect for more info.

DV411 ProEdit systems currently qualified for Avid solutions, are expected to remain qualified with the new versions. Please visit our Avid-qualified systems page for more info.

4U 67TB Server

2009-09-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

BackBlaze is an online backup service company that, not unlike Google, builds their own data centers. Their recent breakthrough: a 4U storage 67TB RAID6 server that they designed themselves and graciously posted online. 67TB in just 4U isn't easy because most readily available 4U storage boxes house 16 drives, with very few accommodating 32. This one houses 45, along with a motherboard and two power supplies. With 2TB 7200rpm drives now shipping, a 90TB version can't be too far away.

(see the article)

The server's two power supplies aren't redundant; if one fails, the system is down until it is replaced - however this is version one. The interface is standard vanilla Gigabit Ethernet - which works well for BackBlaze because that's all they need. For uncompressed HD or 4K, you would still need something faster, like 4Gbit Fiber or 12Gbit Mini-SAS. Still, this design is good news for video editors: BackBlaze shows that it is possible to build huge storage boxes on a budget, and maybe one of these days, there will be an affordable online backup service geared toward large media files.

Secure Your Wireless Router

2009-08-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

Another one of wireless encryption techniques can be broken: WPA/TKIP. The other one, long considered insecure, is WEP. While the weakness of WPA/TKIP does not directly affect the majority of users, another vulnerability does: few wireless routers are properly secured with wireless encryption and strong passwords.

The recipe is simple:

Set a strong administrative password
Enable WPA2 or WPA/AES encryption
Change your SSID and disable its broadcast
Disable remote administration
Record the password, WPA pass phrase, and the SSID in at least two safe places. If the router is used in a business, add a "wireless settings" page to the network/server documentation and record the information there.

These steps will easily close 99% of the router's attack surface: make it harder to find by strangers, virtually impossible to listen in to, or gain access to the administrative settings.

Wireless routers are common attack targets for the simple reason that you don't have to have physical access to the device in order to probe its defenses. On top of it, most wireless routers are shipped in insecure and vulnerable configurations: easily guessable administrative passwords, easily discoverable, no encryption. Securing a wireless router is important not only to protect your sensitive data, but also to protect it against potential infection where your network and computers can be used to to launch attacks at others.

RAID5/6 performance and reliability impact

2009-08-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

I know you don't want to hear it, but a fact is a fact: the number one reason for loss of electronic data is user error. Inadvertent deletion, accidental formatting, hot coffee spilled on your laptop, the dog ate the homework, etc. Spilled coffee and accidental formatting happen way more often than hard disk crashes, at least where I hang out. (Why is there a "dental" in "accidental formatting"? It can't be a coincidence with the two of them causing most of the world's pain.)

There is really no foolproof 100% protection from user errors. Users are just too imaginative and sneaky. No matter how well their computers try to protect themselves against their owners, the owners find these inconceivably spectacular ways to lose their baby photos and tax records. Yes, tax records fall victim to more hard disk crashes than there are hard disks in existence, and the IRS is investigating this matter. The dogs are planning a class action suit, too.

There actually is a way to protect against user error: frequent backups. Do it yourself with utter frequency and consistency. Also, backup to the cloud.

The number two reason: hardware error, such as hard disk failure, or some sort of a crash that mangles or destroys your data. Here, there are two ways to protect yourself: automatic data redundancy and backups. The first option will not save you from user error; only from hardware errors and crashes - and even then - not always. The latter option is the only relatively foolproof to protect your data. Backup your data and backup often.

Now that I am done with the Computer Consultant's Number One Mantra, I will concentrate on data redundancy in the form of RAID or Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

This is going to be boring.

The two most common desktop RAID levels are 0 and 1 where The Zero isn't redundant at all and I have no clue why it is still called "redundant" but it's a long running tradition and I like to follow traditions with the exception of popcorn at the movies. I neither understand nor follow this strange tradition of drowning the 24-speaker surround sound exquisitely crafted by Hollywood, with popcorn crunching right between your ears. You do? Write a comment.

With RAID levels 0 and 1 being the most common, there is a growing trend of RAID levels 5 and 6 taking ground on home computers used for storing photos and videos. The reason is simple: 0 and 1 are not good enough: 0 is not protected, 1 isn't very efficient. 0 simply distributes bytes onto several drives storing only one copy of each byte. This makes the set faster but completely unprotected: one disk fails and your entire data stored on the set is gone. Not only Zero is unprotected, it puts your data at a higher risk than a single drive. The Mantra above is especially important with the Zero, please repeat after me:

Backup your data and backup often.

I warned you it was going to be boring.

RAID level 1 puts each byte onto two drives simultaneously. Each byte is stored twice, so if one drive fails, there is still a copy on the other drive. The data is protected right up until one of the drives fails. Once it fails, and eventually, they all do, the data is not protected until the RAID1 set is rebuilt again, i.e. the failed drive is replaced with a new one, and the set is restored to the "healthy" status. Which means RAID1 not only takes two drives to protect one, it is also not a 100% protection against drive failure. (Repeat after me...) In the end, the cost of protection is 50% of the total capacity: in a RAID Level 1 set of two 1TB disks, the total usable capacity of 1TB is half of the total capacity of 2TB.

With gigabytes and terabytes getting cheaper, lighter and physically smaller, it's not far-fetched to put 4 or 5 of them in a computer and try to protect them against a failure of one. Or two. Enter RAID levels 5 and 6: that's exactly what they do. Level 5 protects against a failure of a single hard disk in any RAID5 set, and Level 6 - against two. The cost of this protection is in a loss of a capacity of one or two disks, respectively. In other words, a RAID Level 5 set of five 1TB disks will have a usable capacity of 4TB, and a RAID Level 6 - 3TB. This is more efficient than RAID Level 1 as the usable capacity is more than 50%. There are also other RAID levels we will not touch in this article, as they are far less common than 0, 1, 5 and 6.

That said, RAID Levels 5 and 6 put a much heavier load on individual hard disks compared to other levels, notably 0 and 1, and heavier duty (enterprise level) hard disks are recommended for these configurations. Individual hard disks in RAID5 and RAID6 arrays have two parts: data and parity. Each individual write operation to an array will consist of two resultant write operations to each hard disk: to its data portion, and to its parity portion. The potential performance penalty is significant and can range from 10-15% to 90%, depending on an application, drive and controller characteristics. While disk and controller caches often reduce the penalty and improve RAID5/6 write performance, the fact that each drive has to do a double duty for each write operation, still remains. It is thus recommended to use heavy duty hard drives with longer MTBF numbers, designed for enterprise applications, in RAID5 and RAID6 arrays, and their derivatives.

Examples of "lighter duty" desktop drives not recommended for RAID5/6 arrays with moderate to heavy performance loads:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200rpm: 3-year warranty, 700K Hrs MTBF
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200rpm: 5-year warranty, 750K Hrs MTBF

Examples of "heavy duty" enterprise hard disks recommended for high performance RAID5/6 applications:

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB 7200rpm: 5-year warranty, 1.2m Hrs MTBF
Western Digital RE4-GP WD2002FYPS 2TB 5400-7200rpm: 5-year warranty, 1.2m Hrs MTBF

Note: I am not including enterprise class hard drives with 10,000rpm or higher rotational speeds, or SSD models, because they are still quite a bit more expensive than their 7200rpm counterparts, and are usually cost-prohibitive for mainstream video editing applications.

Sources:

LSI/3Ware RAID 6 Tech Brief (PDF)
Treadlayers' Review of LSI 3Ware 9690SA-8I RAID controller (Aug 17, 2009)

Liquid Cooling Goes Mainstream with HP Z800

2009-08-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

Quietly and without much fanfare, Hewlett Packard began offering liquid cooling on its Z-series workstations. Liquid cooling kits have been around for years, usually as after-market options for overclockers. With HP offering it as a standard item, liquid cooling becomes less of "living on the edge" gaming affair, and more of a mainstream option, albeit for expensive top shelf models of their workstations.

While there seem to be no pre-configured models with liquid cooling kits installed, the Z800 "configure your own model" page has two options under "Thermal Kit": "HP Air Cooling Solution [Add $1], and "HP Liquid Cooling Solution [Add $250]". The latter is only supported with "High Power" processors, Intel models W5580 (3.2GHz) and W5590 (3.33GHz).

A brief trip to Google uncovered a great article on ComputerWorld that was just posted yesterday. Besides reducing power-sapping heat, liquid cooling serves another purpose that is critical for workstations: reducing fan noise. According to the article, the noise is cut down by 8 dB under heavy load (from 38 to 30 dB), and this is a big deal for those of us who don't enjoy monotonous and often annoying fan humming.

A well configured base liquid-cooled Z800 workstation will only run you $10,698.00. Peanuts for those of us who appreciate quietness. Here are the specs:

HP Z800 Workstation FF825AV-PR800
• Genuine Windows Vista® Business 64-bit
• HP Z800 1110W 89% Efficient Chassis
• 2 Intel® Xeon® W5580 3.20GHz 8MB/1333 QC CPUs
• HP Liquid Cooling Solution
• HP 24GB (12x2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC RAM (Dual Processor)
• HP NVIDIA Quadro FX3800 1GB Graphics
• HP 300GB SAS 15K 1st HDD
• HP SATA Blu-Ray Writer
• HP 3 year standard warranty

$10,698.00 (buy it from DV411)

Availability: HP usually ships "configure your own" models within 1-2 weeks.

Additional information:

Listen to samples of noise produced by air- and liquid-cooled Z800 workstations in this review: Liquid-cooled HP Z800 Workstation Test Drive (Jan Ozer, Aug 10, 2009)
HP Z800 home page
Asetek Technology Helps Improve Acoustics on Ultra Quiet Workstations from HP, Aug 09, 2009