HP z840 Workstations Recommended for 4K Workflows

Whenever we get asked about editing and producing 4K video, Videoguys always recommends an HP z840 workstation. Brady Betzel got his hands on one and did a review for Post magazine. He reched the same conclusion. In fact, he called his z840 INCREDIBLE!

Post by Brady Betzel Today we stand in the middle of an ocean of “K” resolutions: is this project finishing in 2K, UHD, native 4K, 6K, 8K, etc?! (My heart skipped a beat as I wrote that last line, because a typical response would be “hmmm, not sure.”) Coming from the era of VHS, Beta, and DigiBeta — we truly are in an amazing and quickly-evolving technological transition in entertainment. You can watch a UHD resolution video on YouTube that was shot on a camera smaller than your wallet; edit using the Adobe CC 2014 Suite; and possibly finish on DaVinci Lite for a pretty affordable price. I mean its getting ridiculous, the power to create is literally in everyone’s pocket, only limited by your creativity, thirst for knowledge, and computer processing power. In today’s broadcast post production climate, I typically see two workstations being used: MacPros and HP Z-Series workstations. It’s actually quite the battle, and personally I think it really comes down to users preferring the Command+C shortcut to copy on a Mac to the Control+C to copy on a Windows-based PC, but maybe people have different reasons. Both systems, however, have their benefits. I reviewed the latest MacPro “trash can” in January of 2014 and was pretty impressed with its performance, but disappointed in its lack of accessibility and Nvidia-based graphics card options. I think HP really has done a great job and stuck to their guns to continue to deliver a system that is reliable, easily (and I do mean easily) upgraded, and as powerful of a workstation that can be created. In the end, if you are deciding on which professional workstations to purchase, the HP Z-Series are incredible and will stand the test of constantly-updating technology. They are very expandable, easily repairable, and chewed through every test I threw at it. read more...