Transmedia development get common tools
April 2013 – In the content creation world, the transmedia market is now opening up the development to professionals working on projects that are sharing both files and completed content assets. One of these areas of convergent is the gaming and broadcast industry.
We had the opportunity to meet with Content Creation Specialty VAR ALT Sytems at both GDC and NAB. They are specializing in creating supported turnkey solutions for content creators based around HP workstations and Autodesk Solutions, among other offerings. These solutions include not only the base workstation, but optimally configured accessories (SSD, Graphics Card, Memory configuration) for the end applications.
An example of their configurations is the April 2013 NAB special that features the HP Z1 workstation and the Autodesk Entertainment Suite. The full details are available on the ALT Systems flyer that can be downloaded here: [download id=”36″]
Unlike most VARs that just sell parts, their configurations are optimized with OS downgrade to maximize stability and compatibility, and optimized GTX680M graphics card with 4G of video memory and a single quad core Xeon processor. A major challenge for these advanced systems is getting the right mix of software and hardware. It is very easy to spend 2x-3x the amount of money on a system that has higher end hardware, that cannot be addressed or utilized by the software.
ALT NAB2013 Entertainment Creation Special
As the Autodesk Entertainment Suite is a graphics output program as well as GPU compute capable tool, the All-in-one Workstation uses an Gforce series graphics card rather than the more compute oriented Quadro, Tesla, and now Titan cards. This allows the user to get a true visualization of the end product as it will appear on their systems, as the Gforce series is the primary playout card for the Nvidia line. This configuration is applicable to both the Autodesk Maya and 3dMax tool sets, and the availability of the licenses, pre-installed on the device, is included.
In addition the Z1 platform, which is gaining popularity for on-location and smaller space applcations, they also support the larger Z200 – Z800 series desktop / tower solutions. These can support both 1GbE and 10GbE outputs, as well as dual CPU motherboards along with multiple video & GPU resources, while still being able to remain in a working office location. Typically, these larger systems are relegated to the server room due to their airflow requirements and loud operating noise. The Z200- Z800 workstations so not have that issue, and can be used in a traditional desk side location.
ALT Systems tends to run bundled specials several times a year near key trade events (GDC, NAB, SIGGRAPH, etc) and these can be found on their site under their homepage.
