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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Stop The Press!! Nvidia Quadro CX !!

the 5800 is junk even for a gaming card
6 generations of cards ago.....

fx series (5800)
6 series
7 series
8 series
9 series
200 series
 
Hey Mark.

I've been waiting for this for a while. We ended up going the 5600 plus SDI board as we needed to be able to sync audio in Scratch without the image 'tearing', AFAIK can only be done with SDI at this point due to needing to run the display at the same rate as (or direct multiples of) the timeline. I wonder if displayport willl enable us to do this as well? If so then it is huge (10-bit).. but I just odon't know at this point ?

Cheers!
Seth.

Tomorrow - official press releases on the Nvidia Quadro CX will go out.

Here's the scoop -

HARDWARE ACELLERATION FOR ADOBE CS4
CUDA-enabled plug-in for HD H.264 encodes at lighting speeds!!

30-bit color
10/12 bit SDI option (this card has the connection to attach the Nvidia SDI option board)
Two Display Ports (10 bit off the GPU - hello Dreamcolor!!)
One Dual Link DVI
(** only two of the three ports active at time)
One three-pin stereo sync connection for sync w/3D shutter glasses (NVidia's glasses come out (cheap) in December)

MSRP approx. $2K - retail should be $1700-$1600 ish

** PC drivers ready - Mac drivers coming very soon -
 
Hey Mark.

I've been waiting for this for a while. We ended up going the 5600 plus SDI board as we needed to be able to sync audio in Scratch without the image 'tearing', AFAIK can only be done with SDI at this point due to needing to run the display at the same rate as (or direct multiples of) the timeline. I wonder if displayport willl enable us to do this as well? If so then it is huge (10-bit).. but I just odon't know at this point ?

Cheers!
Seth.

Not 100% sure I understand what you are asking ... but this card + a LYNX AES16e audio card (OSX & PC) and you'll be rockin' hard - we just got one for our RedBoxx and it's pretty sick!

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AES16e/
 
Sorry mate, didn't explain very well :)

With DVI (as you'd well know), ot
s hard to run the monitor at 24hz or 48hz etc (for a 24fps project).. this is essential to be able to sync to audio properly in Scratch long with an external sync source etc. SDI does this well (or course).. I was just saying that I wonder how suitable for this type of application displayport will be.. whether it will be able to run at 24/48hz etc.

Cheers :)
 
Not sure why you say it's hard to run a monitor at 24Hz, 48Hz, etc.. with DVI. The problem is that most displays are 50Hz/ 60Hz and it has nothing to do with the DVI interface. Good studio / broadcast monitors can refresh at different frequencies such as 48Hz, to eliminate pulldown and judder, and do so just fine when being fed a 24Hz or 48Hz DVI / HDMI signal.

Displayport support a full range of scanning frequences (actually the same set as defined in the DVI spec, with a few more on the top end). It's up to software / hardware makers to implement proper audio sync. With SDI it's easier to maintain sync for a couple reasons -- one is that the applications are written to handle such and DVI is often treated as a consumer standard, when it's not, and because SDI can have embedded audio. I fear that DisplayPort is going to suffer much the same fate as DVI... The "pro" world still views SDI as the current and future standard and will continue to concentrate their efforts there. DisplayPort will be treated just the same as DVI, at least it will for the time being, and viewed as just some other consumer/prosumer interface. Even though once again, it is not.
 
Hey Jeff,

You are of course absolutely right.

I was thinking more of situations where the software doesn't like outputting those frequencies as it expects DVI panels to be 50/60hz. For example, windows only wants to output 50/60hz to a Dreamcolor via DVI even though the Dreamcolor loves 24hz (and pretty much any other frequency that you need). Of course there's way around this with 3rd party software but I haven't been able to get Scratch to play nice with the Dreamcolor via DVI at 24hz. SDI on the other hand is fine. Of course, as you mention this is purely down to software.. so my question is really moot.

Sorry, it's been a long week (as you can probably tell from my 4am Monday morning posting).. suffering from brainfry.


Not sure why you say it's hard to run a monitor at 24Hz, 48Hz, etc.. with DVI. The problem is that most displays are 50Hz/ 60Hz and it has nothing to do with the DVI interface. Good studio / broadcast monitors can refresh at different frequencies such as 48Hz, to eliminate pulldown and judder, and do so just fine when being fed a 24Hz or 48Hz DVI / HDMI signal.

Displayport support a full range of scanning frequences (actually the same set as defined in the DVI spec, with a few more on the top end). It's up to software / hardware makers to implement proper audio sync. With SDI it's easier to maintain sync for a couple reasons -- one is that the applications are written to handle such and DVI is often treated as a consumer standard, when it's not, and because SDI can have embedded audio. I fear that DisplayPort is going to suffer much the same fate as DVI... The "pro" world still views SDI as the current and future standard and will continue to concentrate their efforts there. DisplayPort will be treated just the same as DVI, at least it will for the time being, and viewed as just some other consumer/prosumer interface. Even though once again, it is not.
 
Comes down to software and video drivers.. Your video card may just not want to output 24Hz without you creating a custom mode and/or tweaking some registry entries yourself.

The Dreamcolor display does accept a 24Hz input. Unfortunately does not refresh at 24Hz -- it's a 50/60Hz only unit and I think that is hard-locked based on where you buy the unit as I don't think they have a dual function PSU inside it. :/

I'm personally really disappointed with the HP Dreamcolor display. They put so much marketing hype on that thing and it doesn't even come close. It has very nice color for sure and good internal color processing, but it's still an 8bit LCD panel with very nice internal processing and dithering. It's probably still my #1 choice for an affordable LCD desktop display, but you have to read between the lines in their marketing literature.
 
Dreamcolor

Dreamcolor

It has very nice color for sure and good internal color processing, but it's still an 8bit LCD panel with very nice internal processing and dithering. It's probably still my #1 choice for an affordable LCD desktop display, but you have to read between the lines in their marketing literature.

Hello Jeff,

I was trying to find out why people say it's a 8bit lcd and I read the HP 2480zx faq saying it's a 10bit display.

http://h20202.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/downloads/DreamColor_and_LP2480zx_FAQ_June08a.pdf

Could you point out to any link or line that shows the contrary.

Thanks.

Patrick:pirate:
 
I contacted HP and they told me it is a true 10-bit panel. I asked more than once. ;-)

There will be a new display from EIZO: CG232W, 10-bit panel, 120 Hz, preset color modes for Rec. 709, EBU, SMPTE-C, DCI, and sRGB: http://www.eizo.com/press/releases/pdf/CG232Wpr.pdf
 
It's been discussed some here already, but tons more on lots of other forums. The panel is an LG panel that is 8bit. LG does not make a 10bit panel of this size (nor does anyone else for that matter). I don't recall where, but there's a blog out there that shows someone taking the Dreamcolor display apart to reveal which panel is specifically in there.

The FAQ PDF doesn't tell us much in terms of actual tech specs and HP has been pretty elusive. They actually market the display as a "true 30-bit dsiplay". In reality it has 30-bit internal color processing, as in 10 bits per color channel. It can accept a 10-bit incoming signal. The panel itself being 8bit doesn't mean a whole lot in some ways. They're using a proprietary backlight system that really increases the saturation and range / contrast. Part of the internal processing is a dithering algorithm to increase the appearance of graduated tones. It is visible on the display, especially with 10bit sources and smooth graduations of color and you wouldn't see this on a 10bit+ DLP projector or other wider-gamut display.

All in all it's a very nice monitor. It's just that many people nitpick the marketing, I guess I do to some extent. If I were in the market for a new 24" LCD, this would be the one I choose right now. If HP were offering a 30" version of this display, I would have already bought at least two of them. If you have not seen one with your own eyes, you should check it out. They are very nice.

Hello Jeff,

I was trying to find out why people say it's a 8bit lcd and I read the HP 2480zx faq saying it's a 10bit display.


The Eizo monitor that Alexander mentions should be very nice. But I think it will be quite a bit more expensive than the HP Dreamcolor. IMO, I'm a lot more excited about that one as well as the upcoming eCinema display, which I believe uses the same 22.5" panel -- It's a Samsung panel, I think.
 
Jeff, thanks for the details. And you are right the Eizo is a bit more expensive, no official prices are available from Eizo but expect something in the $9000-10000 range.
 
Guys start a new thread if you want to talk about monitor, please...

Actually I would like to know if the quadro CX is "really" specific to adobe CS4, or if any quadro FX work in the same way...Just to know if it's only a marketing buzz, or something specific (witch I "REALLY" doubt). I think the driver are optimize. And regarding this, could we use this driver on, let's say quadro FX 3700M (mobility)?
 
The Quadro CX is a re-packaged QuadroFX 4800. (The QFX4800 "standard" cards will begin shipping in the next few weeks)

The Quadro CX will power all the fancy new OpenGL stuff in CS4 - but so will practically any of the modern Geforce and Quadro cards that support the "CUDA" programming API. So all the Geforce 8800 cards as well as the Quadro 3700, etc should do just fine.

The difference between the Quadro CX and the soon-to-ship QFX4800 is that the CX comes bundled with a GPU-accelerated H.264/Blu-Ray encoding engine that is several times faster than software based encoders. However, there are some discussions that this engine doesn't produce as nice of an image as slower software encoding does.

We have some of these CX cards in for testing and they are wicked-fast for all 3D-related and video-related tasks. There is a 30-bit displayport - but we are awaiting the Eizo panel before we test that part...

Adam
BOXXlabs
 
Thank you for that info Adam. Please keep us updated as you continue your tests.
 
We just hosted an Adobe Roadshow event and they gave us a bundle deal on the Quadro CX card and a copy of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 - both for $1499:

http://silverado.cc/shop/product.php?productid=1102

They are letting us post it for a week, and then it goes away.

TL
 
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