By Brady Betzel
Production and post companies found themselves forced to employ remote workflows during the COVID-19 shutdown. Some made the transition easily, while others seemed lost, resorting to sending hard drives via runners or in the mail and emailing bins/sequences/projects/etc.
The industry has been discussing remote workflows for years, but apparently not many were taking it seriously. Some who are succeeding remotely have employed HP’s Remote Graphics Software (RGS) remote solution that allows users to access a workstation at a studio while using another less powerful one at home to control it. As of today, the RGS has a new name — ZCentral Remote Boost — and new hardware.
ZCentral Remote Boost
Previously, when you purchased a Z by HP workstation, the remote capability was loaded onto the system, but for a fee you could load it on other workstations as well. From personal experience, the HP RGS remote workflow is amazing, but aside from the VPN setup, the tricky part is the actual storage of the computing units in the facility. If they were in rooms before the pandemic started, that is likely where they stayed. Now HP has announced the ZCentral 4R workstation, an amazingly compact 1U, rack-mountable workstation. Imagine taking a facility’s worth of systems and mounting all of them into one single rack — not only for the remote workflow but also for when the world returns to “normal.”
My first question for HP was, “What is being compromised, physically? Are you taking out airflow patterns or full-sized GPUs?” Well, it appears there is going to be very little compromise. The system offers up to 18 cores via Intel Xeon W-2295 processors, up to 256GB DDR4 2933 ECC SDRAM (four slots) and up to the full-sized Nvidia Quadro RTX 8000 (48GB GDDR6 dedicated).
You will also have the option of Windows 10 Pro 64 or Linux. If you are a company looking to future-proof remote working capabilities through true workstations and not machine virtualization, then you’ll want to look at the ZCentral 4R. But if you have systems you are happy with, then consider ZCentral Remote Boost, which is constantly being refined and improved to work with your existing Mac, Linux or Windows-based PCs for a fee.
ZBook Fury
In addition, HP is now previewing a feature that allows more true-to-form Wacom inking across the ZCentral Remote Boost. The ZCentral 4R is expected to be released on October 19. While the ZCentral 4R is what got me the most excited — because I am literally working remotely — there are some new mobile workstations, like the ZBook Fury 15/17 G7 and ZBook Power G7, that will be to your liking.
The ZBook Fury models have been slimmed down and sped up. HP mobile workstations have long been a favorite; from Mil-Spec testing to quality of parts, they outshine most of the workstation competition. I am always excited to see what HP has done when I receive a review unit to test out. The Fury supports Intel CPUs ranging from the four-core i5 to the eight-core Xeon W-10885M; offers the ability to purchase the amazing 15.6-inch UHD IPS antiglare, 600-nit, 100% DCI-P3 HP DreamColor display; and even adds an Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 or AMD Radeon Pro W550M (plus more).
The Fury 17 supports similar specs as the 15, but with an increased screen size of 17.3 inches (although you lose 50 nits on the DreamColor version, which uses 550 nits of brightness). There is also the ability to use the Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 and more. If you are looking for a sleeker, more stylish mobile workstation and don’t mind giving up a little bit of GPU power, the Power G7 is an option for you.
HP’s Z2 Tower family
Desktop-wise, HP is releasing updates to the Z2 Tower G5, Z2 Mini G5 and the Z2 Small Form Factor G5. The industry-standard Z2 has been improved to work with the formidable Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 GPU and 10-core Intel Xeon and Intel Core processors, but it continues to be unthrottled and looks great. I always look forward to the Z2 Mini G5 workstations because of how much power gets packed into these tiny systems. They can be stored behind a monitor where no one would ever see them. And they can now be outfitted with the new Intel 10-core processor and Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000.
In the end, HP really seems to have learned its lesson after Apple seemed to take over the industry. Even on the press call, I was blown away by how professional the HP crew was. All the questions I was thinking were answered. When I work with products, I trust my instinct, and right now my instinct tells me HP is going in the right direction for users of high-end workstations.
Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and The Shop. He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.
