OWC announced a new Thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosure during CES 2020: the OWC AKiTiO Node Titan. This tiny box supports double-wide full-length/full-height graphics cards and packs a massive 650W power supply to feed the most power-hungry GPUs. Let’s take a closer look at it! Image credit: OWC OWC AKiTiO Node Titan In early 2019, OWC acquired AKiTio; a company specialized in Thunderbolt 1/2/3 external storage solutions and expansion chassis. This acquisition gave OWC the chance to offer an entirely new line of products. A year later, they just announced the AKiTiO Node Titan, which is one of the most potent single-card eGPU enclosure at the moment. Image credit: OWC The Node Titan is sold as an enclosure only and features one x16 PCIe slot. If you want to put a GPU inside – this is what filmmakers would do – it can take up to a double-wide full-length/full-height graphics cards. Everything is powered via a 650W power supply, so if you want to put an AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, a Radeon VII, or any Nvidia GPU in it, you will be covered. The main advantage of this system is that you can put any GPU you want on the inside. If you compare it to other eGPU like the Blackmagic eGPU Pro that features a built-in Radeon RX Vega 56, there is no doubt that the OWC AKiTiO Node Titan will be more versatile and influential in the long term. At the back of the unit, there are two Thunderbolt 3 ports and power input. Also, the OWC AKiTiO Node Titan is capable of charging your laptop (up to 85W) at the same time. There is a retractable carrying handle on top of the unit if you want to bring it on set. It is compatible with Macs and PCs. Image credit: OWC Pricing and Availability The OWC AKiTiO Node Titan should be available in the first quarter of 2020. There is no information on pricing yet. Do you use an eGPU for video editing or color grading tasks? What is your experience with them? Let us know in the comments below!

Blackmagic Design just announced the new Blackmagic eGPU Pro for Apple computers with Thunderbolt 3. It incorporates AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics processor with 8GB RAM and adds one DisplayPort connector with support for up to 5K monitors. Available in November, it is supposed to offer almost twice the performance of the original Blackmagic eGPU. The new Blackmagic eGPU Pro. Source: Blackmagic Design The idea of an eGPU unit is to enhance graphic performance and eventually also connectivity of a computer. A couple of months ago we informed you about the release of the first Blackmagic eGPU for Apple computers (link to our news article). It featured multiple USB and Thunderbolt 3 connectors as well as enhanced graphic performance thanks to its built-in AMD Radeon Pro 580 graphics card with 8GB RAM. Now (only 4 months later) Blackmagic Design introduces an additional more powerful version – the Blackmagic eGPU Pro. Blackmagic eGPU Pro – What is New? Biggest improvement from the original Blackmagic eGPU is the better GPU they’re using, obviously. Heart of the new Blackmagic eGPU Pro is the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics processor with 8GB of HBM2 RAM. It has 2048-bit memory interface with 410GBps bandwidth and 56 discreet compute units for up to 10.5 teraflops of processing power. The RX Vega 56 can fill 94 billion textured pixels per second. Source: Blackmagic Design In addition, the Blackmagic eGPU Pro supports Metal graphics technology from Apple, which provides near-direct access to the GPU for maximizing graphics and compute performance. Blackmagic Design claims that the new Blackmagic eGPU Pro delivers nearly twice the performance of the original Blackmagic eGPU model and up to 22x faster performance than the built-in graphics on a 13-inch MacBook Pro (applies for GPU-intensive operations, such as noise reduction in DaVinci Resolve). In terms of connectivity, the original Blackmagic eGPU featured two USB-C (40Gbps Thunderbolt 3) ports, one HDMI 2.0, four USB 3.1 connectors and 85W power charging connector. New Blackmagic eGPU Pro has all of those ports plus it adds one DisplayPort connector for connecting displays with up to 5K resolution. The connected device needs to have Thunderbolt 3 connector. The Blackmagic eGPU Pro has a built-in power supply that powers the GPU while also providing 85W of downstream power via Thunderbolt 3 for charging laptop computers and powering peripherals. The power supply works from 100V to 240V and features a standard IEC power connector so it can be used anywhere in the world. Same design as the original eGPU. Only an extra DisplayPort added. Source: Blackmagic Design. Design of the new Blackmagic eGPU Pro remained exactly the same as the original eGPU. The only minor difference is the extra DisplayPort connector. The chassis with its textured finish is extruded from a single piece of aluminum. What might have changed is the internal thermal cooling system. Blackmagic Design claims it has been designed to balance the airflow and dissipate heat more efficiently while maintaining quiet operation. Availability and Price The Blackmagic eGPU Pro will be available in November for $1,199.00 USD from Apple directly. For comparison, the original Blackmagic eGPU is currently selling for $699.00 USD. Do you have experience with the original Blackmagic eGPU? Is eGPU a good solution for MacBook editing and does the performance boost justify the price? What do you think of the new eGPU Pro? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

Better late than never, Apple will now officially add Mac eGPU drivers for Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs in MacOS 10.13.4. This is welcome news to many iMac and Mac Pro users desperate to put more GPU power behind various power hungry applications such as DaVinci Resolve. What is an eGPU? Answering this question first requires answering an underlying question of what is Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt was developed to simultaneously support the fastest data and most video bandwidth available on a single cable, using both PCI Express and DisplayPort protocols. With Thunderbolt 2, this was 20Gbps, while with Thunderbolt 3 the speed was doubled to 40Gbps. Thunderbolt 3: 40 Gbps Thunderbolt™ 3 – double the speed of Thunderbolt 2 Bi-directional, dual-protocol (PCI Express and DisplayPort) 4 lanes of PCI Express Gen 3 8 lanes of DisplayPort 1.2 (HBR2 and MST) Thunderbolt 3 allows you to utilise 4 lanes of PCI Express with a total bandwidth of 2750MB/sec outside of your host system. A Thunderbolt to PCIe enclosure, such as the Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box provides power and high bandwidth PCIe for compatible desktop cards, not only GPU’s but even video I/O cards and non-GPU cards such as the RED ROCKET-X. Mac eGPU support in OSX 10.13.4 I witnessed a Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box unofficially running a Radeon GPU on a MacBook Pro twelve months ago at NAB 2017 but it required some back-end tweaking and was very “unofficial”. Now the wait is over, and Apple have released the requirements in a new document, which you should definitely familiarise yourself with if you’re planning to take the plunge. With eGPU support in macOS 10.13.4, you can: Accelerate applications that use Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL Connect additional external monitors and displays Use virtual reality headsets plugged into the eGPU Charge your MacBook Pro while using the eGPU Use an eGPU with your MacBook Pro while its built-in display is closed Connect an eGPU while a user is logged inConnect more than one eGPU using the multiple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on your Mac Use the menu bar item to safely disconnect the eGPU View the activity levels of built-in and external GPUs. Open Activity Monitor, then choose Window > GPU History. Recommended Mac eGPU cards Apple have so far listed only the Radeon GPU’s below: AMD Radeon RX 570 AMD Radeon RX 580 Radeon Pro WX 7100 AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Vega Frontier Edition Air Radeon Pro WX 9100 Recommended Mac eGPU Enclosures Be sure to check the full requirements explained in the Apple configuration document to make sure you match up the right eGPU enclosure for the GPU you want to use. OWC Mercury Helios FX PowerColor Devil Box Sapphire Gear Box Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 350W Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 550W Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W eGPU Power on the Go For mobile post production users that carry a Macbook Pro with them on set, or for editing and grading on the road, the new Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Puck could be just what you’ve been waiting for. With an integrated Radeon RX570, the Mac compatible Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 570 provides 4GB of GDDR 5 GPU memory in a compact form factor that you can throw in your gear bag or backpack and hit the road. It will need mains power, so it’s not an unplugged solution. Thunderbolt 3 Only I am sure many of you with older Thunderbolt 2 equipped Macs will be asking if you will be able to use an eGPU too. Unfortunately the answer is no. If you’re on the fence thinking about replacing an older Mac, this news may be enough to push you into a decision on a new Macbook Pro or iMac. This is long awaited news for many, and promises to supercharge post production users on the go. Are you going to add a eGPU to your Mac? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Have you ever been tasked with creating a storyboard for a new project? Or a mood board maybe? Although they can help in creating suitable images, it can be quite a hassle to bring these into a proper shape. The Boardfish app is here to help with that. There’s an App for That – Meet Boardfish Creatives are not exactly known for being super well organised, so anything that could help keep things sorted is more than welcome. One such solution is Boardfish, an app that takes the pain out of any kind of board-layout task. Whether you are about to create a full-blown storyboard or just a mood board of some kind, Boardfish is super easy to use yet quite powerful. Watch the introduction video in order to get the idea: For me personally, the beauty lies in the simplicity of Boardfish. Sure, you can use InDesign or such for creating board layouts, but there are tens of thousands of options, menus and possible workflows. That’s just too much for me. Boardfish, on the other hand, is a straightforward app with just one purpose, with all the options you need for the task right there in front of you, not buried in deep menu structures. How Boardfish Works First of all, the layout will never mess up the defined format as the app will rearrange single board items automatically as you go. You can delete, hide or drag-and-drop single or multiple items. It’s really super simple.   If you want to try it, you can download it from boardfish.io and work with it as long as you want. There are no limitations in the free trial version, except for not being able to print, export or save your work. Are you eager to learn more about the app? Watch a full guided tour here: All the necessary settings are divided in three structured inspector panels: Page, Panel and Titles. There you can define global settings of the overall layout, define how the single board items appear in the final layout, and tweak title, font and banner settings. The only downside is that you still have to draw (or import) the images and pictures you need. Such a shame. The full version is $99 and can be purchased directly from boardfish.io. For now, the app is only available for Mac OS. Is storyboarding something you do from time to time and could this app be useful for you? Let us know in the comments below!

Just as promised at this years IBC, Hedge Connect – a notification app for the data transfer tool Hedge for Mac – has now hit the App Store. This is another result of all the energy that has gone into the development of Hedge since its initial release back in March.  You can install Hedge Connect on iOS devices such as iPhone or iPad. There’s no native Apple Watch app yet, but you can still receive notifications from the iOS app. Meet Hedge Connect We’ve already reviewed Hedge for Mac before (read Nino’s original review here as well as my update here) and I must say again that I’m quite impressed with its performance. Its speed in comparing the checksums is almost as fast as a native copy/paste operation with the Finder. The reason behind the speedy checksum verifications is Hedge’s use of the xxHash algorithm rather than the more common MD5. In fact, Hedge claims to be able to outperform MD5 by at least 15%, depending on the speed of your Mac. With the freshly-released Hedge Connect app, you can now remotely monitor the progress of your Hedge for Mac transfers, both with the premium and free versions. All you need to do is download the app and link it to your copy of Hedge for Mac using a special passcode displayed in the app preferences. Once the main application is linked to the iOS app, it will notify you whenever a transfer is finished. No more running back and forth between set and the off-site DIT station in small crew shoots, as you will know exactly when the transfer queue is done. If something unexpected happens that requires your attention, the app will notify you of that too, of course. While testing the app for myself, I am happy to say that everything just worked the way it’s supposed to, with no glitches whatsoever and fortunately, not even error messages. You will need to upgrade the Hedge for Mac app to version 1.5 in order to benefit from the new features of the app. Further Development Paul Matthijs Lombert, CEO of Hedge for Mac, has written up a blog post about the new developed iOS app and he has this to say: We feel that Hedge Connect is a starting point, just like Hedge for Mac was when we first released it. We’ve done a lot of major updates since then, and we expect to do the same with Hedge Connect.” As things stand now, the $9.99 Hedge Connect app doesn’t do much except informing you when a transfer is done. This may not sound like its brimming with functionality, but I think it can save you some precious minutes during those busy shooting days. I speak from experience when I say that anything that can help you maintain a certain peace of mind on a shoot can be incredibly helpful. Future versions of Hedge Connect should offer things like realtime progress bars or even remote control capabilities, and that’s exactly what’s in store according to Paul’s timeline for the app. I’m really curious about the direction this development will take! The way I see it, though, it is for now a simple, yet very helpful app with a lot of potential. Think about the solid framework of further development yet to come. Right now this app is available for iOS only, but you can write an email to Paul ([email protected]) regarding an Android version. And make sure to check out Hedge’s blog for more information. Hedge for Mac is offering a 10% discount for all cinema5D readers, so if you are interested, click here. What kind of offloading tool do you use at the moment? Would you think this kind of remote capabilities might be helpful for your workflow? Let us know in the comments below!

Hedge for Mac, a new transfer management software was released today. I had a chance to review it and also compare to existing other solutions on the market.  Let’s be frank, dealing with data isn’t the sexiest thing to talk about, and most people do drag-and-drop transfers of their footage in the Finder (or Windows Explorer) and assume everything is safe when it’s done. Well, let’s put it this way – first of all, you should never rely on one copy of your data, be it on a normal hard drive or RAID, three is the standard to ensure a proper level of safety backup if things go wrong. Secondly, I am aware that this can be a huge effort simply because of the fact that you have to drag-and-drop one by one and wait until one transfer is done before you can start copying onto the second and then the third drive, because if you did it simultaneously from the same source, it can stall completely and introduce errors into the whole process. Last but not least, you never know if every bit of your data is correctly transferred when using the normal Finder / Explorer copy function. Other transfer management solutions on the market This is exactly where data or transfer management software comes in. Until recently, there weren’t many feasible software solutions available. I have been using ShotPut Pro for a long time now, and I like it. It’s a relatively easy to use software package that enables you to do transfers from one source to up to 5 destinations at once, verified, without clogging up the transfers. The downside of it, at $99, it’s not super cheap for a relatively straightforward tool—and that’s only a single CPU license. Red Giant’s Offload is another simple transfer management tool, too, but it only supports transfers to up to two drives. Offload also does verification and gives you previews of your transferred files. It’s $99 as a standalone product, but also comes as part of the Red Giant Shooter Suite which contains also Pluraleyes, Instant 4K, and Frames. A much more advanced type of transfer management app is Pomfort’s Silverstack, the de-facto standard for digital intermediate technicians on sets, adding much more functionality for organising large amounts of transfers from multiple sources, and now even adding color grading functionality to create preview looks for batches. At $399 for the annual subscription, it’s also the priciest option I know of. The starting screen of Hedge for Mac Hedge for Mac – the new kid on the block In comes Hedge for Mac, a new transfer management software. Hedge for Max version 1.0 was released today, and I had a chance to check it out and try it before its release. It’s by far the simplest tool on the market and it’s extremely intuitive. The interface is very graphical and minimalistic, and that’s a good thing—the last thing you want to deal with on set is a sophisticated interface that confuses you or makes you feel unsure as to whether data has been safely transferred or not. Like the other solutions, Hedge can transfer to multiple destinations at once, but it does that in a very visual way. It shows you progress bars for each transfer. This is very reassuring. Everything is cross-referenced with the original file (checksum verification) too, of course. For extendable workflows, it also has functionality to auto-launch AppleScripts and the like—that makes it extendable and integrable into existing workflows if required (note: I did not test this feature). Reassuring: you always see the status of all your transfers at once. Conclusion There’s not much to say about Hedge for Mac other than it does exactly what it is supposed to, and it works. The interface is its biggest drawing point, especially compared to ShotPut Pro which takes a bit of time of to get used to when you first pick it up (however it’s quite straightforward once you have figured out how it works). Its simplicity is similar to Red Giant Offload, with one big difference: if you only need two destinations, Hedge can be used absolutely free, forever, and that’s pretty nice. Of course nothing prevents you from doing a third and fourth transfer the second time around. However, once you start paying for licensing for Hedge for Mac (to allow for more than two destinations at once), at $15/€15 per month or $150/€150 per year, it’s quite pricey. I honestly also think that a subscription based model works better for a much more complex product like Silverstack, which gains a lot of functionality with every update. I’d rather pay a one-time fee of $50 or $99 for a simple tool like Hedge to get its full functionality permanently, and I’m sure many readers will agree. UPDATE: The people behind Hedge for Mac have heard our (and our reader’s) concerns about their subscription model and they have reacted! It’s now a one-time purchase for €99, but they are offering an introductory price of €59 for cinema5D readers. [Disclaimer: this is not an affiliate link, we do not benefit from any transaction.] Nevertheless, it’s a nice tool and I will use it more frequently on shoots in the future. Its simplicity means that you can explain it to an assistant within minutes and he or she will be able to initiate media offloads on set without creating havoc or losing data—and that’s what matters.

Apple announced the new version of OSX on Monday and it will significantly boost Adobe Creative Cloud graphics performance. The announcement of El Capitan at the Worldwide Developers Conference promises to be a significant boost for those editing on Macs. One of the new features is increased graphics performance that promises to significantly reduce rendering times for video applications. Basically it combines OpenCL and OpenGL into a unified API called Metal for Mac. Metal was originally introduced with iOS 8, allowing developers to have better access to GPU hardware. Now that enhanced GPU processing power will be available on the Mac. And since Adobe has announced it will adopt Metal, this means a significant boost in Creative Cloud graphics performance. When Adobe tested Metal on After Effects they noticed a boost of 8x in rendering performance. As graphically intensive as After Effects is, one can only surmise that this will be a serious boost for other Adobe CC apps as well. El Capitan will be released later this year as a free upgrade. There are plenty of other performance enhancements that Mac users will enjoy, so be sure to check this video from Gizmodo that highlights the new features.

OWC, known to manufacture affordable Mac hardware, just announced that they managed to break the speed record for affordable external thunderbolt RAID storage. [UPDATE]: We’ve received numerous e-mails with claims that the benchmarks by OWC are incorrect. The title of this article has been updated accordingly. Especially filmmakers and editors have been waiting for affordable and fast thunderbolt based storage solutions, a few of which we’ve finally seen hitting the market last year. Just a few months ago OWC introduced their ThunderBay line of 4-drive external RAID-ready storage solutions, recently refreshing it with Thunderbolt 2 connections. It is available in configurations from 4TB up to 16TB and also offered as a diskless enclosure that goes for $429. Mac Pro’s 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports boost speed Several of the OWC drives can be chained together using a combination of the two Thunderbolt 2 ports it has. However the great speeds described can only be achieved using a Mac Pro that sports 6 separate thunderbolt connections. This is how OWC achieved speeds of nearly 4,000MB/s. The benchmark testing showed 3,990MB/s read and 3,802MB/s write speeds, running an HDD array of 3x 12TB OWC ThunderBay 4 drives. They achieved similar numbers running SSD drives. [UPDATE]: numerous e-mails with claims that the benchmarks by OWC are incorrect. In different benchmark tests the maximum speed that could be achieved with the method described here would be 1902 MB/s. The 12TB OWC ThunderBay 4 drives used cost $939 each, making this the most affordable ultra-fast storage solution available. OWC says: The Mac Pro has a total of six Thunderbolt 2 ports connecting to three separate Thunderbolt 2 busses, with two ports to each bus. We connected one ThunderBay 4 to one of the two ports available for each bus to get the maximum performance. Those three ThunderBay 4 enclosures were made into a single RAID-0 array using the built-in software RAID-0 in OS X. We then fired up the benchmarking tools and watched in awe at the performance the ThunderBay 4 enclosures achieved. This combination of performance and storage comes at a fraction of the price of rack-based storage. The ThunderBay 4 enclosures generally got very good reviews. Other, less affordable, but proven solutions include the new G-technology external RAID drives and the Promise Pegasus RAID, both of which are now also compatible with Apple’s new Thunderbolt 2 standard. image via macsales