Graphics

Hi all,

We have to purchase a laptop for a client of ours and they want to use it with two Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K boxes (connected through Thunderbolt) as a two channel XPression system (using XPression Studio MCE). What laptop is recommended?

We have found one laptop with Thunderbolt that runs on Windows 8.1, but as far as I know XPression is not Windows 8.1 complient and no one can guarantee me that the entire laptop works flawless when we install Windows 7 Pro on it, especially the driver for Thunderbolt could be tricky (I have been told).

We have found a second laptop that does have Windows 7 Pro installed, but that laptop comes with a nVidia Quadro instead of a nVidia Geforce and, as far as I know, the Geforce is recommended for XPression.

Does anyone have any experience running live graphics from XPression on a laptop?

Kind regards,

Gerard de Vries

Hi Gerard,

This is the newest laptop that Ross is going to be shipping for it's XPression GO! solution:

ASUS G751JYDH71

Intel Core i7-4710HQ processor

NVidia GeForce GTX 970M 3GB

Windows 8.1 "“ then we format and install Windows 7 PRO

XPression will work on Windows 8.1 but you will have to make some Windows GUI changes for the XPression GUI to render properly. However Windows 8.1 is NOT an officially supported XPression OS.

Both the NVIDIA Quadro and GeForce cards will work very well with XPression. 2GB of GPU memory is recommended. Currently all Ross turnkey XPression hardware uses cards from the GeForce line.

At this time, Ross Video has not qualified the BlackMagic UltraStudio 4K with XPression. XPression has only been tested and qualified with the AJA IOXT as an external framebuffer. Ross Video has never tested using 2x external framebuffer units to achieve a 2ch unit.

Garner

#XPression

Gerard,

When you refer to XPression Studio MCE do you mean XPression Studio SCE? I am not familiar with the MCE acronym.

XPression Studio SCE = XPression Studio Single Channel Edition. XPression Studio SCE will support only a single output channel - no matter what type of framebuffer cards are used.

Garner

#XPression

Garner, thanks for your response.

With XPression Studio MCE I mean XPression Studio Multi Channel Edition. I guess the MCE suffix has been dropped since I don't see it mentioned in the product comparison matrix anymore, but that is what it used to be called when we purchased it about 8 years ago.

Good to know that there's no problem installing Windows 7 Pro on the Asus laptop. That was the laptop we found ourselves, but had Windows 8 on it.

Are there any plans to test and possibly certify the Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K for use with XPression. It is a somewhat cheaper option than the AJA-box (about 2/3 of the price) so I think it could be interesting for other users as well. And are there plans to test and possibly certify the use of 2 (or more) AJA-boxes and Blackmagic boxes through daisy chaining on the Thunderbolt extension port? I would appreciate it if that could be tested.

#XPression

Ah - that makes sense. The MCE acronym was before my time :)

We'll take the BlackMagic UltraStudio conversation internally.

#XPression

Garner,

I'd like to piggyback on this thread and find out if it would be possible to run Xpression Prime on ASUS G751JT.

The Specs are pretty much the same as the original JX model that was shipped a little while ago and the price comes in a bit lower.

Here are the specs for your perusal.

http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G751JT/specifications/

#XPression