Broadcast Beat Magazine 2018 BroadcastAsia Special Edition | Page 28

The New World of Thunderbolt 3
Powered External GPU for On-Location
Video Production
Greg LaPorte, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Sonnet Technologies
D
esktop graphics cards, also known as
graphical processing unit (GPU) cards,
are essential tools in today’s video pro-
duction workflows, especially as the
volume of 4K and 8K content continues
to grow. GPU cards add extra computational fire-
power and graphics acceleration for processes
such as color grading, animation, rendering, and
applying certain video effects in NLE programs.
Video profession-
als continue to
demand greater
flexibility, mobility,
and power from
their pro-video
applications”
28 • Broadcast Beat Magazine • www.broadcastbeat.com
Some of today’s most popular GPU-accelerated
software applications direct computation work to
GPUs using application programming interface
(API) models such as Open CL, Open GL and CUDA.
Until recently, the use of desktop GPU cards has
been limited to PC workstations and older Mac
Pro tower computers, because the cards require
installation into a PCIe card slot and need a lot