October 2018 – Following IBC 2018 in Amsterdam, we had a chance to run the new Dell Precision 5530 Workstation through its paces. The unit we had was configured for the mobile content creation application with a 6 core Xeon processor, Nvidia P2000 Quadro graphics card, 32GB of ECC Memory and a UHD compliant 4K (3820 x 2160) display. With the power brick, the unit is under 6lbs, which puts it in the portability class as most high end office laptops. This makes the unit much more portable for similar functionality and usability as a content creation tool as the industry standard 10 pound 17” 4K workstations.
Dell Precision 5530 Review Unit Configuration
The unit was tested with a nominal flow for 1080p60 video and 2160p30 UHD video. The video processing was done with Adobe Premire Pro CC and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 15 release version. All footage was captured with a professional Sony XDCAM with stereo sound and using Sony Catalyst Browse for media review The challenge with this sort of footage is it needs a lot of horsepower to ingest and to work with. For the review we were NOT working with proxies, we were actually importing the full media into the sequences and editing them.
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Dell Precision 5530 Xeon Workstation
As the workflow we use is targeted for television, the application was review of the raw footage from the camera using the laptop as a DIT station and transfer the content to both the NAS and DAS devices for the editing teams. The current recording medium for the Sony cameras is SanDisk Extreme Pro 256GB SD cards. These transferred easily to the USB-3 and USB-C DAS drives from the memory cards using the built in SD car reader. From the DAS storage the content was reviewed using the Sony Catalyst Browser, including the 4K content. The addition of the Nividia discrete graphics card and the 32GB of memory allowed the laptop to import and browse the UHD files at an imperceptible difference in access time vs FHD files. From the DAS storage the data was transferred to two systems as a test – once through the USB3.1 connector to the included 1GB Ethernet connector, and once again at high speed using the USB C/Thunderbolt 3 connector. This connector to the NAS from the USB3.1 connected DAS was able to transfer the data faster than then initial transfer from the SD card. Both transfers were error free on a test transfer of TEN (10) approx. 20GB video files.
One of the other key parts of the flow- before the footage can be reviewed by the director for segment selection to finalize the story before it goes to the editor – is to do a reference pass on color grading and inserting a watermark in the footage. Final release color grading is done with DaVinci Resolve with a colorist on a server based workstation. This initial color correction is being done in Adobe Premier Pro.
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Dell Precision 5530 running Content Creation applications
While the automated color grading capability has been in the Adobe product for a while, it was pretty much relegated to being done on servers or desktop workstations with 32GB+ of RAM for handling HD video. The UHD content is very CPU intensive as the software does not utilize the GPU for this operation. The selection of the 6 core Xeon with TurboBoost allows the laptop to be able to process the UHD data without incident or crashes. Typically, this task will fail due to a frame fault about every 100GB processed without a Xeon class processor using ECC memory. Finding this capability in a normal weight portable laptop changes the whole workflow, now bringing the director review computer and the DIT & “dailies” processing computer can now be just one system.
One of the challenges with a laptop form factor workstation is external connectivity options. The 5530 has USB2, USB3.1, USB C/Thunderbolt 3, HDMI and headphone ports. With typical content creations accessories such as Wacom entry tablets, external displays, and storage, the system get maxed out on cables. The design however supports 2x2 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 which brings the capability of many more external devices and connectivity – such as mixer and camera control to the unit while maintaining the small form factor.
All in all it is a very good unit for being able to use as an on-location DIT computer, basic editing reviewing system, video rendering system, and director/producer review and markup computer all in weight and form factor of a consumer level office laptop. Having an ISV validated system with 24/7 service and designed for a 100% 24/7 duty cycle are requirements for the content creation community. The Dell Precision 5530 is a welcome addition to the 15” portable form factor with the necessary technology and engineering computing power to produce modern television, cinema, video wall or motion graphics/animation content in a timely fashion