SpeedGrade CS6

SpeedGrade CS6

Basic System Requirements:
Windows
• Intel® Core™ i7 processor with 64-bit support
• Microsoft® Windows® 7 with Service Pack 1 (64 bit)
• 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
• 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation
• 1680x1050 display required; 1920x1080 display
and second professionally calibrated viewing display
recommended
• OpenGL 2.0–capable system
• Dedicated GPU card with at least 1GB VRAM
(NVIDIA Quadro 4000, 5000, or 6000 recommended)
• DVD-ROM drive for installation from DVD media
• QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime
features
• Optional: Tangent CP200 family or Tangent Wave
control surface
• Optional: For SDI output, NVIDIA Quadro SDI Output
card
• This software will not operate without activation.
Broadband Internet connection and registration
are required for software activation, validation
of subscriptions, and access to online services.†
Phone activation is not available.


Mac OS
• Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
• Mac OS X v10.6.8 or v10.7
• 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
• 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation
• 1680x1050 display required; 1920x1080 display
and second professionally calibrated viewing display
recommended
• OpenGL 2.0–capable system
• Dedicated GPU card with at least 1GB of VRAM
recommended (for optimal performance:
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 for Mac)
• DVD-ROM drive for installation from DVD media
• QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime
features
• Optional: Tangent CP200 family or Tangent Wave
control surface
• This software will not operate without activation.
Broadband Internet connection and registration
are required for software activation, validation
of subscriptions, and access to online services.†
Phone activation is not available.



The Lumetri Deep Color Engine in SpeedGrade CS6 uses massive parallel processing in the GPU
running OpenGL for optimum graphics performance. This makes SpeedGrade unique among the
software discussed here in that virtually the entire program runs on the GPU in your computer,
rather than the CPU. The power of your GPU will affect how many layers of color grading—
including masking, filters, and effects—you can apply to a clip and still be able to preview the
results in real time; other computationally intensive processes such as de-Bayering ARRIRAW
footage are also performed on the GPU. A card such as the NVIDIA Quadro 4000 provides a good
baseline for most color grading tasks; an added bonus is that SpeedGrade CS6 supports SDI output
exclusively on the Quadro 4000, 5000, and 6000 SDI cards under Windows 7 (64-bit). Similarly,
SpeedGrade is more sensitive to the amount of VRAM on your GPU than RAM available to your
CPU; 1 GB of VRAM and at least 4 GB of system RAM will suffice.
In addition to processing images, for proper
evaluation of your footage during grading you
need a storage system capable of playing back
at least a single stream of your chosen media
format in real time; it is best to plan on playing
back two streams so you can use two timeline
playheads for shot matching. If you are working
in typical compressed High Definition (HD)
formats such as HDV, AVCHD, or H.264, a single
7200 RPM or faster drive with a FireWire 800 or
faster connection will work well. For digital
cinema applications, consider a RAID with a fast
connection and data rates high enough to sustain
full speed playback. For example, for a single
stream of 2k-pixel 10 bit DPX frames, your drive
system will need to transfer frames of data at
270 MB per second while also performing a head
seek potentially on every frame—every 42 msec
for 24 FPS (frames per second) source.