The introduction of 4K video to the masses is delivering the unprecedented levels of quality and realism that audiences demand.
However, 4K also brings with it massive amounts of data that can be a real challenge for the traditional video workflows.
In the face of the ever-increasing requirement for a lightning-fast video editing pipeline, HP Workstations and Thunderbolt 2 are powering a new generation of interconnected devices designed to accelerate your workflow.
If you want to see how this new technology performs skip to 35:10 of the video below, where the Video Professional & Adobe Master Trainer Abba Shapiro explains the 4k workflow in-depth .
What is Thunderbolt 2?
Thunderbolt 2 is an update to the original Thunderbolt specification and takes the original’s two 10 Gbps bi-directional channels and combines them into a single 20 Gbps bi-directional channel. The amount of data able to go through a Thunderbolt connection hasn’t increased, but the throughput of a single channel has been doubled. Thunderbolt 2 uses the same connectors as the original Thunderbolt, so Thunderbolt 2 devices will be backwards compatible with Thunderbolt peripherals and vice versa. But a Thunderbolt device connected to a Thunderbolt 2 port will perform at the Thunderbolt speed of 10 Gbps. 
4K video requires more bandwidth than the original Thunderbolt can accommodate. Thunderbolt 2 will be able to stream that 4K video and write it to disk at the same time. Besides the reliable connection one will also need very fast drives, fast multicore CPU, a lot of RAM and, at last, but not at least, a powerful graphics card. Each one of those components is essential, especially for a flawless 4K workflow.
Here are the specs of the configuration Abba Shapiro suggests. Multi-core processor (I7 processor at least), 32 GB of RAM, graphics card with at least 2 GBs of RAM, 4GB recommended. In terms of storage systems he suggests both SSDs and the standard spinning hard drives in RAID configuration. In the video above he shows us how you can transfer 40+GB file via Thunderblot 2 for less than 3 minutes which is extremely fast compared to the older interface connections most of us are used to.
Furthermore, Thunderbolt 2 is going to be extremely beneficial for the people moving huge chunks of data between different drives, especially when you are on the field in a real shooting situation. For instance, with Thunderblot 2 you can copy 40+GB file for less than 3 minutes. If you try to copy the same file via Firewire 800 you’ll need more than half an hour. The nice thing about thunderbolt 2 is that it is adopted by HP and is implemented in their recent workstations, so working with a MAC and PC is no longer a challenge and you can transfer data between both systems flawlessly. The HPZ820 workstation is one of the suggested by Blackmagic Design for a configuration working with the latest update of Davinci Resolve 11 and 4K video. 
Guys, what is your experience with editing 4k video and what is your PC or MAC configuration? Feel free to share in the comments below.
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