Why Apple Pro Technologies?
Mobile Lab's main workstation contains the maximum configuration of processors, ram, SSD's and graphics boards in Apple's new, hyperfast Mac Pro, also fitted with the added Afterburner - a card defined as a "Game-Changing Accelerator". This monster machine can process contemporarily 6 streams of ProRes 8K RAW or 23 streams of ProRes 4K RAW.
The ability to grade native 8K is even more critical than editing it.
Mobile Digital Lab also sports two of Apple's brilliant new 1000 nits. 32" displays - the 6k XDR's, which can also display HDR. In the words of Jarred Land, president Red Digital Cinema "Apple’s new hardware brings a mind‐blowing level of performance to proxy‐free r3d workflows".
Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design adds;
"With the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we see full‐quality 8K performance in real-time with colour correction and effects, something we could never dream of doing before. DaVinci Resolve running on the new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade, and finish movies and TV shows.”
"In my modest opinion, I can say that I bought my first Mac more than 40 years ago, and I've always preferred them to other operating systems, thanks to their ease of use and reliability; now that the new powerful multi-processor pro workstations have become extremely powerful workhorses, and offer the flexibility of numerous card slots, its a no - brainer". (co-founder David Bush)
Why Apple Pro Technologies?
Mobile Lab's main workstation contains the maximum configuration of processors, ram, SSD's and graphics boards in Apple's new, hyperfast Mac Pro, also fitted with the added Afterburner - a card defined as a "Game-Changing Accelerator". This monster machine can process contemporarily 6 streams of ProRes 8K RAW or 23 streams of ProRes 4K RAW.
The ability to grade native 8K is even more critical than editing it.
Mobile Digital Lab also sports two of Apple's brilliant new 1000 nits. 32" displays - the 6k XDR's, which can also display HDR. In the words of Jarred Land, president Red Digital Cinema "Apple’s new hardware brings a mind‐blowing level of performance to proxy‐free r3d workflows".
Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design adds;
"With the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we see full‐quality 8K performance in real-time with colour correction and effects, something we could never dream of doing before. DaVinci Resolve running on the new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade, and finish movies and TV shows.”
"In my modest opinion, I can say that I bought my first Mac more than 40 years ago, and I've always preferred them to other operating systems, thanks to their ease of use and reliability; now that the new powerful multi-processor pro workstations have become extremely powerful workhorses, and offer the flexibility of numerous card slots, its a no - brainer". (co-founder David Bush)
Why Apple Pro Technologies?
Mobile Lab's main workstation contains the maximum configuration of processors, ram, SSD's and graphics boards in Apple's new, hyperfast Mac Pro, also fitted with the added Afterburner - a card defined as a "Game-Changing Accelerator". This monster machine can process contemporarily 6 streams of ProRes 8K RAW or 23 streams of ProRes 4K RAW.
The ability to grade native 8K is even more critical than editing it.
Mobile Digital Lab also sports two of Apple's brilliant new 1000 nits. 32" displays - the 6k XDR's, which can also display HDR. In the words of Jarred Land, president Red Digital Cinema "Apple’s new hardware brings a mind‐blowing level of performance to proxy‐free r3d workflows".
Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design adds;
"With the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we see full‐quality 8K performance in real-time with colour correction and effects, something we could never dream of doing before. DaVinci Resolve running on the new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade, and finish movies and TV shows.”
"In my modest opinion, I can say that I bought my first Mac more than 40 years ago, and I've always preferred them to other operating systems, thanks to their ease of use and reliability; now that the new powerful multi-processor pro workstations have become extremely powerful workhorses, and offer the flexibility of numerous card slots, its a no - brainer". (co-founder David Bush)
David Bush & Mike Connor present a cutting edge editing, colour grading and DIT unit created by them & based on their wish lists for post-production after decades of production and post-production experience.
The system is placed on or near set and is designed to save time & money for producers while offering exceptional quality for advertising, documentary, film & television production and post.
The core of the system is an extremely powerful workstation based on a fully optioned Apple Mac Pro with Da Vinci Resolve software & hardware. The combination avoids the need to use the traditional off-line (or with proxies) workflow, then re-conforming on-line, and the time required for this.
With the Mobile Lab, it is now possible to work with a full high-resolution deliverable or master in HD, 2k, 4k, or 8k from the first day of shooting.
The Mobile Lab is both a lightning-fast DIT workstation and creative editorial, colour grading and audio editing hub - all within a single system.
David Bush & Mike Connor present a cutting edge editing, colour grading and DIT unit created by them & based on their wish lists for post-production after decades of production and post-production experience.
The system is placed on or near set and is designed to save time & money for producers while offering exceptional quality for advertising, documentary, film & television production and post.
The core of the system is an extremely powerful workstation based on a fully optioned Apple Mac Pro with Da Vinci Resolve software & hardware. The combination avoids the need to use the traditional off-line (or with proxies) workflow, then re-conforming on-line, and the time required for this.
With the Mobile Lab, it is now possible to work with a full high-resolution deliverable or master in HD, 2k, 4k, or 8k from the first day of shooting.
The Mobile Lab is both a lightning-fast DIT workstation and creative editorial, colour grading and audio editing hub - all within a single system.
David Bush & Mike Connor present a cutting edge editing, colour grading and DIT unit created by them & based on their wish lists for post-production after decades of production and post-production experience.
The system is placed on or near set and is designed to save time & money for producers while offering exceptional quality for advertising, documentary, film & television production and post.
The core of the system is an extremely powerful workstation based on a fully optioned Apple Mac Pro with Da Vinci Resolve software & hardware. The combination avoids the need to use the traditional off-line (or with proxies) workflow, then re-conforming on-line, and the time required for this.
With the Mobile Lab, it is now possible to work with a full high-resolution deliverable or master in HD, 2k, 4k, or 8k from the first day of shooting.
The Mobile Lab is both a lightning-fast DIT workstation and creative editorial, colour grading and audio editing hub - all within a single system.
David Bush & Mike Connor present a cutting edge editing, colour grading and DIT unit created by them & based on their wish lists for post-production after decades of production and post-production experience.
The system is placed on or near set and is designed to save time & money for producers while offering exceptional quality for advertising, documentary, film & television production and post.
The core of the system is an extremely powerful workstation based on a fully optioned Apple Mac Pro with Da Vinci Resolve software & hardware. The combination avoids the need to use the traditional off-line (or with proxies) workflow, then re-conforming on-line, and the time required for this.
With the Mobile Lab, it is now possible to work with a full high-resolution deliverable or master in HD, 2k, 4k, or 8k from the first day of shooting.
The Mobile Lab is both a lightning-fast DIT workstation and creative editorial, colour grading and audio editing hub - all within a single system.
David Bush
David Bush
David Bush
David Bush
David Bush
David Bush
David Bush
Designed by David Bush and Mike Connor
David and Mike are proud to present a novel and innovative Mobile Post Production Facility.
Designed to be placed in any location close to or far away from where shooting is on-going and which offers the A-Z of post production with backup of rushes, editing, colour grading, review of edited, graded rushes, review of visual effects and even optional audio, all in the full high resolution audio and image delivery formats and resolution.
David Bush
Mike Connor
With the 8k Digital Mobile Lab we can shorten the time for completed product normally required when using today’s standard editing workflow, while offering directors, producers and directors of photography better control over the whole production process at the same time.
The 8k Digital Mobile Lab is made possible through our decades of post and production experience together with high performance technology running on Apple’s new Mac Pro workstations, which can work effortlessly in hd, 2k, 4k, 5k or even 8k from the first hours of shooting, voiding once and for all the need for proxy or off-line/on-line workflows.
Resolve Colour Correction
Resolve editing
Apple Mac Pro
Thanks also to Da Vinci Resolve no transcoding or converting into compressed files or other formats is necessary, saving time and expense. The Lab accepts almost all of today's numerous raw and uncompressed formats.
Viewing reference images on the brilliant new Apple Pro XDR 6k displays within a calibrated environment gives certainties and interactive decision making to heads of departments.
Production design, make up, hair, costumes, all have much to gain using the 6k display's high quality control during set up.
The 8K Mobile Digital Lab also enables colour grading with the cinematographer; director may see what a sequence looks like when edited and graded, and evaluate the progress of vfx. In essence both productive and creative aspects may be discussed immediately, contributing to the advancement of the project.
Troubleshooting and high level quality control become eminently possible with the 8K Mobile Digital Lab's 6k Pro Displays. With Mike we have evaluated faulty lenses, for example, having spotted optical aberrations not normally visible on hd monitors, but somewhat more dramatic on the big screen.
Apple Pro XDR 6k
Often the facility is placed on or near set, or inside a studio. If the room cannot be set up with the correct brightness, which is essential for screen calibration, then we can place a pop up black gazebo such as this inexpensive one in the designated room or space and create an environment with the correct ambient light very quickly.
Custom built flight cases
The 8K Mobile Digital Lab is transported in 6 purpose built flight cases & set up in under an hour, thanks also to the reduced number of cables necessary to connect the displays and control panels to the workstation, calibrate the system and start using it for the project.
Although relatively small and compact compared to a full blown post production facility, the 8K Mobile Digital Lab offers absolute control over picture and sound quality, with critically calibrated high dynamic range 6k displays and Dolby Atmos HE speakers. See how renowned professional Steve Shaw and his Light Illusion offer the all important calibration in the field.
This innovative way of working immediately with the camera’s shot material to post production has been tried & tested by David & Mike with Red Gemini & Red Monstro in 4k, 5k and 8k and with the Black Magic Design 6k pocket camera. We now offer the fully tested facility and our services for rent for productions anywhere in the world, and even the 8K Mobile Digital Lab itself via remote. See below for contacts and further information.
The option of shooting in 8K
Although on first impression shooting in 8k might seem like madness, especially with what many perceive to be huge data files when using 8k, and which are notably 4 times the amount of data than 4k, or 16 times that of 2k. However, there are many reasons why it is useful to evaluate shooting in 8k raw as a feasible option, especially since raw files have come of age and their benefits can now be maintained throughout post production.
See more details, description of raw, digital cameras as seen by Netflix, and calibration in 8k tech notes. Here follow eight reasons (and a 9th. no less important) for choosing 8k to shoot with, now that it is a possibility, even if the finished master is destined to be 4k, 2k or hd:
1. Shooting in 8k improves deliverable image quality by oversampling.
2. Four times the pixels give better selectivity for grading, VFX tracking, green screens & composites.
3. Splitting 8k shots into 2 quarter frames to make 2 x 4k shots can save cameras, set up and shooting time.
4. Japan's NHK will transmit the Olympics in the summer of 2021 in 8k UHD at 60 fps. NHK is looking for additional 8k material.
5. 8k shooting improves the quality of 4k deliverables to internet streaming players.
6. Cleaner images. With 8k there is less overall noise, especially in dark, less exposed areas and blacks.
7. Down-rezzing 8k to 4k improves the final quality in homes - less image noise means better compression for internet distribution.
8. Better future-proofing.
9. Importantly, and thanks to the technology with the Mobile Digital Lab, working in 8k raw doesn't need to be any more expensive or time consuming than working in lower resolutions, as the main workstation and high resolution cameras are the same whether they are being used in 2k, 4k, or 8k, and there is no slowdown in speed of operation. The only additional cost, if the project is archived and backed-up in 8k, is the need to add storage disks & LTO 8 tapes for the extra volume of data; however, it is more usual to make a final deliverable to 4k today.
Another advantage of 8k raw is that the 8K Mobile Digital Lab can connect up via internet broadband and send a clone of the "original camera negative" as it is being shot, while also backing it up in the office location. This helps satisfy the conditions that Completion Bonds usually require (3 identical clones of original camera shot material in 3 different locations) when added to a local backup to LTO 8 tapes and a client hard disc.
8K Mobile Digital Lab and Da Vinci Resolve
The 8K Digital Mobile Lab has chosen Da Vinci Resolve as it has become the most highly successful software and hardware solution for resolution independent cost-effective post production. Thanks to its success, there are now more and more freelance professional operators trained around the world. Excellent interface design with lightning fast editing, grading and sound control interfaces also make it easy for Avid, Final Cut Pro or Premiere editors to learn how to use it and become operative in a very short time.
Importantly, and unlike other solutions, Resolve allows massive creative collaboration between editing, grading, effects and audio all on one platform.
The software Imports directly virtually all camera raw formats, speeding up post production since there is no need to waste time transcoding to proxy or compressed formats.
David Bush also offers optionally his professional skills as a colourist with the system. His method is to grade all the shot material as it comes in so that editor can work with graded material, and director & dop can see the results.
8K Mobile Digital Lab and Apple Pro Technologies
8K Mobile Digital Lab's main workstation contains a massive configuration of processors, ram, SSD's and multiple graphics boards in Apple's new, hyper-fast Mac Pro, also fitted with the Afterburner - a card defined by Apple as a "Game-Changing Accelerator". This monster machine can process contemporarily up to 6 streams of ProRes 8K RAW, or 23 streams of ProRes 4K RAW, but also, importantly for Film Restoration, uncompressed 16 bit dpx 4k files.
Proxy free workflows
1,000 nits
full-screen sustained brightness
1,600 nits
peak brightness
1,000,000:1
contrast ratio
Having tried it myself, David writes, the ability to grade native 8K is a colourists dream, with its extreme selectivity for colours and the increased capabilities in the subtle art of grading.
8K Mobile Digital Lab also has two of Apple's brilliant new 32" displays - the 6k XDR's, which can also display HDR.
Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design adds;
"With the new Mac Pro and Afterburner, we see full‐quality 8K performance in real-time with color correction and effects, something we could never dream of doing before. DaVinci Resolve running on the new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade, and finish movies and TV shows.”
In the words of Jarred Land, president of Red Digital Cinema;
"Apple’s new hardware brings a mind‐blowing level of performance to proxy‐free r3d workflows".
Motivated by our decade's long professional quest of striving towards improving processes and techniques in and for our work, we decided to design and create the 8K Mobile Digital Lab based on what we could see would work more efficiently for our own work. The added perception that today's post production offer, workflow and overall costs have served their time comes from our long and fruitful experience.
The Lab that we have created is in essence the tool that we wanted for ourselves, and, as it offers overall savings to production and helps shorten that ever important "Time to Market", we think the market will like it too.
8K Mobile Digital Lab founders
David Bush and Mike Connor
Alberto Parodi has a passion and ability in all that has to do with sound. Indeed, he's come up with a brilliant portable sound unit for audio on location that is designed to work very efficiently with the 8K Mobile Digital Lab.
Alberto Parodi