Improving your post-production workflow

By Marcus Swales | Technical Product Specialist, Holdan

For many photographers, editing or post-production can be as important as the pictures they take. That being said, without the appropriate equipment to make it easier and quicker, it can fast become a limiting and frustrating part of the creative process.

Aiming to streamline your workflow, Sonnet provide Thunderbolt^TM expansion products for professionals of all types. These make connecting multiple devices to your editing station as simple as possible with an all-in-one solution. They also give you the ability to expand and update your current ecosystem without having to completely upgrade your current device.

Take for example connecting monitors to your laptop or computer, Sonnet has a simple solution with their Thunderbolt 3 to dual HDMI 2.0 adapter. This provides dual 4K 60Hz ports to connect dual displays up to 4K with no power adapter needed and no drain on your system.

Sonnet also has a dual DisplayPort solution, with the Thunderbolt 3 to dual DisplayPort Adapter. This device has built-in audio support saving you on additional cables and connects two displays up to 4K 60Hz or one 5K display at 60Hz. Equally like the HDMI adapter it has no impact on your computer's performance and has no need for a power adapter. Both are handy devices that are small enough to be taken anywhere or kept at home for a quick connection option to additional displays through only one wire. Having multiple screens can help improve your productivity and time efficiency, due to being able to have dedicated screens for your tools and programmes.

Another example of how Sonnet can simplify your workflow is with the Echo 5 Thunderbolt 4 Hub, which is a compact 5 port hub that is as portable as it is functional. This hub allows you to connect multi devices such as monitors, card readers, webcams, and SSDs to your Thunderbolt 3 and 4 devices all through one wire. The Sonnet Echo 5 Hub can connect three Thunderbolt connections or daisy chain up to 5 devices. With the option to connect two 5K monitors or a single display up to 8K you can quickly expand your laptop into a full size editing station. Not only this but the hub will charge your laptop whilst plugged in and is compatible to charge your phone or tablet too. The brilliance of this hub is it can be taken anywhere or be set up at home and they are ideal for laptops with limited ports.

If you are looking for more connection ports the Echo 11 dock offers 11 connections to more peripherals in one hub. These include extra ports, not on the Echo 5 such as the ethernet port, SD card slot and front facing 3.5mm audio port expanding your current device capabilities even further.

Another way Sonnet can help expand your current system and reduce its limitations is with devices like the Sonnet EGFX Breakaway Box (750W). Whilst editing, you will most likely be using a GPU intensive application which most systems are not designed for, leading to a bottleneck in performance. This limitation normally results in your editing programme freezing, lagging or crashing whilst in use. That’s where the Breakaway Box comes in, through one cable you have a GPU PCIe card expansion system that also gives you two USB Type A ports and two HDMI ports as well. The Sonnet Breakaway box creates an easy way to improve the performance of your device without the costly implications of buying a new one. Not only this, but a Breakaway box also allows you to continuously upgrade in future by simply swapping out the cards. Need more connections? The 750EX model provides 4 USB Type A ports plus an RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port for wired network connection. 

As well as the extra ports and performance improvements the Breakaway Box also offers reassurance that it will stay futureproof with the 750W power supply that can handle the high-power requirements of future cards. Along with a high-power supply these Sonnet Breakaway Boxes output 100W of upstream power, useful for charging your connected laptop. You may think all this power would be noisy, but the variable speed temperature-controlled fan is quiet whilst still efficiently cooling the installed card.  

I hope this brief introduction to some of the Sonnet's most popular products has been helpful. If you’d like to find more about these or any other products available please check out some of the videos or articles.