If you’re working in a creative field, the current debate over unpaid interns will be giving you a major case of deja vu: creatives are asked to work for free all the time. Web designers are asked to build or revamp sites in exchange for expenses; illustrators are urged to contribute their best ideas in exchange for exposure; and writers are asked to write in the hope that one day, they might get paid for it.

To some, working for free is a necessary evil in creative industries. To others, it’s just evil.

So who’s right? Should you ever work for free?

The short answer is “umm, it depends”.

Who’s asking?

Not all free work is the same: there’s a big difference between helping out a local charity and working for a commercial organisation who’s paying everybody else but you. The people who’ll give you the opportunity to work for free tend to fall into the following categories:

• Friends and family
• Charities
• Firms offering work experience and/or internships
• People who’ll be first against the wall when the revolution comes

On the face of it, you’d need to be pretty hard-hearted to refuse to help out a friend or a family member, but that depends on the job: knocking up a flyer or a quick WordPress installation is one thing; designing a whole corporate identity or creating an entire ecommerce platform is something else entirely.

Sandy Bridge wafers waiting to become Core processors. Image: Intel

HD? Isn’t that all about being able to see newsreaders’ pimples and wrinkles?

That’s a different kind of HD. We’re talking about Intel HD Graphics here – or what the Intel site calls Intel HD GraphicsΦπΛ.

Has Tutankhamun suddenly taken over your keyboard?

No. Intel’s website has a lot of small print, and the hieroglyphics look better than endless asterisks*****.

Ah. So it’s like those US car commercials Eddie Izzard talks about, the ones where the super-fast voice denies all the claims the advert makes?

Not at all. The bit I’ve copied comes from a description of the technology’s speed, and the symbols take you to the bits explaining what benchmarks were used, what kind of kit the tests were carried out on and the usual legalese you get on US firms’ websites.

So what, pray tell, is Intel HD Graphics Circle With A Line Through It Stonehenge Teepee?

It’s a clever way of giving PCs and workstations graphics without a graphics card.

It’s magic!

More physics than magic, I’d say. It’s a feature of the latest, second-generation Intel® Core™ processors.

Can you stop it with the superscript, please?

If I do that, Intel’s lawyers will slap me.

That’s a risk you’ll have to take. So the graphics are in the processor?

Exactly. What Intel’s done here is put two key components, the processor and the graphics system, together on a single chip. The idea is to remove potential obstacles, so for example by reducing the need for a separate graphics card Intel can eliminate the bottlenecks that might occur between a traditional CPU and graphics card.

That’s the end of the graphics card industry, then.

Oh, I very much doubt ATI and NVIDIA are crying hot salty tears here: Intel’s targeting a different market. If you want a machine that will happily handle everyday graphics and gaming, HD Graphics will be just the job. If you’re doing CAD, rendering Formula 1 cars or making Toy Story 4, you’ll still need something more substantial – like single or twin cards from ATI or NVIDIA.

I don’t do CAD, cars or cartoons. Will HD Graphics make my life a sunnier place?

There are several benefits to combining the processor and graphics processor. It’s very energy efficient, it’s very portable, it cuts the cost of your kit and it also makes new form factors possible: you don’t need a big old box if you’re not sticking add-on cards in there.

Are there multiple versions?

Yes, there are two. HD Graphics 2000 is the entry level option, and HD Graphics 3000 is the more powerful version. It’s a genuine alternative to a dedicated graphics card for everyday use and casual gaming.

And has it been announced years before it actually ships?

Nope. Systems with HD Graphics are shipping right now.

Do you know what would be really funny?

No, what?

If HD Graphics couldn’t actually handle HD.

Yes, that would be funny.

Can it handle HD?

Yes.

Damn.

**** The asterisks in that bit were a joke. Sorry.

Hard disk heads crash into the drive platter. Image: Wikimedia

In an ideal world computers would last forever, thieves wouldn’t exist and it’d be impossible to accidentally delete all your important data when you’re too hungover to function. Back in the real world, it’s all too easy for disaster to strike. Whether it’s a digital music library or project assets, your photo collection or your portfolio, the more it matters the more important it is to protect it.

The dangers

The good people at OnTrack Data Recovery compile an annual list of data disasters, and 2010′s crop features some crackers, including:

• The businessman who was working on a beach, fancied a swim and reckoned a plastic bag would make his laptop waterproof enough to take into the water with him.
• The man whose flat went on fire. He grabbed his laptop full of precious data and promptly dropped it from the fire ladder.
• The businesswoman who put her briefcase – with laptop inside – on her car roof while she put her child in the car seat, forgot about it and managed to drive over it.
• The frequent flyer who left his laptop in an airport coffee shop, only for security to detonate it as a suspected bomb.

That’s just last year. In previous years OnTrack has found accountants who attempted to do spreadsheets in the bath, with predictable consequences; the lawyer who took her laptop on a fishing trip with her father, which made him so angry he chucked it in the lake; and our favourite, the man who went on holiday and put his laptop in the oven so burglars wouldn’t spot it. His wife came home, decided to make a lovely roast chicken for dinner and… you can probably guess what happened next.

In each case OnTrack recovered the data – they wouldn’t be bragging about it if they’d made things worse – and the moral of OnTrack’s stories may well be “don’t give computers to idiots” – but data recovery isn’t always possible, costs money and can take time. Ensuring your data doesn’t get damaged in the first place is a lot less hassle.

Clearly most of us aren’t going to chuck our laptops in Tesco bags before jumping into the sea with them, but that doesn’t mean our computers are safe from harm either. Laptops are easily stolen, hard disks can and do fail, computers can be dropped, left in the back of a taxi or accidentally set on fire, and human error can cause chaos on even the most secure system. The trick to protecting your stuff? Redundancy.

Working from home is easy: buy a decent workstation, tell the taxman you’re going it alone and wait for the cash to roll in. That’s it. Isn’t it?

To an extent, yes – but there are a few issues you ought to consider before deciding that home is where your creative heart is. There are logistical issues, regulatory issues and the thorny problem of staying sane.

The biggest question of all is this: is homeworking the right thing for you? If the best thing about your job is the laughs you have with colleagues and the buzz when everyone’s firing on all cylinders, working from home might drive you daft.

The other big issue is focus. With no boss breathing down your neck, you need to be disciplined: kids, pets, Xboxes, daytime TV, YouTube, the b3ta message board, your unfinished novel and the local pub are powerful distractions.

Will your home work?

Is your home broadband fast enough for what you want to do? Remember the headline speeds are for downloads, not uploads, so even a 20Mbps ADSL connection is only chucking data upwards at 1Mbps – which isn’t ideal if you’re uploading something enormous to an FTP server or using a remote backup service. Bandwidth caps that aren’t an issue when you only connect at evenings and weekends suddenly become a major problem, and if you need business-grade broadband it’ll cost a bit more than more congested domestic services.

Lighting and heating are important – you don’t want to be in a room that’s a sauna in summer and a fridge in winter – and there needs to be enough room not just for you, but for all your paraphernalia – including the mountains of paperwork our supposedly paperless offices generate. A separate power supply for your computing kit would be ideal, but if that isn’t an option then surge protection is a good idea and an uninterruptible power supply may be worthwhile too.

If possible, make sure your equipment can’t be seen from the street: it could be an open invitation to burglars. If you can’t find a suitable working location that doesn’t display your expensive equipment, make sure you have strong doors and windows with sturdy locks, and consider an alarm system too (these things are a good idea for any home, but if your computers can be seen from the street then they’re essential).

Don’t forget the essentials, either: you’ll need a smoke alarm and a first aid kit, and if you have a serious medical condition it’s a very good idea to ask a friend or relative to contact you regularly to make sure you’re all right. If your condition flares up when you’re in an office, there are plenty of people around who can call for help on your behalf, but when you work from home you’re on your own.

If you’re setting up a home office from scratch, assume that everything will take longer than it should: your office furniture will be stuck on a boat somewhere, the broadband engineer won’t turn up on the promised day, software will get lost in the post and so on. If it’s essential, order it well in advance. It’s better to have stuff cluttering up the place than to be wondering where it is when you’ve got a deadline to meet.

Is the future of content the app? From Android Market to the Windows Phone Marketplace, the iTunes App Store to the Ovi Store, it seems that everyone is app-happy. More than ten billion smartphone and tablet apps have been sold, and App Stores are even coming to the desktop: Apple’s got one already in OS X, and Microsoft will stick its own store in Windows 8.

There’s no doubt that App Stores can provide exposure – we’re quite sure the developers of Angry Birds are particularly grateful – but there are some significant downsides too, especially if you’re in the content creation business. So what are the big concerns about apps? And what are the benefits?

Each platform is different

While the Internet doesn’t quite offer the dream of write-once run-anywhere, it’s pretty close: you can be fairly confident that your customers and/or visitors will be able to access your content, even if they require a plugin to use it – so for example Flash has near-total PC market penetration, while plugins such as Microsoft’s Silverlight are simple and quick to install and aren’t a major obstacle to the typical internet user.

That’s not the case with apps. Some platforms, such as iOS, don’t and will not support Flash; others should support it but don’t, so for example some Android tablets are currently shipping with the promise of Flash support. There are inconsistencies with video, too. Google has announced that its Chrome browser – and presumably its forthcoming app-based Chrome OS – will dump support for H.264 video in favour of WebM video, but while iOS devices can run H.264 they don’t support the VP8 video enclosed in WebM.

The result of all this is that unlike the web, where you can generally code for a common denominator (relatively recent browser, Flash), you need a different collection of technologies for each platform. The AIR app you’ve built for a BlackBerry PlayBook can’t simply be exported in a different file format for use on an iPad. And the problem with that is…

If a platform changes, you’re stuffed

Nokia’s decision to embrace Windows Phone for its future smartphones is great news for Microsoft, of course, but it’s not brilliant news for developers who embraced the Qt development environment, which the move has essentially rendered obsolete. Building for a particular App Store could mean investing in a development environment that you might not be able to use if your chosen Store provider switches allegiance.

If your budget says “PC” but your workload screams “workstation”, we’ve got good news for you: you no longer need to compromise by skimping on performance, cutting corners or running a gaming PC that sounds like rush hour when it’s rendering.

Our customers told us that they wanted more power and scalability than a traditional desktop PC, with workstation-class graphics and an enormous range of possible configurations. That’s why we built the Dell Precision T1500, which combines the power and reliability of a professional workstation with the value for money of a mainstream PC.

If you thought you couldn’t justify the price of a fully-fledged workstation, think again: you can pick up a Dell Precision T1500 for as little as £499.

CERTIFIED FOR AUTOCAD®

Accredited by AutoDESK for AutoCAD® 2010 and the forthcoming AutoCAD® 2011, the Dell Precision T1500 is a superb system for complex CAD applications. Powerful Intel® Core™ processors can handle the most demanding applications, while up to 16GB of speedy 1333MHz DDR3 memory and a choice of professional ATI and NVIDIA® cards enable you to create your perfect design partner.

The graphics cards you’ll find in your Dell Precision T1500 are serious cards for serious work: unlike consumer gaming cards, these ATI and NVIDIA® cards are designed to deliver accurate 3D CAD model views and accelerated OpenGL performance, and they’ve been tested for use with leading CAD and imaging applications.

They’re particularly impressive when you team them up with single or twin Dell UltraSharp displays: the flagship U3011′s unparalleled contrast ratio, 370cd/m² luminance level and 1.07 billion colours delivers an incredibly accurate viewing experience backed by Dell’s Premium Panel Guarantee.

POWER WITHOUT COMPROMISE

Lightning-fast performance isn’t just great for CAD, of course: it’s ideal for demanding applications in architecture, engineering, science and medicine too. Deploying larger numbers of workstations for bigger teams needn’t cost the earth: despite its low price, the Dell Precision T1500 doesn’t skimp on performance, expandability or reliability. It doesn’t sound like Heathrow at rush hour, either: its compact case has been designed for quiet operation in creative environments.

Dell Precisions are designed to be the world’s best workstations. That means a portfolio with solutions for every possible workload, extensive ISV certification and testing to ensure that your applications and add-ons work flawlessly, and build-to-order flexibility that ensures you only pay for what you need.

The Dell Precision T1500 is easy to expand and completely customisable: you can choose from Intel® Core™ i3, i5 and i7 processors, increase the on-board memory to 16GB of super-fast 1333MHz DDR3 RAM and install enormous SATA 3.0GB/s hard disks, and you can also specify RAID storage for ultimate reliability and security.

PROTECT YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

To protect your investment, your productivity and your data you need support that’s as impressive as our hardware. Designed specifically for professionals like you whose living depends on the uptime and reliability of the systems they use, Dell ProSupport provides 24/7 direct access to Dell Expert Centres, next working day on-site repair and a single point of contact for hardware, software and certified application issues. Is it the operating system, a driver or the software itself? Let us do the diagnosis. You’ve got better things to do.

THE DELL DIFFERENCE

Dell Precision Workstations are designed to work as hard as you do. We work closely with leading Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to deliver unrivalled performance and reliability in the most demanding environments, and our Dell Precision workstations are built specifically for the most demanding jobs in engineering, product design, animation and digital imaging. With the latest technology in our scalable servers and storage solutions, Dell is the one-source partner to match your IT ambitions.

To find out more, please visit us at dell.co.uk/precision or call us on 0844 444 3903.

IN DEPTH: DELL PRECISION T1500

Intel® Core™ processors, impressive graphics and exceptional memory capacity at an astonishing price

PERFORMANCE AND VALUE

The combination of Intel® Core™ i3, i5 and i5 processors with powerful ATI and NVIDIA graphics, 7200rpm hard disks and up to 16GB of fast 1333MHz DDR3 RAM delivers stunning performance, and yet the Dell Precision T1500 offers the same value for money as a mainstream business desktop. Available in a wide range of configurations, the Dell Precision T1500 is the perfect partner for power users.

AS UNIQUE AS YOU ARE

The Dell Precision T1500 delivers workstation-class graphics and advanced performance without bursting your IT budget, and like all Dell workstations it can be configured to suit your exact requirements. Choose from powerful Intel® Core™ processors, 1333MHz DDR3 memory and the latest ATI FirePro™, ATI FireMV™ and NVIDIA® Quadro™ cards to create your perfect system, and add RAID 1/0 storage configuration for ultimate reliability and peace of mind.

COMPUTING WITHOUT COMPROMISE

Dell works closely with independent software vendors to ensure maximum performance and reliability, and the Dell Precision T1500′s AutoDESK accreditation means you can run complex AutoCAD® projects with complete confidence. The Precision T1500 isn’t just a superb CAD machine, though: its sheer power makes it ideal for Web design, imaging and video, engineering, scientific and medical applications too.

Kinect is great for Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, but could its sensor control your PC too?

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air…

It’s not just your hands. With natural user interfaces, your entire body could be the controller. Have you seen Microsoft’s Kinect?

I have. So the future of computing is Kinectimals?

Not quite. But natural user interfaces – let’s call them NUIs from now on – are the next big thing in everyday computing.

What’s so natural about them?

Most computer interfaces are artificial, so for example when you use a mouse there’s a degree of abstraction between you and the computer: you move the mouse, and the mouse moves the pointer. With NUIs, that abstraction isn’t there: for example to select something, you’d point at it.

Is this the bit where I’m supposed to mention Minority Report?

You can if you like.

Okay then. Minority Report.

That isn’t actually a bad example, although in practice waving your arms about isn’t exactly relaxing. But there are some interactions that are much simpler with natural user interfaces than graphical ones. For example, turning a rotary control by twisting your hand is much easier than fiddling with the mouse to adjust a tiny slider – or worse, trying to adjust an on-screen rotary control with the mouse.

So this stuff is actually practical?

Very much so. You wouldn’t want to control all of Photoshop with multi-touch, but resizing an image by pinching your fingers or rotating a wireframe by sliding your hands apart is faster and more intuitive than trying to do the same thing with a mouse, even if you’ve been doing it with a mouse for as long as you can remember. Also, as graphics tablet users have known for years, drawing with a pen can be more intuitive than drawing with a mouse. Why not get rid of the mat and draw directly on the screen?

Not everybody uses the PC to draw.

No, they don’t, but natural interfaces can do other things too. Browsing through a large asset library, a giant Lightroom folder, a long video file or just a big online shop is much faster if you can do real world-style flipping – especially if your PC can recognise the force of your gesture and accelerate or decelerate accordingly. And NUIs are particularly good at replicating real-world controls, so for example we’ve seen multi-touch used to great effect in music recording and production: a touch screen makes a pretty good set of sliders for a mixing desk.

Where does Kinect come into all of this?

To be honest, it probably doesn’t – or at least, it doesn’t in its current gaming-only form. But the idea of a PC that can recognise you and customise itself accordingly, or one that can respond sensibly to voice commands, isn’t that far-fetched.

Voice control? I’ve tried that. It’s rubbish.

Do you mean dictation programs?

Yes. They’re rubbish.

Some of them tried to do too much, certainly: navigating Windows using nothing but speech wasn’t exactly pleasant. But that doesn’t mean voice recognition isn’t any good. Quite the opposite: modern systems are very good indeed, especially when you team them up with decent microphones and audio processing circuits to filter out background noise.

Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that I’ll control my next PC by shouting at it, waving at it and dancing in front of it?

Probably not dancing, no, and you shouldn’t throw your keyboard, mouse, graphics tablet or trackball in the bin any time soon. Natural user interfaces are still in their infancy, and for work tasks they’re more likely to supplement existing input devices rather than replace them altogether.

And in the long term?

Who knows? You can see some ideas of NUIs’ potential by checking out the NUI channel on Vimeo or looking at Microsoft’s latest predictions. Some of it’s a bit…

Minority Report?

Yes, Minority Report. Isn’t technology exciting?

2011, it seems, is the year of the tablet: from pocket rockets such as the Dell Streak 5 to ten-inchers from every tech firm imaginable, and by 2015 Forrester Research predicts that in the US alone, some 82 million people will spend at least some of their time tapping on tablets. So what does that mean for content creators?

Tablets come in every shape and size

When you’re designing for desktop or notebook users you can be reasonably confident that a design will work on almost everything: even the humblest netbook offers 1024 x 600 resolution, which is a decent canvas for most kinds of online content. That’s not necessarily the case with tablets: the smallest Android devices have four- or five-inch displays that can’t go bigger than 840 x 480 pixels.

There are several ways to deal with this. First, you can create adaptive layouts, which change according to the size of the device using them. There’s an excellent explanation of this at A List Apart. You can use a different stylesheet that strips out items such as adverts and promotional banners to create a more mobile-friendly experience. Or if you’re using a platform such as WordPress, you can install a tablet-friendly “skin” that replaces your entire design with something designed to look good on a tablet or smartphone. Be careful, though, because…

Browser detection scripts can be very annoying

Well-intentioned designers often use browser detection scripts to tailor their online content for specific devices, and that’s a brilliant idea – or at least, it’s a brilliant idea until it stops people from seeing the content they want to see. For example, many sites can’t tell the difference between a smartphone and a tablet running the same operating system, so they insist on giving the tablet user a smartphone-optimised version of the website instead of the normal site.

Even worse, the detection script can stop links in other applications from working, so when a user clicks a link in their Twitter client to a particular page the browser detection script overrules the request and gives them the mobile site’s front page. Instead of helping, the script becomes a bouncer that keeps people from accessing your carefully crafted content.

You need to think about fingers

Many tablets are designed for touch control, which isn’t anywhere near as precise as mouse input. Interface elements that work just fine on desktop computers can be a disaster with multi-touch input: nested menus can be particularly fiddly and small clickable items can be hard to hit.

Some devices zoom; some devices don’t

There are some important differences in the way different devices render web content. For example, iOS devices zoom the whole page in and out; Android ones resize and reflow the text, while zooming other elements such as images.

Exceptional talent deserves exceptional equipment, and a powerful workstation is just part of the picture. If your display doesn’t deliver exceptional viewing quality and accurate colour, you’re not getting the best from your investment – or getting the high quality output your work deserves.

That’s why Dell created the UltraSharp range of stunning displays, the perfect partners for its Dell Precision workstations. Designed to delight the most demanding professionals, Dell’s PremierColour technology provides the perfect platform for your brightest ideas.

INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCE AND CLARITY

Dell UltraSharp displays with PremierColour are designed to bring the biggest ideas to life and come in four sizes: 22″, 23″, 27″ and 30″. Take the flagship model, the 30-inch U3011. Its In-Plane Switching (IPS) display delivers a bright, stable picture across a wide viewing angle, and its 16:10 aspect ratio display runs at 2560 x 1600 resolution. With over 1.07 billion displayable colours and 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio – not to mention a razor-sharp 7ms response time – it’s the perfect display for incredibly detailed images and fast-moving video alike.

Those billion-plus colours are delivered with extraordinary fidelity. The U3011 monitor is factory-tuned to AdobeRGB and sRGB modes to reduce the need for extensive calibration, and if colour precision matters to you you’ll appreciate the 100% sRGB and 99% AdobeRGB compatibility and the 117% colour gamut.

PREMIUM AT EVERY LEVEL

Everything about the UltraSharp range is designed to delight. Factory calibrated for colour accuracy and consistency, the U3011′s unparalleled contrast ratio, 370cd/m² luminance level and 1.07 billion colours deliver an incredibly accurate viewing experience backed by Dell’s Premium Panel Guarantee.

Capacitive Touch Control delivers effortless, intuitive adjustment, and the UltraSharp range delivers class-leading energy efficiency and connectivity with all the ports you could ever need: DisplayPort, twin HDMI 1.3 and twin DVI-D connectors with HDCP support, four USB ports, component connectors and an integrated 7 in 1 media reader. There’s also a power connector for Dell’s Soundbar, a stylish speaker system that delivers crystal-clear audio and full, rich bass.

UltraSharp monitors also come with Dell’s exceptional support services, which include the Dell Premium Panel Guarantee: should even one bright defective pixel turn up during the warranty period, Dell will replace the entire display.

BE CREATIVE IN COMFORT

The perfect display isn’t just about having superb hardware: it’s about comfort too. Dell offers a wide range of useful, ergonomic display accessories from wall mounting kits and articulated arms to twin, triple and even quad-monitor stands for perfect positioning. No detail is too small: Dell can even provide document holders that keep your desk clear and your scribbles, source material or specifications at eye level.

If you’re interested in running multiple monitors from a single DisplayPort connector – such as the ones you’ll find in Dell Optiplex PCs, Dell Precision workstations and Dell Latitude notebooks – the enormously clever MMH11 Multi-Monitor Hub offers plug and play multi-monitor viewing, supports up to three displays and enables you to dedicate each monitor to a separate application.

THE DELL DIFFERENCE

Dell Precision Workstations and UltraSharp displays are designed to work as hard as you do. We work closely with leading Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to deliver unrivalled performance and reliability in the most demanding environments, and our Dell Precision workstations are built specifically for the most demanding jobs in engineering, product design, animation and digital imaging. With the latest technology in our scalable servers and storage solutions, Dell is the one-source partner to match your IT ambitions.

To find out more, please visit us at dell.co.uk/precision or call us on 0844 444 3903.

FOCUS: DELL PRECISION T3500

Intel® Xeon™ processors, impressive graphics and exceptional memory capacity: the perfect partner for the stunning UltraSharp displays with PremierColour technology

TURBO-CHARGE YOUR CREATIVITY

Astonishing performance needn’t cost the earth: the Dell Precision T3500 workstation delivers multi-core processing from the very latest 64-bit dual, quad or six-core Intel® Xeon™ processors and supports up to 24GB of system memory in three channel memory architecture. Clever cooling and Intel® Turbo Mode technology means the Dell Precision T3500 works as hard as you do.

VISUAL REALISM WITH HIGH-PERFORMANCE

Bring your graphics to the next level with our intelligent selection of ISV-certified, workstation-class graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA. Our ultra-high-end graphic solutions deliver outstanding visualization capabilities for enhanced performance in computer-aided design, architecture, engineering or digital content creation. Whether you need affordable, dependable 2D or OpenGL® 3D performance, Dell Precision workstations have the graphics horsepower to bring your ideas to life.

INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCE AND CLARITY

Dell’s PremierColour technology delivers reliable, true-to-life colour without extensive calibration, delivering superb greyscale performance and more than 1 billion colours. In the Dell UltraSharp U2711 that means 27 inches of extraordinary colour and clarity: the display delivers a stunning 2560 x 1440 resolution with a 6-millisecond response time, 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology for superb colour consistency and a wide viewing angle.

Prime Focus are market leaders in stereoscopic 3D conversion, with a track record predating the 3D boom and a CV including Avatar, Resident Evil: Afterlife and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawntreader (pictured) using the firm’s own View-D™ conversion software.

Michael Wrightson, director of operations, says: “Dell has continually demonstrated their understanding of our business requirements and their ability to deliver on the latest technology trends. Whether it is a single laptop for a producer or 100 precision T7500 workstations for a feature film, we receive the same high level of service.”

“We choose workstations that can keep up with the high demands during the creation of VFX and 3D Stereoscopic films,” Wrightson says. “At the top of the list of features has to be reliability, which is especially important in the final stages of project delivery: any slowdown of performance or system failures can have a major impact on our ability to deliver to often extremely tight deadlines.”

Why does Wrightson think 3D’s become such a big deal? “It’s the biggest leap forward in entertainment technology since the advent of colour film or surround sound,” he says. “It delivers another dimension of immersion for the audience… we’re in the middle of a genuine paradigm shift, and to me that is extremely exciting.”