NovaStar ET16S-G (2A4) Media Server

What is the NovaStar ET16S-G (2A4)?

If your project has two large surfaces to drive and two 8K films to run at once, the NovaStar ET16S-G (2A4) is the build sized for it. It is a Xeon Gold 6226R workstation running Kompass FX3, fitted from the factory with two HPGA4000 graphics cards, a control card and a Sync Card II.

Two cards is what the suffix means, and card count is what you are actually buying. Each HPGA4000 gives you four DP 1.4 outputs and decodes one 8K×4K film at 60 frames, so this build lands at eight outputs and two 8K films running together.

You want it for a large fixed installation with several surfaces rather than one: a naked-eye 3D corner, an immersive room with walls and floor, a data-centre operations wall, an outdoor advertising site with separate faces.

Your video still leaves on DisplayPort. Sending cards or video processors take it from there to the cabinets, and at this scale you usually have several of them.

Eight DP outputs, and what two cards actually give you

You get eight DP 1.4 connectors, each running up to 5120×2880@60Hz, arranged as two independent groups of four. The card is the unit of capability here: whatever a card can do, it does across its own four connectors and no further.

Within one card, four connectors join into a mosaic up to 16,384 pixels along the long edge. Across two cards you get two such mosaics, which is why this build suits a project with two large surfaces better than one enormous continuous one.

Decoding follows the same arithmetic. NovaStar rates each HPGA4000 for one 8K×4K film at 60 frames in hardware, so two cards carry two of yours at once, with the twelve mixing layers of Kompass FX3 laid over the top.

A third card is a different order, not an upgrade path you can assume. Your card count is set in the build you buy, and the outputs, the decoding and the processor all move with it.

The mosaic rules these graphics cards enforce

Two rules, and both of them catch designs late. NovaStar states that the graphics card does not do irregular mosaic layouts, and that connectors you use in a mosaic must all run the same output resolution.

Seven layouts are permitted: 1×2 and 2×1, 1×3 and 3×1, 1×4 and 4×1, and 2×2. An L-shape or a staircase assembled at card level is not one of them, so if your design assumes the card will join four different-sized outputs into a stepped canvas, it has to be redrawn.

Matching resolutions is the rule people trip over on site. Three 4096×2160 outputs and one 2048×1080 output cannot mosaic together, however sensible that looked on your screen drawing.

Irregular geometry is a partition job for you instead. Each output splits into as many as 64 sub-outputs you can move, reassemble and rotate inside the mosaic, which is how a stepped wall or an angled fin gets the right slice without breaking either rule.

Draw your card-level layout first, then shape inside it.

ET16S-G (2A4) key features

Factory-fitted Sync Card II

Two servers rendering one wall drift apart, and your join shows it. This build ships with the Sync Card II already in it: two RJ45 ports that accept and pass a frame-lock signal, and a BNC input for an external reference from your camera chain or house sync.

Dedicated control graphics

Nobody wants the operator interface stealing an output the wall needs. An MPGT400 card comes with the build and carries three Mini DP connectors for the software interface only, so all eight of your DP 1.4 outputs stay available for screen content.

Six-channel and digital audio

An immersive room needs sound placed, not just played. The chassis carries three 3.5 mm line outputs wired for six channels, a mic input, a line input and an S/PDIF optical output for a digital feed into your house system.

ECC memory

A single flipped bit in a machine that runs unattended for months is the fault nobody can reproduce for you. The ET16S-G uses ECC DDR4 on a workstation board, which corrects those errors instead of passing them into your picture.

NovaStar ET16S-G (2A4) specifications

These are the figures that settle your output count, your rack drawing and your power schedule.

Count the DP cables against your screen drawing before the order. Eight come with this configuration, and a run longer than a rack usually wants fiber-optic DisplayPort rather than the copper supplied.

ET16S-G (2A4) or (3A4): which build do you order?

Order the 2A4 build if you need eight outputs and two 8K films; order the 3A4 build for twelve outputs and three, on a machine that also doubles the processor and the memory.

Count your outputs first. Four DP connectors per card is fixed, so eight outputs means two cards and twelve means three. No configuration setting changes that number for you.

Then count your 8K films. Each HPGA4000 decodes one 8K×4K film at 60 frames, so a program with three simultaneous 8K sources needs the third card whether or not your outputs are already covered.

The 3A4 build is not only a card more. It carries a second Xeon Gold 6226R, 128 GB instead of 64, and a second SSD beside the terabyte, because three cards need a bigger platform behind them, not just a free slot.

The bare ET16S-G platform is your order when the cards should be something other than HPGA4000: the HPGA4500 Ada or the HPGA6000, neither of which comes in a sealed build.

The $8,143 between the two sealed builds buys you four more outputs, a third 8K film and a second processor. Buy the smaller one and add a card later and you are buying a new processor and new memory as well.

Rack space, power and cooling for the ET16S-G (2A4)

You need five rack units, 1100 W and room for 17.9 kg. At 183.5 mm high and 569.8 mm deep this is a server-room machine, and the 1300 W supply behind that 1100 W figure is what your circuit has to be sized for rather than the average draw.

Heat is the part that gets underestimated. The operating range stops at 40°C, which a sealed cabinet holding a kilowatt of workstation will pass on a summer afternoon unless you have forced air through the rack.

Mounting is horizontal only, on four M5 screws, in a 19-inch rack rated to carry four times the weight of everything in it. Shipping weight is 24.5 kg, so plan a two-person lift onto the rails.

Specify your cooling with the server, not after the first hot week.

ET16S-G (2A4) datasheet, manual and Kompass FX3 licensing

One datasheet covers all the ET16S-G builds. Its product-selection table is where the suffix, the card count, the processor and the memory line up for you, and the optional-items table underneath holds the specifications for every card the chassis accepts.

The Kompass FX3 manual is the software document, shared with the ET4S-G servers. It carries the frame-sync modes, the media-format list and the bitrate tables your synchronized installation has to be encoded against.

Kompass FX3 ships with its licensing dongle. Pull it out of a running server and your software drops back to trial, which puts its own name across the wall about five seconds afterwards.

NovaStar ET16S-G (2A4) FAQ