When mentioning the word Quantel most people will immediately think of high-end
finishing and post-production. Interestingly, that sector typically accounts for less
than half of their business, the majority is broadcast live news and sports.
Quantel is a dynamic, forward thinking company that not only develops game
changing content creation solutions for the broadcast market, but evolves with the
market resulting in creative, productive and profitable workflows that give post
houses and broadcasters the edge they need to thrive and grow in today’s highly
competitive global media market.
The company has been around for 40 years and is a truly international company,
with systems installed at broadcast facilities and post houses worldwide. Quantel
news and sports production systems are relied on by more than 150 broadcasters
around the world. Many hundreds of post-production facilities leverage the creative
power of Quantel workstations to produce countless TV dramas, commercials,
documentaries and every other kind of programming.
Quantel visited South Africa recently to engage with existing customers such as the
SABC and a number of post-production facilities, as well as following up leads from
the Mediatech Africa and IBC 2013 exhibitions to develop new business opportunities.
Worldwide marketing manager (Broadcast) for Quantel, Trevor Francis stated that
Quantel does not sell technology, it sells workflows. “We sell solutions that allow the
broadcasters to add intelligence easily and quickly, to get news and sport to the
viewers faster and more efficiently.’
Francis demonstrated elements of their QTube technology workflow, part of the
development of Quantel’s revolutionQ. QTube InterSite allows content on remote
Enterprise sQ systems to be available to local editors. This basically means that
content based on a server in Johannesburg, for example, can be accessed by
regional sites such as Cape Town and Bloemfontein for editorial purposes via the
internet or fixed network.
Quantel’s next-generation field editor, the new Marco, was launched at IBC 2013.
Marco enables journalists and editors to take the fast and easy to use Quantel
editing toolset out of the office and with them on assignment. The thousands of
journalists and editors who already use Quantel editors will find the new Marco
instantly familiar: the GUI and toolset are exactly the same.
For those new to the Quantel interface, it is simple and quick to learn, easy to use
and includes all the editing and effects tools they will need. A Marco user can plug
their PC into the local area network and use the new “Deliver to sQ’ feature to place
a ready-to-play clip directly into the Enterprise sQ system. It can then be viewed,
played immediately under the control of a newsroom computer system. QTube does
for collaborative production what the mobile phone has done for human
communications. Location is irrelevant and we can now do everything from wherever
we are.
The development of Quantel’s revolutionQ has changed the way broadcasters now
work. The new software architecture embraces web technology to deliver a flexible,
distributed, fast-turnaround content creation system, allowing users to utilise off the
shelf products for processing and storage. revolutionQ is a genuine revolution for
content creators.
Quantel products are distributed and supported in South Africa by Questek.
