Success for Quantel at Rogers & TV2
Norway’s TV2 has selected Quantel’s Enterprise sQ technology to power its transition to HD broadcasting and file-based working, while the Newbury-based company has also sold its first QTube system to Canada’s Rogers Media to power its Sportsnet, OMNI and CityTV stations.
The TV2 system was purchased through Quantel’s Norwegian distributor AVIT Systems.
TV2 operates from two main production centres in Bergen and Oslo. News and Sports plays an important part in its programming, and the broadcaster also operates a dedicated 24 hour news channel and several Sports channels. All its news and sports programming has been produced on Quantel Enterprise sQ systems at both sites since 2006 when TV2 made the jump to tapeless production with Quantel. It operates an innovative shared production workflow within and between the Bergen and Oslo sites, with either one capable of running as the live production centre at any time.
“We have been very happy with the performance and user-friendliness of our current Quantel system,” said John Inge Brattetveit, TV2 Director of Operations and Technical Services. “TV2 has been in a period of expansion over the last five years, launching new channels and purchasing new sports rights Thanks to the Quantel system it has been possible to absorb the extra production pressure this expansion has caused with a minimal increase in production staff. One of the key things here is Quantel’s tight integration between journalist editing tools and craft NLEs – in addition to their fast speed to air.
“When we started to look into HD workflow for news and sports, one of the most important user requirements was to keep the fast time from ingest to on-air as in our current Quantel SD system while keeping the same simplicity for users in the HD workflow. The conversion to HD should be as invisible as possible from an operational point of view. From the research that TV2 has performed, Quantel is the vendor that best matches these requirements for us,” Brattetveit concluded.
As well as upgrading all its sQ server technology to HD operation, TV2 has also purchased 10 of the new Quantel Qube craft editors which were launched at NAB this year.
“We are delighted that TV2 has returned to Quantel for this exciting new phase in its operations,” said Ray Cross, Quantel CEO. “Looking after our customers is central to our business philosophy and it’s very rewarding to continue partnering with them as their success powers their business forward using our technology.”
Over at Rogers, QTube will be used to breakdown geographic barriers by linking Rogers Media bureaux right across Canada so that editors can browse and edit media wherever it is stored.
Frank Bruno, Rogers Media Vice President of Engineering, said: “QTube removes the geographical boundaries of when and where we can create content. It allows us to cover breaking news and sports events in ways not previously possible or imagined. QTube empowers us with the ability to access and bridge our sQ systems globally using economical and readily available network connectivity.”
Bruno continued: “QTube’s intuitive interface and scalability, aligns nicely with our growing production needs. Its elegantly simple execution by Quantel is underpinned by a genuinely innovative combination of COTS hardware with Quantel’s special know-how to produce a solution which can help us change the way our business operates for the better.”