IBC 2009: Quantel Tackles News, Sports Workflows

Unveils new ingest product, integration with Final Cut and EVS

By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/13/2009 8:28:36 AM

IBC Amsterdam 2009: Complete Coverage of the IBC Show

U.K.-based editing, effects and storage supplier Quantel used IBC to show off improvements to its file-based production workflows and new integration with third-party products.

The company's new "sQ Load" application for its sQ server-based news and sports production systems provides fast, central ingest of Sony's XDCAM HD, Panasonic P2 and other file-based acquisition media. It allows operators to choose anything from a complete disk to a single shot for ingest, and provides renaming facilities so that metadata, which is often missing when video is rushed in from the field, can be added at the ingest stage.

 

Quantel was demonstrating sQ Load at IBC by showing by showing fast, central ingest of XDCAM HD material into sQ server systems. The sQ system generates low-bit-rate, browse-quality video as the high-bit-rate file is being imported by sQ Load, which means that new material is available to everyone on all sQ desktop and craft-editing workstations, even while it is being ingested.

 

Integrating Final Cut Pro

At IBC 2009, Quantel was also demonstrating new integration of Apple's Final Cut Pro nonlinear editing system into the sQ server environment into the Quantel sQ server News and Sports production environment.
The Quantel Final Cut Pro Gateway, which is shipping now, allows Final Cut Pro to be totally integrated into the sQ workflow in the same way as Quantel's own editing systems.

"It's the same workflow Quantel editors have," says Quantel director of marketing Steve Owen. "So everything you can do with our editors, you can do with Final Cut Pro."

Advantages of the Final Cut integration include "expanding clips" capability, which allows the editing of clips that are still being recording; instant publishing of finished edits; and the ability to start an edit on a journalist's desktop using Quantel's low-bit-rate editors and then finish the project in Final Cut.

Virtual Files

Quantel has also introduced "file-system virtualization technology" for reducing the complexity inherent in managing multiple versions of a piece of content, such as an HD, SD and low-bit-rate Flash version. Quantel's virtualization technology breaks the link between a file address and the actual data and allows an address to refer to a "virtual file," which hasn't yet been created and doesn't have data.

So any HD clip could have a virtual SD version that is only created as it is needed, when a user requests it. Because the data is created on-the-fly, it can be manipulated as part of the creation process, so an HD asset can be accessed in SD or Flash without creating and storing physical SD and Flash files. Quantel is showing the virtualization technology at IBC using Quicktime and Flash files.

"The data doesn't exist until the file is accessed, so you avoid creating multiple files with each edit," explains Owen. "We're never going to make a file until you want it."

Quantel is using the file-virtualization technology as part of its new integration with EVS servers, which are used widely in major sports productions. EVS has recently adopted the Panasonic DVCPRO HD Codec. The Panasonic codec is now natively supported by EVS production servers, and that enables its XT[2] and the XS production servers to offer extended workflow capabilities and smoother content exchange with Quantel sQ production systems.

The exchange between EVS and Quantel is based on MXF OP1A file transfer, which can be managed manually or automatically depending on the system configuration. An EVS operator working with EVS' IPDirector production content management software can now create clips on the XS server and make them instantly available on Quantel central storage for editing on the Quantel sQ production system.  EVS metadata such as logging and descriptive information, which are created by the IPDirector operator and associated with the clips, are imported and referenced in the Quantel database. Once created on the Quantel sQ production system, the media is instantly available for playout or can easily be moved back to the EVS XS server for playout.

The Quantel operator exports the media as an MXF OP1A file on a central storage platform connected to EVS systems.  The EVS XTAccess gateway application scans the folder and automatically imports the file to the EVS XS server.  The media can be played out instantly and as soon as the transfer begins on the XS server.