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New Product Emerges From Management Buy-out
Quantel, a leader in high-resolution graphic post-production, in Amsterdam. Given Quantel's recent management buyout (completed in July), this new product has confirmed industry confidence in the U.K.-based innovator and has provided broadcasters with a powerful new post-production tool.
Quantel's iQ is really three products in one. It's a digital post-production workstation, a backbone architecture/server for a facility's media assets, and a high-powered image-creation/manipulation platform for third-party software. The system features a Windows 2000 software interface layer tied to Quantel's super-charged processing technology.
The creation station userinterface is stylish and clever. Keyboard, pen and tablet, and a wireless rat are sleek and impressive. The only surprise is that the system is presented with a 4:3 monitor instead of a wide-screen display, which would have fit the overall "high-tech elegance" design better. Of course, any monitor can be used. Quantel told TELEVISION BROADCAST that many users of the system will opt for three-monitor setups-possibly two hi-resolution computer screens for the workstation and an HD/SD video monitor so that full image quality can be viewed.
Quantel's iQ comes with three software subsystem packages.
* Qedit is an all-new editing/finishing application that is specifically designed for long-form/features programming. At first glance, this package appears to have much of the best of Quantel's capabilities without some of the annoyances that have been complained about in the past (the system has an UNDO function, for example). Media-asset management is one of the crucial components of long-form programming, and Quantel picked Image Mine for this purpose for...