Fox Sports goes all the way with generationQ

Sydney, Australia - Subscription TV sports broadcaster, Fox Sports, has installed a major new server-based editing system built around Quantel’s radical generationQ technology at its Sydney headquarters. At the new system’s heart are four fully specced QEdit Pro non linear editing machines supported by eight QCut editing seats, all of which in turn hook into four Quantel sQServers providing 290 hours of storage at 30Mb iFrame. Server-based production not only allow users to share files quickly and instantly but, as Fox Sports Chief Engineer, Michael Day, explains, the unique technology in the Quantel sQServers also greatly improves thoughput in the station.
“We were particularly interested in Frame Magic, where subclips are not discarded when the master clip is deleted, and Delta Editing, where only the changed frames are re-rendered instead of having to render an entire clip or section of a clip, as a way of speeding our workflow through the system,” he explains.
And efficient workflow is the key. Fox Sports offers live and exclusive coverage of sports news in the highly competitive environment of Australian television and thus has to respond to events as fast as any news organisation. “We need to turn around footage rapidly for edited highlights packages or for cut downs of sporting events that may run for hours or even days,” says Michael. “We needed a solution that would be able to ingest sixteen live feeds shared between four departments while simultaneously playing those feeds out,” Michael says.
The new server-based system at Fox is augmented by two sQfx live playout control panels, one for each of Fox Sports’ studios, and joins the QPaintbox Pro broadcast video design system Fox bought earlier in 2003.
“We were attracted to the idea that the generationQ system seems to contain the best elements of both IT and engineering without compromising on performance,” says Michael of the company’s substantial investment in generationQ so far. “We believe the new system will provide an efficient and elegant editing solution for our staff.”
“The Fox Sports production project perfectly dovetails into the concepts behind generationQ, “adds Julien James, Quantel’s Managing Director. “We have a long history working with broadcasters to successfully meet their mission-critical, live-to-air production needs. Fox Sports clearly sees us as a reliable team player in installing large systems projects of this nature.”

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