LONDON -- It is almost 20 years to the day since Quantel first unleashed the Paintbox. Graphic designers in television embraced this radical new way of getting their ideas on screen and quickly moved center-stage in the production process. In the intervening years, designers and their Paintboxes have together changed the visual language of the medium, creating a heritage of imagery that communicates -- as a glance at the submissions to this year’s Quantel Artist of the Year Awards testifies.

Now, 20 years later, Quantel is again unveiling a new graphics approach with a brand new product lineup that brings more creative horsepower to graphic designers, and opens the world of Quantel graphics to everyone involved in the production process. New technology means that the ‘Quantel Society of Arts’ has become a democracy; now broadcasters can build a complete Quantel graphics environment with every facet perfectly tuned to the varying operational and functional needs of different graphics applications, from journalist templating to close-to-air creative graphics production. High end performance
At the top of the new Quantel graphics range is a super-powered, purpose built platform that is a further result of the development program that has already produced iQ, Quantel’s Resolution Co-existent media platform. It combines the openness and software-richness of the PC with programmable, dedicated hardware that delivers high video performance -- offering a 60x processing speed increase working with moving images over Quantel’s Hal.

Gigabit networking offers connectivity and workflow that allows broadcasters to make optimal use of all graphics resources, while sharing media, templates and archives. The Quantel graphics platform also acts as the network hub, media management center and final production compiler.

New toolset - Paintbox and more
Complementing the new graphics platform is a new generation of Quantel graphics software. Based on the ergonomics and toolsets of the Quantel Paintbox but with totally re-written code, the new Quantel graphics software is Resolution Co-existent, allowing material of any resolution to be freely mixed, and output to air in any required format. The new software also includes a powerful new graphics tool, the Digital Rostrum Camera; new templating tools, making graphics production within a "look" fast and simple; multi-superlayer compositing with all layers live; keyframeable color correction; DVE and Blur with multiple levels of undo.

Alongside these tools, a large range of effects plug-ins has also been specially developed by Quantel. The open API means that other developers are creating plug-ins as well -- The Mokey foreground separator, Primatte and Ultimatte keyers, and After Effects plug-ins from VDS are also currently being ported.

Shrink-wrapped graphics
The high end platform also supports a series of PC workstations that bring Quantel graphics power to bear on everyday tasks. The same tools are available as software on the PC as on the high-end workstation -- this is no pale subset. The difference is in the performance -- the PC capable of jobs where absolute speed is not of the essence, or for tasks such as filling templates to create standard story headers, for example, while the Quantel platform provides the muscle for close-to-air graphics production. Networked together, sharing images, data and creative skillsets, the broadcaster has a graphics workflow model that meets the tightest deadlines.

Connecting with the past
Integration with existing Quantel graphics equipment is built-in, offering broadcasters the opportunity to make a step-by-step transition into the new Quantel graphics world while continuing to benefit from their existing investment in Quantel legacy systems, from Paintbox and Picturebox to Hal.

"Quantel has been the engine of the television graphics business since the Paintbox changed television forever almost overnight in 1982," said Quantel Chairman, Richard Taylor. "These radical new products carry that heritage forward into the new age of television. We will be releasing full details of product specifications, naming and pricing for the new graphics products before NAB this year. We will be following on over the next few months with announcements of a completely new suite of products aimed at all levels of the market in high end effects, editing and news, which will provide a much fuller picture of Quantel’s future product and technology strategies -- it’s going to be a very exciting year for Quantel -- and our customers."


Source: Quantel, Inc.
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