SWR Commissions Qvest

Qvest was commissioned by Südwestrundfunk (SWR) as general contractor for a roots-and-branch renewal and expansion of its professional colorgrading environment.

The core technological component underpinning the Qvest setup was the renowned high-end baselight system from colorgrading specialists Filmlight. In terms of seamless integration and individual adaptation of premises, as well as the selection of hardware and software, the implementation marks new standards in the area of color correction – and not only in Germany.

The goal of SWR was to revamp and refocus the technical color correction infrastructure. Their approach involved installing high-end hardware and software components, which allowed SWR's colorists to perform all color correction tasks conveniently, intuitively, and reliably. A team of Qvest experts set up five color correction workstations for SWR at their Baden-Baden site: Two grading suites and two assistant workstations, plus a workstation for an administrator.

The new IT architecture for the colorgrading studio was established with a 100 Gbit/s network and 720 TB (terabytes) of central storage at its core. With 10 and 6 GB/s read and write speeds setting the pace, there is more than enough memory capacity on offer, however stringent the network infrastructure requirements become. Both grading suites come complete with a "Baselight 2" system and a "Blackboard 2" panel, while the suites use Sony Class 1 displays in the BVM-X300 V2 and HX-310 model range for color-critical image assessment. The workstations fit seamlessly into the infrastructure with a 50 Gbit/s network and can handle the data transfer of uncompressed video signals in Ultra High Definition (UHD) at 50p effortlessly.

"When renewing our color correction, our top priority was implementing best-in-class infrastructure that included innovative technologies and workflows. Collaborating on the project work with experts from Qvest and Filmlight helped us achieve this goal. Our colorists can now implement color grading at a whole new level, and we can offer our viewers a particularly impressive color experience on screen. Our team now has the perfect technical setup to handle all current and future productions," said Marc Weckenmann, responsible SWR project manager.

"We were able to work as a team with the colorgrading specialists from SWR and Filmlight in an ideally coordinated setup. Despite the challenge of COVID-19, our preparation was smooth and mostly remote. As a result, the installation of the highly specialized workstations on site went absolutely as planned," said Daniel Erpilev, Solutions Architect at Qvest.

In addition to the two-color grading suites, the assistants´ workstations also offer remarkably high performance. With Filmlight's "Daylight Tool", the SWR specialists can now perform entire workflows particularly intuitively and efficiently; from ingest to dailies. The Guntermann & Drunck KVM system ensures all resources are optimally exploited and provides tech support as required, since all workstations are controllable and operable from those in the color grading studio. All workstations also allow color correction with DPX sequences at 2160p/50 resolution. Units in the color correction studio, meanwhile, boast individually adapted furniture and consoles with ergonomic and technical configuration for image evaluation with peerless precision. All the tables and panels are gradually height adjustable. The sideboards have also been configured to accommodate ingest peripheral equipment.

www.qvest.com