RTL selects Quantel for second generation server-based system

Luxembourg’s national broadcaster, RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg, has selected a Quantel sQ integrated production system for all its news and magazine programme production needs.
RTL chose the Quantel system after extensive evaluation of all the available systems on the market. The new system is in fact replacing a first-generation Quantel production system which RTL installed nearly ten years ago – one of the very first server-based news systems to go into operation anywhere in the world. “The competition was stiff this time round, but we’re happy to be working with Quantel again,” said Jacques van Luijk, RTL’s production manager.
“Quantel knows how to build reliable servers, and the sQ editing interfaces are very accessible and easy to use – especially important for our journalists, who we will be ‘soft-starting’ into pre-editing then editing with voice-over directly on the system,” van Luijk continued. “Another key factor in Quantel’s favour is the transparent workflow it gives us – a seamless progression from ingest to newsroom to editing and playout. It’s a small market in Luxembourg so we have to use our equipment to its fullest potential – the Quantel workflow makes this feasible.”
The new sQ system will be used to produce a full two hours of news and magazine programming every day. It will also act as the playout server for all the commercials that will be broadcast within the programmes; SGT automation will upload these into the sQ system from archive and automatically place them in the running order.
Installation is scheduled for July, and RTL is planning to go on air with the new system in September 2006. It is configured around two sQ servers with a total of over 400 hours of dual broadcast and browse storage, 27 sQ View, sQ Cut and sQ Edit desktop editing applications for journalists and producers and six sQ Edit Plus craft editors.
The system will be fully integrated with RTL’s Norcom newsroom computer system via MOS, all running under SGT automation.
(GB)