Students Get 'QSmart' With Autocue

Autocue, a leading provider of newsroom automation and teleprompting solutions, has announced that the University for Creative Arts at Farnham ('uCreative') has installed Autocue’s 'QSmart' newsroom computer system (NRCS) for scripting and rundown management and a new 'QStore' video server as part of a million-pound refurbishment of the college’s television studio facilities.
QSmart is an affordable newsroom computer system tailored specifically to the requirements of small market broadcasters and other television applications. uCreative Farnham offers specialist teaching and research in a range of art, design, cinematics, television and communications.
Autocue Chief Technical Officer Neil Hutchins said: “The unique element to this project is ‘QStore’ – Autocue’s brand new video server that provides shared storage with ingest and playout facilities. uCreative wanted a complete solution that would integrate with their existing edit software to provide shared access to edited material; allow that material to be played to air during studio programs; and allow raw video to be recorded from tape machines, cameras and agency feeds – all incorporated into the overall system at a reasonable cost. No product on the market exactly fulfilled this requirement, so in QStore we developed an innovative, flexible and cost-effective solution which would complement QSmart to meet their needs.”
The uCreative version of QStore provides approximately 100 hours of storage for DV25 material and includes two ingest/playout ports, but other configurations of storage are available and additional ports can be added as required. QStore is configured to allow access to the stored media from the main uCreative network, which enables individual edit workstations to access and save material within a shared area. Previously, portable hard disk drives were the only way to move material between edit workstations.
Once a finished package has been saved to QStore, it is then added automatically to the main media database and is therefore available within the NRCS to be associated with an item in the program running order. At that point, students can then play the clip to air from one of the QStore ports, under the control of the QSmart automation software.
QSmart is an affordable NRCS software module based upon Autocue’s proven, established and highly-successful QSeries platform, encapsulating the expertise and flexibility gained from ten years experience of providing NRCS functionality for larger news operations, yet designed to make it appropriate for smaller stations and non-traditional broadcasters.
Farnham's TV lecturer, former-Sky Senior Correspondent Richard Bestic, said: “The new production system has totally transformed TV teaching at Farnham; and we are very grateful to Autocue who have given excellent technical advice to help us get this set up for our students. Everyone in the industry knows Autocue and it is great to be working with them.”
www.autocue.co.uk
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