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logy Interview
Quantel
would be for broadcasters in the future. We
could see that High Definition was a major
problem. What were people going to do with
it? How was the transition going to be dealt
with? What about the problem of multiple
standards for a considerable period of time.
Sowemade this one of our priorities.At the same
time, we identified that training and skills – in
particular people-changing skills – was another
major priority. We could see, for example, that
journalists would become involved in editing on
the desktop, rather than in edit suites. We could
see multi-skilling was developing, and so we
started to look at what Quantel could do to make
this transition more seamless.
We also had criticism that Quantel was a
‘closed’ company. So we set to and designed a
range of ‘open’ products that were as applicable
as possible to a multi-skilled world. In fact, we
aimed to make products that were more ‘open’
than any others in the industry, without leaving
behind some of Quantel’s major currency of
innovative and workable products. We devised
the new
Generation Q
product line that is an
amalgam of specialist hardware and standard
NT computer technology. To the outside world
it behaves like an NT computer, but at the same
time we apply enormous horsepower so that it
runs much faster than anything you can
imagine!
KS: It seems that the MBO has been a
success, building on Quantel’s heritage
while developing for the future. What have
been the building blocks for the ‘new’
Quantel since the MBO?
RT: Everyone knows that the market for the
past couple of years has not been good.
However, we were fortunate that we had put
in train the development of new products years
before. In September 2000 we introduced iQ -
to be frank slightly early, but in a way we had
to introduce it because it was the flagship
product of the new post-MBO Quantel. On
reflection, we probably should have sat on our
hands and introduced it at NAB in 2001 but
nonetheless it caused a huge amount of
interest. Despite the fact we had very little
application software for it at the time,
customers could see the awesome capability
of the hardware and loved the philosophy.
KS: What is that philosophy?
RT: It’s that you can have resolution co-
existence - which means you can store
everything in the
iQ
machine in its native
format and you only
up res
or
down res
depending on what you want the output to be.
It allows a lot more freedom in the editing
process as you don’t have to do any pre-
processing. Also the philosophy where you
have a machine which has all the openness and
rich toolset of a software environment with the
awesome power the hardware can provide.
But our philosophy also has an interesting
application in the news area. We carved a
significant chunk of the news business for
ourselves with the inspiration for integrated
news production but initially this was verymuch
an application for the larger news organisations.
This presented too high an entry barrier for
smaller news operations and so we set about
designing something that could have
application for regional use based on some of
the philosophies that we had developed for post
production. At the time, the BBC was
searching for a system for its regional news
operations in the UK, and we applied our
knowledge to make an offering that matched
their requirements. At NAB 2002 we
announced we had secured the BBC Regions
business.
KS: Did this help you in the development of
the BBC’s
Jupiter
project?
RT: This is an interesting point. We had the
ability to handle small newsroom systems as
well as larger installations – in point of fact
we realised that what we had was beautifully
scaleable: scaleable in terms of interfaces, and
scaleable in terms of the servers themselves.
That put us in a prime position to exploit our
technology for the BBC’s
Jupiter
project.
KS: How do you see the relationship with
the BBC going forward?
RT: There is considerable synergy between the
three organisations involved - BBC News,
BBC Technology and Quantel. The BBC has
carved out a very impressive patch in the whole
asset management area as well as the
Jupiter
philosophy and we’d like to think that we’ve
carved out a patch in the server and editing
side. It’s a good partnership between Quantel
and the BBC.
There are a number of other potential
customers that we and BBC Technology are
jointly talking to around the world. The
fascinating thing as you talk to people around
the world is that the brand value of the BBC is
just amazing. In Beijing where I’ve just been,
for example, there was instant brand
recognition of the BBC.
KS: The world is a big place – what about
markets outside Europe?
RT: Asia represents a market that area is
growing at the moment. Japan was quite
depressed for a while, but there are now
significant business opportunities beginning to
appear. We have just delivered our fourth
iQ
to a company called l-Teq. There is also a lot
happening in Australia. The 7 Network have
just moved all their operations to a centralised
unit and that has resulted in enormous savings
for them.
China is important, potentially, too. We have a
reasonable amount of product in the People’s
Republic, but overall I would say that China is
very much an emerging market. There is very
strong interest in high definition coupled with
a great determination to lead the world in the
transition to HD. That obviously suits us as
we have very strong offerings in high
definition. Interestingly, there was brand
recognition of Quantel in China.
Further afield, we have a good presence in the
US market but as everyone knows the market
over there has been in turmoil for a while now.
There have been pockets of success of in the
United States but there have equally been areas
where people are trying to work out the future
of their business. Broadcasting has spent a lot
of money on the infrastructure for the
transmission end of the business. I think now
there is a great deal of heart searching as to
whether HD is actually going to happen.
Interestingly I think over the last few months
there is the beginnings of an upward curve in
terms of HD in the US market. I think I’m right
in saying that there are ten times more
programmes being created in HD in Los
Angeles today than there was a year ago. This
has partly been driven by consumer interest,
although we never know why consumers
suddenly switch on. It will be fascinating to
look back in eighteen months time and see just
where we are with HD.
KS: You’ve often referred to High
Definition. Is this going to be significant?
RT: Very much so. HD is split into two parts.
One is HD production for the consumer and
the other is the 24p production side for
international mastering. An awful lot of that is
happening now and it’s fascinating as it’s
something that we were banging on about
some three to four years ago and people looked
at us slightly curiously wondering “what are
they on about”. Here we are today and it’s
become the way of doing it. The acceleration
in the number of HD cameras will also drive
it.
KS: What’s your view on the
‘commoditisation’ of manufacturing?
RT: I think it’s great.You don’t want to look at
it as dumbing down the technology. The cars
we drive are a commodity but they are full of
really impressive technology inside them and
Quantel will be providing really impressive
technology for the broadcast industry for years
to come. Nowadays companies don’t simply
end up providing only a box. Take the way
news was done five years ago. Broadcasters
were buying edit systems and cart machines
and similar products. They were all separate
little compartments and they were bought
without too much worry about how they
worked together. Today you have an integrated
newsroom system and you suddenly have
influence with the journalists, with the editor,
with the programme director, the TD driving
the vision mixer, with the archivist. Quite
suddenly you’re working on a very broad front.
So although I agree that some of those are
commoditised components the overall system
is very impressive and that requires a lot of
knowledge and experience and a lot of research
to be able to make these systems work. What
makes this business so exciting for me and my
colleagues is that it is constantly changing.
KS: Richard Taylor, thank you so much.
