Al Jazeera International appoints Barnaby Phillips as European Correspondent

8 February 2006

Al Jazeera International, the 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel, headquartered in Doha, have appointed renowned journalist Barnaby Phillips as their Europe correspondent based in Athens.

Barnaby joins Al Jazeera International from the BBC where his last position was as Southern Africa Correspondent for television and radio based in Johannesburg. He has extensive global experience having also worked in the Middle East, West Africa and Asia. Barnaby has covered major stories such as the AIDS epidemic, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the war in Liberia, the 2002 Southern African food crises, the war in Iraq and the South Asian Tsunami.

Barnaby will be based in Athens as European correspondent for Al Jazeera International working directly with the channel’s London broadcast centre – the channel’s principle European bureau after London. The London broadcast centre will be responsible for Europe and Russia bringing news to English speaking viewers around the world for several hours each day as one of four broadcast centres strategically placed around the world in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC.

Speaking on the appointment from the channel’s headquarters in Doha, Director of News Steve Clark said, “Barnaby Phillips is a great addition to our news team and I am pleased to have him on board as European correspondent.”

Barnaby first joined the BBC in 1991 and has remained with them until leaving to take up his post with Al Jazeera International this year. In London he worked mainly at the BBC World Service. He was a BBC stringer in Mozambique and Angola in the mid-1990’s, where he began his career as a reporter, covering civil wars and peace processes, and learning Portuguese. In 1998 he became the BBC correspondent in Nigeria until 2001 when he moved to Johannesburg with the BBC, as Southern Africa Correspondent.

Quantel at NAB 2006

8 February 2006

“Quantel will arrive at NAB 2006 on a commercial and technological high – with a great range of products that is enjoying wide commercial success across many applications. NAB will be a great showcase for us and our customers,” said Ray Cross, Quantel CEO. Accordingly, Quantel has significantly increased its booth size this year to enable the full generationQ product line to go on show. The range now spans the DI, Color Correction, Post, Graphics and Broadcast businesses. Many major new developments are also on show for the first time at NAB.

DI

Pablo, Quantel’s next generation color correction that was previewed in late 2005 makes its full debut at NAB in a dedicated viewing theatre within the Quantel booth. Featuring genuine realtime 4K operation and Quantel’s revolutionary new TimeMagic™ technology, Pablo brings together the best of hardware and software-based color correction technologies in a single system. As a result, Pablo has already achieved outstanding success in the market; it is a must-see at the show for anyone involved in color correction. Also on show in the DI area is the new all-powerful iQ4, which brings realtime 4K to the mainstream DI process.

Post

New at NAB is TimeMagic™ technology for the eQ multi-resolution editing/ grading/ effects/ deliverables system – including the new Pay as you Go HD model – which gives every facet of the system’s operation an enormous productivity boost. Also on show for the first time is Pablo on eQ, which brings the creativity and efficiency of the DI workflow to commercials post. Delivering better quality and fantastic looking hi res and SD commercials, the DI workflow is win-win for clients and post houses alike.

Broadcast

Even with the enlarged booth this year, it is still not possible to display the full gamut of possibilities offered by Quantel’s sQ server-based broadcast technology. As well as showing the ever-expanding Newsbox family of cost-effective, ‘plug-and-play’ news systems, there will also be a second broadcast arena. Today, no broadcast system is an island; the second arena will be showing how sQ technology integrates perfectly with the real-world, end-to-end workflows demanded by broadcasters. That means handling many file formats and integrating a plethora of media streams – whether HD, SD, MPEG, video iPod … just some of the real-world challenges that broadcasters can find answers to on the Quantel booth. A number of technology partners will be participating.

Still in the broadcast arena, Quantel will be demonstrating integration with the new wave of HD acquisition technologies, including XDCAM-HD and P2-HD. Additionally, Quantel will be showing how its innovative ZoneMagic™ software for sQ systems enables broadcasters to benefit from a true collaborative workflow, whether departments are on the same floor, next door, or across towns, countries or continents.

Graphics

Quantel’s Paintbox and Picturebox sQ graphics creation and playout systems will be playing a major part in the presentations on the booth at NAB, both as part of larger systems and in a standalone graphics role. Once again, integration with real world workflows will be high on the graphics agenda.

Teletrax renews multi-year contract with NBC News Channel

7 February 2006

Teletrax today announced it has renewed a multi-year contract with NBC News Channel, a unit of NBC News, to electronically track broadcast usage of its television news video. Teletrax, a subsidiary of Medialink Worldwide Incorporated, is the first and only global digital video monitoring and media asset management service that provides vital broadcast television intelligence to video content providers such as entertainment companies, news organizations, TV syndicators, and the advertising industry. NBC News is a unit of NBC Universal, whose parent is General Electric.

NBC News Channel distributes approximately 300 news stories each day to NBC affiliates and international clients for use in their news broadcasts and has been successfully using Teletrax to report and evaluate airings of its news video broadcasts for the past three years. Teletrax’s comprehensive monitoring service provides NBC News Channel with reports containing detailed intelligence on how content is used and disseminated by its affiliate stations.

In addition, NBC News Channel will use Teletrax at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Torino, marking the second time in a row it has relied on the video monitoring firm to track distribution of live and taped news stories coming directly from the Olympic Games. Teletrax was also employed onsite in Athens by NBC News Channel during the 2004 Summer Olympics.

“Teletrax’s services have become an integral part of our daily news process, helping us offer our clients the most useful service on a 365-day a year basis,” said Bob Horner, president of NBC News Channel. “Having access to such precise data on a real-time basis during this major story will help us fine-tune our offerings to our clients during the 2006 Winter Olympics.”

“NBC News Channel’s decision to enlist Teletrax to track usage of its output at this high-profile global event – now for two consecutive Games – is a testament to the power of our comprehensive broadcast intelligence service,” said Andy Nobbs, president of Teletrax. “We are extremely proud to continue our longstanding partnership with one of the world’s premier news organizations.”

Launched in 2002 as a service developed by a joint venture between Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG) and Medialink, with an underlying technology that is patent protected both by Philips and Digimarc Corp., Teletrax’s technology embeds an imperceptible and indelible digital watermark into video whenever it is edited, transmitted, broadcast or duplicated.

A global network of decoders or “detectors,” then captures all occurrences of the embedded video being transmitted via satellite, cable or terrestrially and generates tracking reports for the content owners. Reports of individual broadcast airings are delivered online in near real-time to each client’s custom-designed portal or in data file transfers. Each client’s broadcast activity is updated dynamically, 24 hours a day, enabling clients to respond immediately to reported results such as changes in end-user preferences or detections of unauthorized use.

Teletrax currently maintains a proprietary network of detectors that monitor the television broadcasts of over 1,100 channels worldwide. Its expanding U.S. footprint includes more than 800 television stations and cable channels in the top 150 markets and beyond in the United States, representing more than 90% of all U.S. television households. Its international network monitors nearly 200 channels being broadcast from 50 nations and is comprised of 12 monitoring stations in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and South America.

Entertainment, news and media organizations both within and outside of the United States that are also using Teletrax for the tracking of news video, advertising or promotional content include BBC, Buena Vista Television, ABC Television Network, Tribune Entertainment, The NBC Agency, NBC Universal Domestic Television, Reuters Television, Advanced Results Marketing, Mercury Media, Media Review International, Internet Broadcasting Systems, and Medialink. A number of other companies are also in active trials with the Teletrax service.