German broadcaster ARD-aktuell has deployed a full HD service for all its news broadcasters, powered by Quantel’s Enterprise sQ fast-turnaround production system. Quantel technology has been used for news programme Tagesschaü for almost a decade, and the recent HD move meant an upgrade of the system.
The new HD Enterprise sQ system supports around 100 sQ Cut desktop editors, fully integrated with ARD-aktuell’s NRCS. The Enterprise sQ system is split into two zones to provide additional redundancy and has storage for 600 hours of HD.
The ARD-aktuell upgrade also entailed the construction and commissioning of a new 320sqm HD news studio, which included a 17.5m media wall behind the news anchors’ desks, featuring a constantly changing panorama of pictures and graphics. The studio includes two galleries, one for the daily news shows such as Tagesschaü and Tagesthemen, the second for tagesschau24, ARD-aktuell’s 24 hour news channel.
“We carried out extensive checks to ensure that the system would continue to perform faultlessly with the higher data load of HD,” said Andreas Lützkendorf, head of programming for tagesschau24. “It was very important to us that the production workflow wasn’t compromised during the four months’ changeover period to HD, and the Quantel system met this requirement and is delivering very stable performance at HD.”
“We are delighted to be continuing our long-term relationship with ARD-aktuell and to have helped them transition smoothly to HD production,” commented Martin Mulligan, Quantel sales director. “Tagesschaü at 8pm is Germany’s most watched news programme, and system stability and productivity are vital in its continuing success; these are key attributes of our Enterprise sQ fast-turnaround production systems.”
