Quantel and Snell will be out in force at NAB 2015 delivering answers for three key customer issues:
Transitioning to a more flexible and agile infrastructure
Content factories today need to be able to flex and adapt as business priorities and needs change. Their infrastructure will transition from SDI to IP and be built from commodity hardware and media aware software. At NAB we’re demonstrating a complete IP system including routing, production switching, processing and playout. We will also be showing how to transition from today’s SDI world into this IP future with modules for Sirius 800 routers and Kahuna switchers and a hybrid SDI/IP control system that enables current products to work across both worlds – eliminating the cost and disruption of a complete lift out.
There will also be a raft of new developments across routers, switchers, channel in a box and news production that ensure customers can get the best out of their existing infrastructure while they transition to the IP future.
Reducing headcount and increasing output
With audiences fragmenting and the number of media channels continuing to multiply, content creators and distributors need to deliver more with less to make the economics add up. The answer is more intelligence and automation in the pipeline. At NAB Morpheus and ICE enhancements will deliver a sophisticated on-screen presence more efficiently, and adaptive cadence detection on Alchemist OD will streamline file-based conversion workflows.
Media aware monitoring has the potential to dramatically improve output quality while simultaneously lowering costs. The revolutionary Snell Media Biometrics technology makes media aware monitoring a practical proposition–for the first time automated monitoring allows playout centers to know that they are delivering the correct content across every channel–100% certainty, 100% of the time, 100% automatically.
Telling compelling stories
However efficient the operation is, it is great content that attracts and retains audiences. Quantel and Snell are showing a host of new developments at NAB that enable content creators to tell compelling stories in new ways.
Developments on display include: advances in 4K; Pablo Rio handling 8K 60p in realtime; enhanced teamworking with QTube–enabling the right people to work together on a story, wherever they are in the world; and the new LiveTouch sports highlighting system with integrated editing, enabling more sophisticated and engaging sports coverage, more quickly and easily.
“NAB 2015 is the first opportunity for Quantel and Snell to demonstrate the breadth and depth of our complete product range,” said Martin Mulligan, sales director. “The raft of new products and developments on show will simplify, streamline and even transform workflows – enabling our industry to transition to its IP future.”
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More