WFMZ-TV in Allentown, PA, is the latest station to opt for generationQ server and editing newsroom technology as it converts to an all digital news environment.
The new installation will offer a completely digital infrastructure based on Quantel’s sQ server that will operate seamlessly over two locations: the station’s Allentown headquarters and its Reading, PA, bureau 30 miles away.
WFMZ employs 140 people and provides five hours of news a day, focusing on the northern tier of the Philadelphia market - a region with more than 1.2 million people. Several key factors persuaded the WFMZ management team to choose Quantel. One was the ease in which the station could network its existing scripting and newsroom automation systems to generationQ. Another was Quantel's Frame Magic technology and its unique asset management capabilities.
The WFMZ set-up is composed of one six-port sQ server, four of the newly launched QEdit edit/ingest stations, two each in Reading and Allentown, and a mixture of 14 QCut and QView workstations for journalists, editors and producers. The station envisions that its journalists will ingest and edit material at both its Allentown studio and Reading bureau. The two are joined seamlessly by IP and microwave links in a revision of the Split Remote system pioneered by Quantel last year.
The station spent two years looking at non-linear news systems before settling on Quantel. Their goal was to find a way to reduce the high, repetitive costs of tape and tape machine maintenance and to improve newsroom workflow.
For more information, please visit: www.quantel.com.
