AVID Unity versus Quantel SQ

[Dom Silverio]

Avid UNITY is a SAN. Edit Plus is a NLE. 2 different type of products.

[Fayeque Rahman]

Hi MPE! Thank you for your post. Apologies for being unclear – I realize what I described above are two different systems.

I think my question should have run as follows, really: Why switch to SQ Edit from Media Composer when the latter can function on a server based system (Unity; Interplay)?

Furthermore, since AVID deals easily with, say, .psd, .ai and .eps formats but Quantel doesn’t, why would a broadcasting company that uses those types of files on a regular basis switch systems across the board?

As a matter of detail, I believe, also, that sQ Edit deals with rendering and playing FX in real-time in a strange way. That is, one cannot watch FX on a time-line unless the entire structure is rendered first, unlike AVID which is way more practical. Moving from Media Composer to SQ Edit, accordingly, seems like a step down. Is this correct?

[Joseph Szopa]

SQ is an edit seat, but it can be attached to a greater Quantel server. Servers are array systems, hot swappable, and frame based, instead of file based. This allows multiple users to look at the same clips and cut different off-line timelines simultaneously. The workflow is set up so every time a clip is ingested into the servers a proxy low res clip is created as an offline, with the exact same timecode and visual data. The SQ+ timelines are then cut and sent back to the server as metadata, and the server matches the metadata to the frames. After working on Quantel for two years, I’ve found that the way it performs is much more efficent when cutting for live TV. While the system isn’t infallible, it does a great job when you know how to use it. Any users switching from a file-based system such as Avid or Final Cut will find the transition to be difficult, but over time, you will discover that building quick effects is supremely easier in Quantel than other platforms. I did a bang-up five-box effect for a freelance project in Motion the other day, and it took me 2 hours just because the interface is so hard to navigate, and slipping and sliding clips is so difficult to do on the timeline. I recreated the same effect in Quantel the next day, and it took me twenty minutes. Also, with Quantel, once you know the interface, you know all the interfaces. Chroma Keys are total piece of cake. There are slight differences in how you navigate SQ and a Pablo Stereoscopic.