AFP Adds Quantel’s New sQ Servers

International news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has invested in Quantel’s new sQ 1800 servers for its new global news production solution. AFP’s Enterprise sQ system supports more than 50 simultaneous users at the Paris headquarters, a large operation in London, 10 international bureaus and more than 100 roving journalists.

Quantel says the sQ 1800 servers are 100% compatible with AFP’s existing Enterprise sQ system, providing more disk space for original footage and support for more editing workstations.

When the new system goes live, scheduled for late 2015, AFP expect to produce more than 100 unique video stories a day, with localized versions for six different markets, all in TV and web formats, making a total output at least 1,200 media assets every day.

In addition to daily news ingest, all system users will have access to the online archive, expected to accumulate up to 3,000 hours of media every year.

Philippe SENSI, AFP deputy CIO, said: “The new servers are an investment for the future, allowing us to take maximum advantage of the latest generation of disk and processing technologies. We have developed a close relationship with Quantel and Snell over the past year, with our support team travelling to Quantel and Snell’s Newbury, U.K., headquarters every two months to work with the development team to debrief and get an update on the project plan.”

Tim Thorsteinson, CEO of Quantel and Snell, said: “We’re working very closely with the AFP team to ensure their workflow has the ability to adapt and grow as future requirements in the industry change. The new servers give AFP unbeatable speed from ingest to editing to playout, maintaining its position as one of Europe’s leading fast-turnaround news production facilities.”