France's leading sports news provider consolidates its position in broadcast and online services
L'Equipe TV, France's No. 1 sports information channel, has chosen Quantel and its partners to design and set up an integrated production and delivery system for broadcast, online and mobile content. The facility has been up and running since October, enabling L'Equipe 24/24 and L'Equipe Production to provide digital content to cable and satellite channels, the internet, digital radio channels and telecom operators.
"Our project wasn't simply to upgrade our technical facilities," says Sébastien Valère, Operations and Marketing Manager of L'Equipe 24/24. "Our main goal, in fact, was to implement a business model for rolling out a global brand on five different media. We weren't just looking for some great machines that would make our technicians happy. What we wanted was to deploy a totally multimedia and multi-platform newsroom. Our main requirement was that our suppliers work together to provide us with a totally integrated workflow solution that enables us to deliver content 24/7 on all our media. The global solution built with Quantel kit is right on the money for us."
L'Equipe's system is configured around Enterprise sQ servers with over 800 hours of broadcast quality storage and a Mission Media Asset Management system. Journalists, editors, producers, archive managers and technicians share the same browse and edit applications: sQ View, sQ Cut, sQ Edit and sQ Edit Plus, as well as Mission Transfer and sQ Record.
To achieve the required workflow, Quantel worked closely with NETIA which provided the archiving and documentation system and with MBT for automation. Integration was successfully coordinated by Marc Schulman of the STP consulting firm.
"The entire Quantel team was really in high gear for this complex project," says Jean-Luc Wolff, Quantel France Regional Manager. "Our challenge was to design an innovative and integrated tapeless workflow environment. To ensure seamless transition from the previous system, we were especially focused on end-user training and on-air support. We are really very pleased to see this setup working smoothly and fulfilling our customer's needs and expectations, facilitating production and distribution to all media."
