At NAB, Quantel announced new pricing for Newsbox HD, its tapeless packaged news-production system. The HD version is now available at the same price as the SD edition. Customers can also configure what were previously fixed Newsbox HD systems around their operational requirements, including workstation count, inputs, outputs and other options.
“Many smaller broadcasters still use videotape because new SD equipment makes little economic sense while tapeless HD systems have often remained too expensive,” said John Woodhouse, Senior Product Manager at Quantel. He said Newsbox HD combined HD quality with SD pricing and could scale from small local stations to large regional broadcasters.
Newsbox HD allows SD and HD material to be mixed freely on the same timeline. The system performs format conversion and aspect-ratio adjustment automatically during playback. Quantel says this lets broadcasters move to HD when financially practical while continuing to use their SD archives efficiently. Newsbox HD can scale from five to 25 workstations without a server replacement.
