Genetic Engineering 2 Debuts with 6K Capabilities; Quantel Weighs in on IP Video Tech

At NAB, Quantel showed refinements to its Pablo Rio software that make it fit a broader variety of workflows, including Avid effects conform for Avid editors exporting to the Rio, 4K XAVC export, DCP import, and support for the latest Red SDK. Quantel also said licensed encoding to ProRes 4444, 422 (HQ), 422, 422 (LT) and 422 (Proxy) will be supported. 

"Encoding ProRes is the most asked-for feature across our post customer base," said Quantel Marketing Director Steve Owen in a prepared statement. 

Pablo Rio is also getting Optical Flow motion estimation for smooth slow- and fast-motion effects along with other features including audio in multi-layer timelines, the ability to soft-mount AVC HD (.mts) files, and improved implementation of data from the Mocha tracker.

Quantel also showed Genetic Engineering 2, its new shared-storage system supporting anywhere from 18 TB to 400 TB of storage. Quantel said Light Iron is the first user of a 6K Genetic Engineering 2 system. 

In addition, Quantel announced that it had submitted a technology proposal to the EBU/SMPTE/VSF Joint Task Force on Professional Networked Streamed Media (JT-NM) recommending the use of standard, off-the-shelf IT for IP in production. "The move to IP is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the media industry," said Quantel R&D Director Simon Rogers. "It's vital that we stick with mainstream IP technology if we are to gain the maximum benefit from this transition. Short-term proprietary solutions are not the way forward."