Qatar Television introduces ProductionLink

DiaQuest Products, a software development firm with a focus on the video and film industries, has announced that Qatar Television (QTV), a popular station in the Middle East, is using ProductionLink for ASSIMILATE SCRATCH to provide a seamless connection between SCRATCH and Avid Interplay. QTV went live with its new SCRATCH system with ProductionLink in December.

Based in Doha,  QTV has been on the air since 1970 and has a completely tapeless and file-based workflow. The state broadcaster of Qatar, the channel is available free over the air and via satellite, and its programming is also streamed online. It airs a variety of general programming, including reality and documentary-style content, much of which is produced in-house.

“We use SCRATCH as a final step for high-end finishing and colour grading,” explained Mohamad Fares, Head of Broadcast Technology, QTV. “We chose it due to its powerful colour and compositing capabilities and exceptional performance. Before SCRATCH, we were using Avid Media Composer and Avid Symphony for colour correction and colour grading.”

QTV had previously built its workflow around Avid Interplay production asset management (PAM) and media asset management (MAM), so moving files from SCRATCH would have been problematic. However, with the ProductionLink plug-in, content can be published to the station’s Avid Interplay system without transcoding and used immediately in Avid applications.

Fares said ProductionLink was easy to install and because its features appear within the SCRATCH user interface, it is also very easy to use. “ProductionLink was extremely helpful because it eliminated the disconnect between our post production workflow and high-end finishing,” said Fares. “From our point of view, and thanks to ProductionLink, SCRATCH is now an integral part of our workflow.”

ASSIMILATE will be using  ProductionLink on all of its demo machines at the 2013 NAB Show (Booth SL12705).