Germany’s WDR Taps Quantel for HD Upgrade to Sports Coverage
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German broadcaster WDR in Cologne will begin broadcasting its major sports programming in HD on Feb. 13, led by ‘Sportsschau Bundesliga’ German premier league soccer coverage. The entire production process, from ingest to playout, will be handled in HD using Quantel Enterprise sQ server-based production technology.
WDR has been producing ‘Sportsschau Bundesliga’ for the whole ARD public broadcasting network in Germany since 2003 in standard definition using Quantel Enterprise sQ technology and will stay with Quantel for the HD switch.
“Enterprise sQ provides an ideal platform to take WDR and everyone else into HD production,” says Thomas Birner, Quantel Director of Sales, Central Europe and Middle East. “It is well proven in terms of its ability to grow and adapt to future requirements – as the WDR installation shows – and its ability to serve all formats gives broadcasters complete flexibility in their operations.”
The system was converted to HD throughout the course of the summer of 2009, and production of WDR’s normal standard definition programming continued uninterrupted. This was key to WDR, who did not want the workflow of its original SD Quantel system to be compromised during the upgrade.