The Banff World Television Festival will this year recognize four decades of innovation in the post-production field when manufacturer Quantel receives the Deluxe Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.

‘We selected Quantel on the basis of its body of technological firsts and its longstanding commitment to the television industry,’ says Dan McLellan, executive VP and GM of Deluxe Postproduction, which sponsors the award. ‘We felt recognizing them for their efforts was long overdue.’

Founded in 1973, Newbury, UK-based Quantel has repeatedly made its mark on TV production. In 1976, a Quantel DFS 3000 all-digital framestore helped provide viewers with a picture-in-picture close-up of the Olympic torch run during the opening of the 1976 Summer Games.

Quantel Paintbox made on-air graphics design and production accessible to broadcasters in general in 1981. Four years later, the company released its revolutionary Harry compositing system/nonlinear video editor, and in 1990 Quantel Picturebox solved the issue of stills management in the broadcast environment.

Quantel’s latest advance is generationQ, a server-based technology that covers all aspects of newsroom functions, digital intermediate work, and HD production. And at NAB2006, Quantel unveiled Newsbox HD, a complete, self-contained news system designed to work straight out of the box for both SD and HD newsrooms.

Over the years, Quantel technology has been used not only for television, but also to help produce blockbuster movies. Recent credits include the second and third Star Wars films, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Sin City.

‘We are delighted and deeply honored to accept the Deluxe Outstanding Technical Achievement award at a festival as prestigious as Banff,’ said Quantel managing director and CEO Ken Ellis, in a statement. ‘We will continue to work even harder in the future, pushing the technical boundaries farther, giving filmmakers everything they need to bring their creative visions to stunning life on screen.’

The Deluxe award winner is selected based on recommendations from Canadian broadcast and post execs, and recognizes companies that have made substantial technical contributions to TV production. Previous winners include Steadicam, Discreet, and Avid. The award will be presented to Mark Northeast, Quantel’s VP of sales, at the fest’s annual Awards Luncheon on Monday, June 12.

www.quantel.com