QUARTZ QMC SELECTED FOR NICK JR CHANNEL

A QUARTZ QMC master control switcher is at the heart of a new installation constructed in London for the Nick Jr. satellite television channel.
The QMC is controllable from Nickelodeon's existing Transmission Suite 1 and from a second newly equipped Transmission Suite 2. The channel’s programme feed comes from a disk-based video server.
Nickelodeon selected the QMC for its ability to integrate with a highly automated playout system. The Quartz switcher will be used as the presentation mixer for all Nick Jr. transmission and was supplied with two QMC control panels (primary and backup) linked to allow dual-location control. An internal logo generator allows the QMC to store and superimpose channel branding idents and images.
Quartz said that Nickelodeon's engineering staff, including head of broadcast engineering Keith Knight, engineering manager Steve O-Neill and project manager John Caswell, were impressed by the QMC's ability to combine very large matrices including a Quartz 32 x 32 serial digital video router and 16 x 4 analogue audio router.
Caswell said: "We chose the Quartz from a commercial viewpoint. The ability to control one Quartz mixer mainframe from a number of daisy-chained control panels suited our application perfectly. A lot of extremely useful facilities are built in, including an emergency button which starts a pre-programmed playlist from the server."
Jointly owned by BSkyB and Viacom, Nickelodeon's UK facility first went on air May 8, 1995 and is one of several Nickelodeon transmission channels worldwide with facilities for local programme origination.