France's leading sports media group delivers for broadcast, online and mobile with Enterprise sQ

1. case study 10
L’Equipe
L’Equipe teams up with Quantel and its partners
France’s leading sports media group delivers for broadcast, online and mobile
with Enterprise sQ
Quantel – share our passion

2. case study 10 L’Equipe
In mid 2009, L’Equipe TV, France’s leading sports news channel,
picked Quantel and its partners to design and set up an integrated
production and delivery system for broadcast, online and mobile
content. The facility has been up and running since October, enabling
L’Equipe 24/24 and L’Equipe Production to provide digital content to
cable and satellite channels, the internet, digital radio channels and
telecom operators. At the heart of the new operation is a Quantel
Enterprise sQ production system.
Quantel – share our passion

3. case study 10 L’Equipe
In France, L’Equipe stands for quality sports news. The Dream Team for L’Equipe Cover picture: Antoine Grossin
Owned by the Amaury family group, a press dynasty Sébastien Valère’s first decision was to call in STP
This page: Xavier Spender,
that launched the paper just after WWII, the legendary Consultants, a firm based in Brussels which specializes CEO of L’Equipe 24/24 and
daily is by far France’s most loved title (especially in the design and integration of new generation newly appointed Operations
among men). Over the years, L’Equipe has constantly production and delivery systems. “Our philosophy,” and Marketing Director
Sébastien Valère
adapted itself and extended its offer to all media, to explains Marc Schulman of STP, “is to enable the
remain the uncontested champion in its category. Thus, convergence between broadcast and IT-based systems,
in 1998, Amaury launched L’Equipe TV, which has which implies that beyond technical considerations we
become the top-ranked sports information channel in ensure that all contributors to a project work together
France, with an average 4 million viewers every week. to achieve a seamless workflow between hardware and
software and between video signals and data
Leveraging its dominant position in print and television, processing. To achieve that, we advise the broadcaster
L’Equipe has for the last three years focused its in choosing the right technology and the right vendors
development on the Web and mobile media, including and we demand that all parties involved in the project
3G telephones and digital radio. Through its various sign a contract of co-responsibility, which binds them
delivery channels, L’Equipe reaches 18 million people legally, but which above all establishes the basis for a
every month. To increase synergy between these true collaborative effort between key suppliers.”
various media, L’Equipe 24/24 (which oversees the
brand’s digital activities) launched a project at the L’Equipe chose NETIA for archiving and MAM, and MBT
beginning of 2009 to upgrade its production and for on-air automation as partners to set up the workflow
delivery platform. To coordinate the project, Xavier and integrate the Quantel sQ-based environment.
Spender, CEO of L’Equipe 24/24, appointed Sébastien
Valère as Operations and Marketing Director.
“Our project wasn’t simply to upgrade our technical
facilities,” says Sébastien Valère. “Our main goal, in fact,
was to implement a business model for rolling out a
global brand on five different media. We weren’t just
looking for some great machines that would make our
technicians happy. What we wanted was to deploy a total
multimedia and multiplatform newsroom. Our main
requirement was that our suppliers work together to
provide us with an integrated workflow solution to deliver
content 24/7 on all our media. The global solution built
with Quantel kit is right on the money for us.”
Quantel – share our passion

4. case study 10 L’Equipe
2
1 3
Ensuring the link between the past “Personally, I find that it’s in the archive and MAM 1. The Quantel sQ at the very
and the future systems that the Quantel/NETIA setup really provides heart of L’Equipe
“The ultimate challenge we had,” says Jean-Luc Wolff, us with added value,” asserts Christophe Berthier, 2. Editing on the sQ Edit is
Regional Manager of Quantel France, “was to manage Archive Manager of L’Equipe. “Previously, we had an practical and time efficient
the link between the past and the future with teams that archiving system based on a Sine Qua search engine
3. L’Equipe’s online archive
have been working in a mixed environment (tape and which managed our 11,000 tapes and 100,000 workflow is now streamlined
non-linear editing) for 10 years. Our mission with our document references. While this system was fine in a thanks to the Quantel/NETIA
partners was therefore to steer the transition from a broadcast environment, it wasn’t at all designed to deal setup
traditional broadcast system to a mixed media workflow with a mixed media world, where you have a multitude
and to achieve this without complicating people’s lives, of rights to manage for each clip on each delivery
whether they happened to be journalists, editors, archive platform. Today, right from the acquisition phase, certain
managers or technicians.” metadata are automated and others can be
conveniently keyed in. The journalist knows immediately
“It’s true,” adds Fabrice Bouchet, L’Equipe TV broadcast if the rights for the medium or media he’s working for
manager, “that our project was a bit mad since we are available, according to a simple color code (red,
undertook to change our technology, our program grid yellow, green). It’s a true revolution in our workflow
and our station ID all at the same time. Technologically, which frees up the journalists and which increases our
the Quantel and NETIA solutions really gave us an responsiveness in going to air or online.”
unprecedented amount of freedom and our 20 in-house
journalists and their many freelance counterparts
quickly appreciated the advantages of the new setup.
They find the Quantel editing interface to be practical
and they really appreciate being able to get to the
archival material fast and to know straight off if they
have the rights for the use they have in mind.”
Quantel – share our passion

5. case study 10 L’Equipe
ʻʻ
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Everyone knew that
integration was the
critical challenge for
the project.
Marc Schulman of STP
A view of the L’Equipe
newsroom where various
Quantel browsing and
editing applications bring a
new dimension to the daily
workflow of Journalists,
craft editors, archive
managers and technicians
The system “Everyone knew that integration was the Antoine Grossin, a graphics designer and
The Enterprise sQ system at L’Equipe is critical challenge for the project,” adds Marc artistic director who really knows how to get
configured around an sQ server environment, Schulman of STP, “but in fact things turned the very best out of Quantel graphic and
with over 800 hours of broadcast quality out to be less complicated than we expected templating systems and he worked very
storage and Quantel Mission Media Asset and everyone’s openness and empathy closely with us to create this really compelling
Management. Journalists, craft editors, allowed us to find shared solutions. For visual style. The result is there on the screen
directors, archive managers and technicians example, we had to resolve semantic issues and our viewers have told us how much they
share the browsing and editing applications between Quantel and NETIA for handling file appreciate our new look and feel.”
provided by Quantel: sQ View, sQ Cut and sQ transfer protocols, but these were dealt with
Edit on the desktops and sQ Edit Plus for craft pragmatically and in good faith, which meant Winning at home and away
editing. sQ Record and sQ Play applications that we were able to complete the project on As part of the overall project, the team at
handle ingest and playout. The Mission time and on budget, without having to dip into L’Equipe also wanted to integrate the
system includes the Mission Transfer ingest our reserves.” business and services managed by L’Equipe
and export application and Mission Tracker Production, a subsidiary of the newspaper
giving instant search and access to all media. L’Equipe 24/24 was also looking to modernize launched in 2006 which produces and
The whole Quantel system is totally integrated its station ID and ensure that its visual style distributes programs and news packages to
with the NETIA archiving system and MBT guidelines were properly applied for all shows broadcasters, Internet content providers and
automation for broadcasting. and by all the people involved in producing mobile telephone operators. L’Equipe
content, including freelancers. Fabrice Production has over the years worked with
A pragmatic approach Bouchet indicates that “Quantel integrates a outside clients such as SFR (France’s leading
To test the setup, the partners installed a wide variety of graphic design and mobile telecom), Orange, MSN, Air France
nearly full scale prototype on site at NETIA in compositing tools in its solution, to be used and Adidas and it also produces seasonal
Montpellier in Southern France. “Our main by craft editors and graphics designers, but content for ASO (Amaury Sport Organization),
requirement,” states Patrick Vauthier, also which can be conveniently applied by a subsidiary of L’Equipe Group which
Technical Director of L’Equipe 24/24, “was to non specialists. The templating features of the organizes high-profile events such as the Tour
complete the project fast (less than four Quantel system provide us with a wide and de France, the Dakar automobile rally and the
months) and to have an operational workflow tightly controlled series of options that in- Tour of California.
using standard tools. Integration was house journalists and freelancers can easily
therefore the key factor and all partners use and they have been designed to work fast
assumed their responsibilities from the start.” so that even the most sophisticated templates
can be used near to air. Quantel was very
helpful in this process and introduced us to
Quantel – share our passion

6. case study 10 L’Equipe
Above: Graphic design and
artistic direction: Antoine
At a glance Grossin
• L’Equipe TV, France’s leading Sports • Quantel worked closely with
broadcaster, needed to create a partners NETIA, MBT and STP
totally integrated, next-generation Consultants to realize a fully
production system to serve integrated environment
broadcast, internet and mobile
platforms • “The global solution built with
Quantel kit is right on the money for
• Quantel’s Enterprise sQ server- us” – Sébastien Valère, L’Equipe TV
based production technology and
Mission MAM was chosen to provide
the heart of the system
L’Equipe Production provides a wide range of content Jean-Luc Wolff, Regional Manager of Quantel France
to its different in-house and outside clients, from soccer concludes: “The entire Quantel team, in France and
goal flashes (for the French, Italian and Spanish England, successfully created a next generation
Leagues) in near real time on mobile telephones to 30 workflow for totally integrated multi-platform production
minute daily highlights of the Tour de France with and delivery. We participated in a truly collaborative
commentary in eight languages for foreign broadcasters. adventure with our partners and clients. To ensure
smooth transition from the previous system, we called
“Our main requirement,” says Christophe Robin, upon Pascal Ouvrard, our local Quantel trainer who
Executive Producer of L’Equipe Production, “was to worked hard to provide the best training and on-air
easily process contents in post-production and to support to end users. We’re really thrilled to see that
encode them in different formats for delivery to the system is getting the job done, enabling L’Equipe to
different platforms. Between our foreign television produce its programs efficiently and to deliver content
clients, the internet and mobile devices, we have to go seamlessly to all media.”
out in a multitude of formats, from MPEG 1, 2 or 4 to
Flash, via .wmv (Windows Media) and 3GP, all of which
is now straightforward.”
2122-56-519 02.10
quantel.com