Quantel, Newtek, Teresis Media Management, Light Illusion, and G-Tech/Hitachi GST

• Quantel announced a free software upgrade for the eQ and Pablo HD systems that supports 2K Red workflows. Version 4.1 of the Quantel software is slated for release next month. Naturally, software can only do so much – you’ll still need to make sure you have enough juice on the hardware side to move all that 2K data.
• NewTek upgraded its TriCaster portable live-production system to v2.5, adding the ability to record video in studio-profile MPEG-2 with 4:2:2 color sampling, which should boost the quality of chroma keys. The company has also tweaked the MPEG-2 encoder to deliver higher levels of quality at higher data rates. The goal is to get the TriCaster in line with broadcast-quality video production. The upgrade to 2.5 is free for TriCaster 2.0 users, $995 for TriCaster PRO owners, and $495 for users of TriCaster 1.0 and TriCaster STUDIO. (NewTek: www.newtek.com)
• Teresis Media Management introduced single-pass encoding ingest capability for Avid users. That means editors can run a single encode on their tape-based footage, creating dailies and Avid MXF files for offline editing as part of the same process, reducing the time they spend fumbling with tapes. (Teresis Media Management: 310-595-4236 or sales@teresis.com)

• Steve Shaw’s U.K. digital-imaging specialist Digital Praxis is now known as Light Illusion. The company recently updated its 3D  LUT  builder to support LUT  burn-in, which uses one image to generate a new set of images with a given LUT applied, format conversion and image resizing; color-space conversion; and more LUT and image formats. Users can “rip”  LUTs from any other systems, cloning them for use across a single facility or working environment. (Light  Illusion:  www.lightillusion.com)

• Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) has purchased G-Technology parent company Fabrik. G-Tech is well-known for its line-up of disk drives, including the G-RAID series aimed at audio and video editors. Hitachi said the business would “continue intact,” forming the core of a new external-storage business for Hitachi. Fabrik co-founder and CEO Mike Cordano joins the Hitachi GST executive management team. (Hitachi GST: www.hitachigst.com)