Quantel Hal - 1997 demo with TransformFX

A demonstration of Quantel's Hal video motion graphics design system from 1997.
At the time, Quantel equipment was unmatched for speed and power in TV motion graphic design. It worked with completely uncompressed digital SD video and was a mix of proprietary hardware and software, which made it enormously expensive.
Nowadays, of course, all this can be done on a cheap laptop computer. But back then, Quantel was pretty much the only game in town for high-end motion graphic design. Adobe AfterEffects was available, but it simply couldn't compete with Quantel's processing speed and integration with broadcast infrastructure.

[@Ingens_Scherz]

Note how all the video grabs are about the same length (no more than a few seconds). That's all the early flash memory could store. And that took a huge number of what were then extremely expensive SD RAM chips. But it unleashed some very potent design possibilities. Awesome system!

[@dunebasher1971]

Hal didn't use flash memory, it used Quantel's proprietary hard disk array, known as a Dylan (pronounced as in Bob), which was industry-leading for serving full-framerate uncompressed SD video without any frame drops or lag. A single Dylan contained 20 SCSI hard disks each with its own separate controller, making up 24GB of storage which could hold 15 minutes of video. That could be a single 15-minute clip if you wanted, but then you'd have no storage left over for actually doing any editing or compositing work.

[@blu3_enjoy]

incredible machine... very powerful

[@studiopaeper2877]

oh you uploaded it in 50p - nice

[@ShadowArchive]

Great vid thanks for uploading.

[@JHollowayNetwork]

Now wouldn't you happen to have demos from other motion graphics design agencies such as 3 Ring Circus (John Sideropoulos's production company), Quantel Henry, NBC Magic Room (NBC in-house graphics agency), Gannett Production Services (GPS), Novocom and the Dallas-based Electronic Graphics and Design (EGAD) from around the same time?, although several Novocom demos are already on RUclips.

[@AlexClarke619]

Did Quantel Henry made the graphics for TBN The Best Image Promo that was aired on the Trinity Broadcasting Network back in 1995?