Quantel
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| Limited | |
| Industry | Broadcast television, video production and motion picture |
| Headquarters | Newbury, Berkshire, England |
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Key people
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| Products | Digital production equipment |
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Number of employees
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1,000 plus (1995) approx 250 (2014) |
| Website | www |
Quantel was a company based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1973 that designed and manufactured digital production equipment for the broadcast television, video production and motion picture industries. They were headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire.
Quantel acquired Snell Ltd. in March 2014. Following a period of consolidation the two companies started operating under the Snell name, trading as Snell Advanced Media or SAM, from September 2015, following the staged removal of the Quantel board of directors beginning with CEO Ray Cross.
The name Quantel comes from Quantised Television, in reference to the process of converting a television picture into a digital signal.
Quantel founder, Peter Michael, had previously founded Micro Consultants Group (MCG). MCG had pioneered a range of fast data conversion products that could be used for converting video signals from analog to digital and back to analog. These devices found use in many early Quantel products.
In the 1980s, Peter Michael merged Quantel (along with his other interests) into the UEI Group of companies. Peter became Chairman with Quantel remaining a privately owned company of the publicly quoted UEI. Under the leadership of Richard Taylor OBE, chairman from 1975 and Paul Kellar MBE, Quantel made several pioneering firsts in video:
This period until 1998 marked the high point of the Company's profitability, size and market position, placing it in the top handful of Broadcast vendors. The company had a global presence with major offices, staff and facilities on the east and west coast of the USA, in Paris, Tokyo, London, Seoul, Hong Kong and Sydney, plus other overseas resources. There was a private air operation - Quantel Aviation - based in Farnborough which included a private Citation IV executive jet. However, as software based products began to gain ground in Quantel's then core businesses of compositing, graphics and news editing, the company was not able to maintain this position.
In 1989 Quantel had been acquired from UEI by Carlton Communications who had also acquired high end sound console manufacturer Solid State Logic as part of the same deal. This relationship ended in 2000 when Quantel management bought the company back for $76.6m funded by Lloyds Banking Group venture capital arm LDC.
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