so honestly, what do we all think of a quantel iQ

[hyrlvlrec]

Simple question….. what do we REALLY think of iQ or eQ as an alternative to smoke/fire???????

Up’s? Down’s? Comparable’s?

The floor’s yours.

[Anonymous]

We have one of these boxes, eQ actually, which in comparison of iQ is lower res, HD.

I’m inferno/flame user, so I might not be objective, but I can tell you that for the most of online jobs it’s really cool, but for the most of flame world users, it’s something “different”. it has great colour correction, editing painting etc, but it won’t replace Flame boxes i think, mostly because there aren’t any advanced 3D compositing techniques there, no extended bicubics, particles (only through plugins), some sort of modular keyer.

But on the other hand, eQ is better for colour correction while working with clients, because it has this “transfer-looking” thingy, and it’s more intuitive. It’s good for painting stuff in HD, 2K. It’s really cool as for stability, because no matter in what place you hit restart button, after you run eQ again, it’s really in the same place, same module etc. Also, you can put any kind of clip there, any kind of format, res, fps etc, on the very same timeline, and it really works.

But i’d personally rather work on Flame anyway 🙂

[merv]

hi…ive been working on quantel gear for the most part of my career(16yrs) and have tried flame about 12yrs back when it was running on the first onyx…i must say that since quantel’s developement on open platform systems like the Q family, things have been looking up for the users…however like all relatively new systems there r bugs which needs to b resolved…im on flame/inferno/flint now and it is so much different from the very first flame i worked on so long ago…speed and stabality for one has improved drastically…after i left from working on eq to discreet gear, i would say i lean more towards discreet…not that eq is bad…but once quantel catches up in refining the Qs to be as smooth ad the discreet stuff(which is only a matter of time)…when that happens i think it doesnt matter which u use but rather who uses it…having said that, ive seen work done on less popular(from clients pov) software like aftereffects that can blow any quantel or discreet users(including myself) because the user is just plain brilliant…heh…have a nice day and keep on exploring…cheers

[emo]

I have been working with Eq for 3yrs now,and I have to say its a bit more mature
now. The older revisions use to crash alot. The compositing capabilites are better.
I think the schematic view can be reworked a bit. There are plenty of usefull tools
especially in Qutility as well as Qplugin (hosts alot of 3rd party plugs). I think Smoke/fire, as well as FFI have the better edge. To me I think Autodesk products have always come on top with its compositing capabilities.Color warper,3d keyer,Batch,tracking,ext bicubics,morphing/warping,optics,timewarp,etc…….
I can go on an on. I would also take a good look at Avid DS nitiris. There is alot
of power in this Editing/Compositing software (4k,2k,HD and SD). The compositing
is node based, alot like shake and Dfusion. It can get alittle bit sluggish when you
have a large tree to process so you have to use cache nodes.

[mpixls]

I used the Quantel iQ and eQ for about a year on television and film projects. I have used smoke and Fire for over 2 years. What I find most interesting is the commentary from people in my industry that have never even seen or used the iQ/eQ systems. I can tell you from having used both professionally that the Q systems are very very fast at processing HD and 2k material. I would venture to say from recollection that it is significantly faster that Discreet/Autodesk systems in mixed resolution projects. i have not seen the latest iterations of iQ/eQ, but my frustrations on iQ/eQ were with the effects side of things several years back. HD formats were handled extremely fast, and a lot of what needs rendering in Smoke/Fire didn’t need rendering in the eQ/iQ. Myself as well as other longtime Discreet artists still feel the absolute best airbrush was inside the Quantel products.
My2 cents.

[Anonymous]

Recently started working on the eQ after being on DS for the last few years. In a nut shell, eQ lags behind Avid and Discreet products by a good five years. It’s tool set, as far as curves/roto, etc is sub par, slow and difficult. NO bezier curves, no multi layer compositing without having to enter a secondary timeline. Pen is nowhere near as responsive as on DS or Discreet. Most FX functions I now do in either Combustion or After Effects as the eQ is just TOO slow, especially if I have clients in the room. It does have some good points. The color correct tools are excelent but suffer from the same problem with curves as mattes do – slow and non responsive. Handles HD seemlessly and is relativly fast to change image size and formattes. Quantel has a LONG way to go to catch up to the rest of the industry and it may be too late for them.

[Anonymous]

I think that eQ/iQ can’t be compared directly to smoke/flame stations, since Quantel really focused on something else than Discreet did. They’ve made a fast machine for doing large hd/2k work as far as goes for colour correction, retouches, clean’ups etc. Still, for effects Flame has unbeatable toolset and workflow, but seriously, as I am Smoke and Flame user, I must say eQ is more similar to Smoke/Fire products.

[merv]

one thing i observed while working on the eq is this…im a compositor working on a tablet and pen…on my right is an audio mixer and on my left is a telecine controller…my table is all cluttered with gadgets i dont really use because i can still do it with my pen…its not a big problem but kinda weird when a client asks me if im a colourist learning to be a compositor or the other way around…lol…u have to give credit to quantel for showmanship when it comes to presentation…:)…btw i never use those tools so i kinda want to know if any eq users with that option ever seriously use it?…cheers…ps…sorry for deviating from the actual topic…:p

[mpixls]

I used the “Q Color” controller quite a bit and really liked it. As for the audio panel, didn’t use it at all. As for speed, I feel the poster above complaining about slow performance should have their system checked. The only speed issues for me were with the plug-ins, which were dog slow.

[Anonymous]

my comments about the eQ being slow refer mostly to the mattes and curves. they are nowhere near as responsive or as funtional as the curves and matte creation tools in Smoke/Flame and the DS. The lack of bezier curves and quantels work arounds are a major headache

[mpixls]

I agree with you regarding performance issues when interacting with splines/bezier manipulation. i have found that it’s pretty hard to beat the Discreet/Autodesk g-mask interactivity.

[Anonymous]

hyrlvlrec wrote:

Simple question….. what do we REALLY think of iQ or eQ as an alternative to smoke/fire???????

Up’s? Down’s? Comparable’s?

The floor’s yours.

I can’t say that I would ever think that an eQ would be worth a purchase, so we can just talk in terms of an iQ vs. Smoke.

For SD/HD Shortform work chances are that a Linux Smoke will be more of the choice. You’ll be able to get more done by way of soft effects for the quickt timeline stuff. The DVE literally dessimates Qfx in almost every way – the only exception being that you can have your sparks/plugins in Qeffects in a very very very basic schematic that sadly only works 1 in 10 times.

The single layer timeline in the iQ will defeinitely not be a plus compare to the Smoke either. To be honest often times it can get to be very very frustrating. As someone mentioned in an earlier post – in terms of the general accepted level of function – the iQ is definitely several years behind that of Smoke and DS.

But there’s of course two sides. If I were only doing long format work – which is what we are doing all the time – with minor effects and a ton of colour correction, and in 1920×1080 in 444 RGB or 2k or higher – the playing field tips quite a bit…

I can set a 2k conform from the san running, then go into qeffects render out 3 different versions of a trailer in 2k that I later playout in realtime to a Digibeta with realtime pan and scan, letter box and 3d lut. Then record the offline for acts 1 -5 of the feature I’m conforming in, then bring some 16mm material scanned on the Spirit to HDCAM SR that’s going to be used on the show in 48i, dustbust it in Effects, and then insert it into the 2k conform for act1 that finnished up while I was dustbusting. I never restarted the iQ.

I never changed projects or configs.

The video output can crossplay 444 to 422 with user definiable black and white points, luts and crops/scaling – all on the flick of a switch. If you use Filmlight, like we do, then you can even pipe your 2k material, scaled to either a pilarboxed 16×9 or cropped to 1:1.78 through a 3d lut in 444 and scaled to a leagal 422 for monitoring on the BVMD series 24 and 32 monitors.

For grading Effects and the Qcolor/Pablo interface is superior to a Pen and tablet in my mind – simply because you can do more than one thing at once. For exmaple a lot of time when lifting the floor your previously balanced blacks might begin to tint. With two hands yu can make the correction and the counter-correction at the same time – whereas a pen and tablet user would have to do the operations seperate.

All this being said, the iQ has more than it’s share of bugs and bullshit Quantel mentaility to deal with. The days of “this,” “that” and “here” are still not gone and the splines are a disaster. There are database errors to do with memory leaks in history, random crashing in the effects tree and why of why do you always have to swipe to paint? It could be called “Newbury knows best.” In a recent post to the iQ usergroup I wrote:

I guess what I’m trying to get across is that each box should be sold with a little notification sticker saying something like:

“WARNING! If you buy this machine you must be prepared to do things in a completely alien fashion, using outdated concepts and workflows which will produce a very pleasing result, but potentially/probably also have the following side effects:

Dizziness, drowsiness, premature hair-loss, massive frustration, potential weight gain or loss, and chapter 11″

The background rendering thing is really cool though… don’t remember if I mentioned that. Like haveing burn built into your machine.

At any rate, almost as usual, the decision of what kit to buy comes down to primarily what is the task at hand. Inevitably there are so many factors that will need to be addressed, but definitely start with “What is it that I need to do.”

Best,
Chris

[Author]

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