Quantegy may be Bankrupt!!

[dolphinius_rex]

This was just sent to me by my Quantegy Rep:

As of Friday December 31, 2004 Quantegy has "ceased operations pending
restructuring". All 260+ employees, including myself, have been laid-off
pending further notice. Although there are some conflicting reports in the
media about whether or not Quantegy has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, at this
time this has not been confirmed.

Quantegy is the only remaining company producing professional grades of
audio mastering tape and instrumentation tape and has been active in recent
years in the production of various professional video and data-tape
products.

I may be called upon in the near future to assist in the sale of Quantegy's
remaining inventory so if you are interested please keep in touch and
contact me at home at email ******@******.comor phone ***-***-****.

Similarly, it would help if you could put the word out that I am looking for
work in case there is a job opportunity out there.

Its been a great pleasure to serve you for the last 5-6 years and I thank
you for your support. I wish you the best of success in the new year!

Best Regards,

**** ********
Email: *******@******.com
Home Phone: ***-***-****

Keep in mind, that this is being written from the Toronto (Canada) branch. So when he says that Quantegy is the only remaining company producing professional grades of audio mastering tape and instrumentation tape, he probably is referring to North America only (since Emtec still exists in Germany I believe?)... although I could be wrong about this.

Most people probably won't care about Quantegy going bankrupt, since they aren't a huge brand name for DVDR or CD-R media.... but they actually were quite popular among professional audio and video companies, and mastering facilities.

[RJW]

Emtec is still selling in Europe.
Worldwide you still have SONY. which also sells most profesional storages media. (all sorts of tapes/dvd-/+r/cd-r)

[dolphinius_rex]

Yeah, but Sony doesn't sell any Reel 2 Reel Audio mastering tape anymore. The only other company that might still do that is Emtec, and I'm not even 100% sure about it.

[RJW]

Emtec doesn't sell any reel to reel tapes but we get later back on that one.
However don't forget that these sort of tapes are hardly used in the profesional studio's these days.
Also it seems that recorders are no longer made.
Current studio's mosly use digital stuff. (HD/DAT/ADAT/CD-R(W)/MD)
Also the homerecording market has allmost completely turned digital when it comes to equipement.
So is this bad or worse. Well never underestimate the quality of the producer and the other equipement.
I have seen products which were recorded with quite some budget really sound like shit while other stuff made with student affordable equipement sounded much better.

About Emtec
Infact Emtec was bought up by MPOTEC. (Research shows that this was probally end 2003/ begining 2004)
Which we all know from the MPO france cd/dvd producer.
The same who also makes GOLD Media DVD-recordables.
Now some folks might wonder why use optodisc/Princo/mbil and other crap media if MPO can produce some decent media themselves. Well what if crappy princo disc's cost much less !!!.
The point is the taiwanes indian crap media is much cheaper as MPO can produce themselves.
So this explains why all higher quality EMTEC media is made by MPO these days (The scratch proof/gold ) because at these products thers is no competition or the competition is just as expensive.

Current EMTEC products are
CD-R, DVD, Video tapes, Camcorder tapes, Audio tapes, Inkjet Paper, Photo Paper.
All stuff mostly launched at the consumer market. Only on DVD an cd-r they still seem to have interested in the studio market.

[dolphinius_rex]

Emtec doesn't sell any reel to reel tapes but we get later back on that one.
However don't forget that these sort of tapes are hardly used in the profesional studio's these days.

Hrm... while it might be true that many places do not use reel-reel tape anymore, I can also tell you that many places still do. Just not (obviously) enough to make it worth running a manufacturing plant for.

Since the company I work for lost support from Quantegy, we've had a HUGE amount of interest all of a sudden, from people who use reel-2-reel tape. Although I try to say as little about my job as possible (especially online!) I will say that one of my key responsabilities is dealing with these mastering facilities who use this tape. Trust me... telling these places that "nobody uses this stuff anymore" does *not* make them feel any better when they are all of a sudden forced to buy all new equipment if they want to stay in business.

Ironically, in the middle of typing this message, I had someone walk in and buy a whole bunch of Reel-2-reel tape

[MadBurner]

My clients still use U-matic (3/4"), MII, Betacam, Reel-to-Reel and a variety of other legacy formats. Heck, I still stock Betamax! While a lot of firms are upgrading to digital, it is still vary costly for the majority of firms to do so.

I agree with Dolph, these older formats are still used and are still in demand and the demand will only get stronger with news like this!

MB

[dolphinius_rex]

My clients still use U-matic (3/4"), MII, Betacam, Reel-to-Reel and a variety of other legacy formats. Heck, I still stock Betamax! While a lot of firms are upgrading to digital, it is still vary costly for the majority of firms to do so.

I agree with Dolph, these older formats are still used and are still in demand and the demand will only get stronger with news like this!

MB

Umatic tape eh? wow... that's gotta be hard to get now! Maxell just discontinued it late last year, and Quantegy is gone now... so what does that leave? is Sony still distributing it??

Betacam is still VERY popular... and far too expensive in my opinion

Betamax on the other hand... again, I have no idea where to even get that. I think my workplace had a small amount of very old stock... but I think it's gone now.

hehe, actually still have some old 16mm magstock! Now *THAT* is tough to find!!

I guess it's really true that old formats die hard!

[MadBurner]

Umatic tape eh? wow... that's gotta be hard to get now! Maxell just discontinued it late last year, and Quantegy is gone now... so what does that leave? is Sony still distributing it??

Betacam is still VERY popular... and far too expensive in my opinion

Betamax on the other hand... again, I have no idea where to even get that. I think my workplace had a small amount of very old stock... but I think it's gone now.

hehe, actually still have some old 16mm magstock! Now *THAT* is tough to find!!

I guess it's really true that old formats die hard!

I believe that Sony is still distributing U-matic. Once they stop, the market should get real interesting!

Betacam is very expensive but still a lot cheaper than Digital Betacam

16mm, WOW! Now talk about old media

MB

[RJW]

Sony is indeed still distributing these.