The Harlequin Host Renderer is optimised to consume the vast amount of data that a print job requires today whether it’s the sharp increase in live transparency that you might see in photobooks or the greater amount of variable data in personalised direct mail or transactional printing. The result is that print shops using the Harlequin engine to drive their presses will see a faster return on their investment and be in a position to take on an increasing variety of print jobs.

“Presses are getting faster and must be fed pages quickly enough to keep them running at maximum speed in order to achieve a good ROI,” says Martin Bailey, chief technology officer, Global Graphics Software.  “With the Harlequin Host Renderer as the engine in your digital front end you can easily achieve this without sacrificing the correct, predictable output and the high-quality colour that you need to get repeat business. It’s perfect for many print sectors, from variable data labeling to personalised marketing materials, from general commercial print to print on demand, so print shops will benefit from being able to expand into new types of work.”

The speed achieved by version 3 of the Harlequin Host Renderer is due to a number of significant new features each of which increases processing power so that pages pass through the RIP at a faster pace than ever before.  Harlequin VariData™ accelerates the processing time of regular PDF files containing variable data including, but not only, PDF/VT files; and Harlequin Parallel Pages™ allows the RIP to interpret one page while it’s still rendering the previous one. This allows print shops to take maximum advantage of multi-core computers. The Harlequin Host Renderer is also available as a 64-bit build to access additional memory when it’s needed for pages with large amounts of data.

The Harlequin RIP drives the HP Indigo digital press range as well as HP’s IHPS high speed web presses.  It’s to be found in an increasing number of digital press solutions from light to medium volume up to ultra-high volume, including solutions from SIS and Miyakoshi.  Other announcements are expected in the run up to drupa.

“We know that our technology is outstandingly fast and this is borne out by the number of press manufacturers that have asked to evaluate the Harlequin RIP over the past six months,” adds Bailey.  They’ve discovered it really does give them the power and scalability they need on which to build future solutions.”

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