Who We Are

The driving force behind QC Boutique is Esteban Medaglia, a life-long cinephile and home-theater aficionado who has been singing the praises of physical media for almost 40 years. His collection encompasses 2500+ titles, from LaserDiscs to UHD discs, as well as thousands of film-related books and magazines (his favorites are still Video Watchdog and the early Cinefantastique era, although he still has a soft spot for Starlog and Fangoria, both of which are responsible for his obsession with sci-fi and horror movies ever since the tender age of 7.)

Esteban's background includes a degree in both TV and Radio production, 20+ years of experience as a TV cameraman, director, journalist, writer, magazine editor, translator and graphic designer. But his true passion has always been film and filmmaking, and the manner in which we can reproduce this most wonderful of art forms at home.

LaserDisc was the format that made Esteban into a full-blown A/V enthusiast (he still owns his very first LD spinner, a Sony MDP405, and loves hunting online marketplaces for any working units to add to his player collection), and DVD, Blu-ray and now UHD Blu-ray took that passion further, allowing for a level of audiovisual quality that was once simply unimaginable. He has been obsessing over aspect ratios, resolutions, codecs, compression artifacts, encoding characteristics, black levels and grain patterns ever since.

Some of his happiest memories revolve around the first time he experienced Dario Argento's "Suspiria" in glorious Dolby Pro-Logic at home (courtesy of the old Magnum US LaserDisc), working extra hours to be able to purchase the so-called "Definitive" edition of the original Star Wars trilogy on CAV LD (we were so innocent... it was definitely not definitive!), to replaying the opening scene of the "Terminator 2" LD literally hundreds of times to demonstrate to his VHS-happy friends what 425i resolution and Dolby Surround were all about, to his first purchase of a "large" TV (a Sony Trinitron in all its 32" majesty), to his first DVD purchase ("Starship Troopers") and exposure to digital video, to the joyous time when he was finally able to display 24p transfers correctly at home (his favorite all-time consumer-level display is still the Panasonic VT/ZT60 plasma, which can refresh at 48hz). The flipside to all of this was finally realizing that, even though one can never watch too many films, days still have only 24 hours.

As a collector himself, and particularly in today's boutique label golden period, he understands what the end-user expects and demands from a physical media product, from a high quality encode to error-free subtitles. He has dedicated literally decades trying to achieve the most cinematic and faithful-to-the-source experience possible at home. In many ways, even though he did not originally realize this, he has been QC'ing all his life.

And loving every minute of it.