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Five Questions: Grass Valley

We pose the same questions to key broadcast vendors

By Charlie White

What's the state of the broadcast industry today? We asked key broadcast product vendors the same five specific questions about their products, customers and growth areas they see for their companies and the broadcast industry in general.  We now simultaineously publish the answers of all the companies that responded to our query, in hopes of giving you a good idea of the issues on the minds of broadcast equipment suppliers circa late 2006. Here is the response from Grass Valley.

1. Tell us why your biggest-selling product is so successful.

The Grass Valley product range covers the whole spectrum of digital video production, so picking a single top product is difficult.

An outstanding success for Grass Valley has been the Profile® series. It was the very first practical video server, and it has linked the Grass Valley name with excellent video servers for more than a decade. Advances pioneered by the Grass Valley Profile have included multiple I/O ports; mixed HD and SD operation and seamless multi-format outputs; SAN central storage; and wide area network interconnections.

While the Profile platform ? now in its fifth generation ? remains an important item in our product portfolio, the unrivalled knowledge and experience gained by our server team has allowed us to introduce radically new platforms. In 2005 we launched the K2? Media Server, a new approach to central storage which uses IT industry standard disk arrays and network topography (Gigabit Ethernet) to deliver outstanding performance at an extremely cost-effective price point.

2. What do you hear your customers characterizing as their major problem that's solved by your products?

Nearly everyone in the production and delivery business wants to migrate to a tapeless workflow. That is why Grass Valley camcorders (Infinity), servers (Profile, M-Series? iVDR and K2 Media Servers), routers (Trinix? and Concerto? Series) and modular conversion products (8900 series Kameleon? and Gecko?) are selling so well. They can all be configured in different ways to handle a variety of formats and signal types.

The other big trend in the broadcast industry is the need for remote monitoring and system diagnostics. The Grass Valley NetCentral? software uses the industry-standard SNMP format to allow users to monitor and even operate individual devices or entire facilities from a remote location using a PC.

In addition, the Grass Valley C2MD solution offers customers engineering and consulting expertise, system integration and a hardware/software package, as part of a comprehensive Thomson service contract that monitors a facility's equipment and initiates maintenance repairs from a remote site. This service has been quite successful in helping to operate multi-channel facilities.

3. What do you see as the next growth area for the broadcast industry?

We see the industry continuing to embrace new multi-format technologies and systems that provide flexibility and reliable performance. Broadcasters are faced with the prospect of having to deliver content to multiple platforms (TV, internet, mobile devices), so the tools they use have to support that in a cost-effective way. At Grass Valley, the ability to do this quickly and affordably is the foundation of our product design and marketing activities. HD replacement is also a key transition for the industry.

The biggest potential for growth for Grass Valley, as it is for the industry as a whole, is to seize the opportunities that the digital revolution has brought about.

At one end, it allows us to create products and systems that deliver unprecedented quality, with complete HD production systems now available at unprecedented prices. At the other, it is driving new delivery platforms, so that conventional broadcast television is just one way in which audiences can enjoy media and content owners can earn revenues.

Grass Valley is already a leader in this new industry landscape, with a whole range of products from powerful and creative production and post production tools through digital format conversion and encoding right down to transmitters ready for mobile broadcasting.

This is new territory for everyone, whether they are a broadcaster moving into IPTV and mobile content, or a new entrant into the media market. All are seeking solutions from a supplier they can trust.

5. How do you view the current state of HD conversion industry-wide? Is it a done deal or do we have a ways to go, and what's your company doing to assist in that switch?

Everyone agrees that HD is the way to go: it looks great, and audiences love it. The migration is well under way in North America, and HD is now on air in Europe as well as Australia and the Far East.

It remains a continuing migration, though. Traditionally it has been seen as extremely expensive, demanding a heavy investment in kit which comes with a premium price tag. That perception is now changing through manufacturers like Grass Valley who are breaking down the barriers through more affordable equipment and simple migration strategies.

For all the key equipment in a broadcast facility, Grass Valley now offers products which are either multi-format or can be field upgraded from SD to HD when the time comes. New products like the Infinity camcorder can be switched from SD to HD between shots, yet come with a better price/performance tag than preceding, SD only equipment from other manufacturers. Grass Valley production switchers allow SD and HD content to be freely mixed, so new content and archive material can be used in the same production without complications and without tying up external resources.

These are just a couple of examples of the way that Grass Valley is supporting broadcasters as they migrate from analogue to SD digital to HD.