38 TVBEurope The Business Case
Grass Valley goes back to the future
Grass Valley has gone through several changes of
ownership in the past decade or two, but it is once more an independent company — with a veteran name at its helm. Tim Thorsteinson departed as
president and CEO in 2001. Now he is back, in the same role. David Fox caught up with him
spend. Indeed, he has noticed a marked improvement in the broadcast market recently. “It’s stronger than it was a couple of years ago, around the world.” However, any investment is
happening in a very different broadcasting environment to when he was at Grass first. “As appointment TV has gone away, the consumption of content has changed so much. Where people are investing is live sports and that’s good for us, certainly half of our business if you count OB vans.” Beyond sports, its biggest focus is news, where its software-based workflow systems are winning orders from the likes of CNBC. Over the 12 years while he
was away, Grass has transitioned from being “mostly a hardware company to delivering most of our products in software. It means customers can keep the same essential system and just upgrade underlying hardware and software.” This move has been driven by broadcasters, who increasingly demand standard hardware. It suits him as it means other hardware suppliers provide some of the support, “so it’s not us on the hook for their hard drive replacement.” Harnessing the power of
Ready to fly: Grass Valley is starting to take off under Thorsteinson
FOR SOMEONE who grew up an hour from Grass Valley, it is most definitely a return home: “For most of us, the business is not just a business. I’m very glad to be back. We’ve got supportive ownership (I’ve run this and Harris under eight different owners), which makes life a lot easier,” he says.
After his first stint at Grass,
he was also president/CEO of Leitch, then president of the Broadcast Communications division of Harris Corporation (after Harris bought Leitch in 2005). Before rejoining Grass Valley he was also president/CEO of Enablence Technologies.
Thorsteinson has made a
career out of being adaptable, a quality shared by Grass Valley. As he points out, there are very few companies in the technology sector that have been around 52 years. “Virtually every
technology transformation the industry has seen, we’ve been a part of.” Has there been much change since 2001? “It’s become a much more global business than it was when I was first at Grass
Valley.” For example, on one day at IBC, there were customers from 72 different countries with demonstrations being done in many languages. “It’s a great business from that perspective. Very
GV Director points way to nonlinear production
GRASS VALLEY’Snew GV Director nonlinear production centre, which combines the functionality of a switcher, video server, graphics generator and multiviewer in one application will start shipping soon, and, along with Scalable Video Systems’ new IT-based live production system, it represents a new trend in production systems that are much more software-driven and flexible. “It’s a very strategic product for us. We’ve already got so many pre-orders for it - most from western European
broadcasters,” says Said Bacho, senior VP of EMEA. “We’ve already started training on it,” adds Matt Allard, market development manager. It certainly lives up to Tim Thorsteinson’s desire to appeal to more than just high-end broadcasters, GV’s traditional market, as this is also attracting universities, event producers and houses of worship. “It is using GPUs to do the work, which is how both we and [SVS] are trying to bridge the gap,” says the CEO. SVS was
created by a group of former
Grass Valley engineers, but Thorsteinson is happy with the challenge. “I worry more about my own execution than the competition.” GV Director is “both more and less than a switcher. We’ve been very careful about not positioning it as a switcher from Grass Valley,” says Allard. “It has an iPad type of touch pad that a lot of new entrants to the business will love, but traditional broadcasters
interesting.” A lot of its customers are now talking about second screen applications, social media and 4K, and Grass had a good IBC, with more than 300 customer appointments — all of whom had budgets to
graphical processors has been a major aspect of making the most of IT, and Grass is using GPUs to do live work for its new GV Director nonlinear production system. “As the processing power increases, so will use of that technology,” he says. However, as processing power
rises, broadcaster demands for higher quality have increased even faster. “4K is not easy. If you’d asked me at NAB about 4K, I would have said it was far off, but today it seems a lot more pressing.” Because Grass is already doing a total refresh of its
Panel game: GV Director is a touchscreen- driven
non-linear production centre
are also embracing the
technology,” adds Bacho. “What we’re seeing in traditional broadcasters is a different model of use. Instead of having a technical director there may be a production assistant,” or some other less technical operator, says Allard. “Many are thinking of using it to create second screen content,” particularly for sport.
www.tvbeurope.com November 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52