#ross video

[commodorez]

October 2022 rack update: now with an openGear DFR 8321 terminal equipment frame!

[imagine-that-100]

Link for Ross video please

Enjoy bestie because I cannot fucking cope

[zbell3d]

STREET FIGHTER V INVITATIONAL - Augmented Reality Characters -Behind The Scenes

Take a behind-the-scenes look at how Turner Studios, Ross Video and The Future Group collaborated to bring Street Fighter characters to life on live TV for the Invitational Finals. This is INCREDIBLE!

[levineengineering-blog]

EIC For a Few Days

Working at the EventEQ warehouse as EIC for a MJM show for end client TD Bank. We set up a master control room complete with 8 inbound remote feeds (custom style zoom), many graphics and playback machines and remote lines tied into a studio in NY. We used a Carbonite Black switcher to run the magic. For this show we had a guest director who brought in his own Technical Director who I must say, was a wizard at building boxes and effects on the Carbonite.

My biggest challenge on this one was converting a .mov file into a usable wipe with alpha and audio that could be triggered in the Carbonite to transition between segments. I used Vmix media converter to create an image sequence from the .mov then added a .wav to the sequence maintaining the proper naming scheme. Then loaded it into one of the Carbonite media player channels. Audio needed to wire up a cable to get the AES output to work and boom... Wipe with alpha and an audio "swoosh" could be triggered via macro that the TD built.

Once everything was wired, patched, configured and the bumper transition was loaded, it was time for me to relax and enjoy the Tour de France!

[profbruce]

How did Ross Video Experience 21 Consecutive Years of Growth?

[This article originally appeared in Ottawa Business Journal in March 2012, http://www.obj.ca/bruce-firestone]

The sky is falling, the sky is… Many observers of Ottawa’s tech scene seem to think it’s the end of Silicon Valley North but try telling that to David Ross, 90% owner of Ross Video. The other 10% is owned by family and an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan).

 “Tech unemployment in Ottawa is something like 2.2%,” athletic-looking, 40-something, father of two teenage girls Mr. Ross says. “So, it’s hard to hire in Ottawa—it takes longer. But we are building one of the best companies in the world, so they want to come here. I mean we grew revenues by 47% last year and invest 23% of sales in R&D, where else can you go where they do that?” David is a Waterloo-trained computer engineer.

 Ross Video has a 100,000-square foot plant in Iroquois, Ontario where they manufacture many of the company’s products. The real estate is owned by them as well. Their HQ on Auriga Drive in the south end of Ottawa is rented accommodation as is their newly acquired Kanata location—they bought the old Norpak company and are using its premises for an overall workforce that has now grown to 406 employees. They had just 25 in 1991. They use Norpak technology to embed information into broadcast streams, so they know what people are watching. Nielsen uses their system to produce its TV ratings.

 Last year they hired 100 people and plan to add the same number this year (they signed up 50 new people in February alone). They do all their manufacturing in-house and currently have about 160 engineers on staff.

 David won’t disclose sales but given that many of their products are expensive devices like robotic cameras, it’s safe to say they are north of $100 million. That division, now called Ross Robotics is based in Belgium; they recently bought a company there which together with one they purchased in Melbourne, Australia (which does video routing—like an old telephone switch only for video) gives the business a broad international reach. Another company purchased in the Netherlands in 2009 forms the foundation for Ross Europe. David wants to be more like Apple than Wal-Mart—sell high end gear with a great brand for top end prices to a diverse group of customers in many geographic markets instead of everyday low prices…

 If you watched the Grammys this year or the Academy Awards, all the titles you see on screen are produced by Ross Video products, software and services. ABC recently bought 3,000 of their video and audio cards to move video between their buildings via fibre. Ross Video has mastered the art and science of analogue to digital to fibre transmission. A lot of ex-JDSU engineers work there. All this is to say that despite some competition from Japan (mainly Sony) and some from Brits as well, Ross Video gear finds its way into pretty much every nook and cranny of the broadcast industry.

 Companies like JVC (and 29 others) act as resellers for Ross Video—they plug Ross Video gear (like some of their smaller video switches) into their systems while slapping their own label on it.

 In just three days at the 2011 National Association of Broadcasters show in Las  Vegas, Ross Video sold 63 Carbonite switchers for $40k each. That’s like a car dealer selling 63 cars on a long weekend. They showed it as a prototype, discussed delivery dates then shipped early. They’ve now sold over 1,000 of these switchers.

 Their video servers are like home PVRs on steroids and are for professional use by broadcasters and stadiums. They are also widely used by major acts like the Police, Bruce Springsteen and Rush. They are on the ISS (International Space Station) too where their equipment converts video from analogue to digital, so it can be broadcast terrestrially. More down to Earth, they make automated production control systems that allow one person with a mouse to produce a live newscast that used to take a room of people to do. 200 TV stations have gone to air with it including Diane Sawyer on ABC and Good Morning America as well.

 Mr. Ross is majority owner, President and CEO, Chairman of the Board. He was even CTO but had to give that up in 2011. Ross Video was started by his Dad, John, in 1974 with $3,500 which he raised by selling his plane. They have never taken a dime of Angel or VC money. There haven’t been any layoffs at the company either which has experienced 21 consecutive years of growth.

 David does not want to be like RIM which basically has one product—the Blackberry. “It’s too easy to knock off,” he says. “Look we sell high complexity, low volume stuff with a lot of customer support and service. It’s not something that the Chinese do, at least not yet, so we’re safe for now. With our robotic cameras you can get shots that were never possible before, you can capture the whole production to an accuracy of one in a million. Try that with a human-held camera!” he adds with a boyish enthusiasm for all things Buck Rogers’ish.

 Next up is So You Think You Can Dance and there are other fields to conquer—they are not yet doing any work with CNN but, closer to home, they are redoing Scotiabank  Place’s infrastructure so that the Senators will be able to drive their new digital high def screen to the max. “You haven’t seen anything yet, Sens fans,” David says.

 Probably his biggest challenge came when they went from 50 employees and one building to more than one location. “Hey, when you are a small company with one plant, the CEO can control pretty much everything by wandering around. But when you get to two buildings and 80 people, it’s horrible. Quality went down the sewer.”

 So one day, in about 20 minutes, an angry David wrote down the opposite of everything they were doing which became the basis for their code of ethics and conduct. It is the basis for their corporate culture and, after that, things improved. Why I ask?

 “That code allowed people to self correct. Instead of needing to hear from me or their manager, all they had to do was refer to the code. Is this consistent with our code or not? If not, don’t do it. Our organization completely changed—it became a learning one with high quality standards and products again.”

 Professor Bruce M. Firestone is entrepreneurship ambassador for the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management; founder of the Ottawa Senators; executive director of Exploriem.org and a broker at Century 21 Explorer Realty. Follow him on Twitter @ProfBruce

[stereokrauts]

John Naylor of Ross Video introduced the Dashboard control system at NAB Las Vegas. In the front you see a setup with Stereoscope controlling a Yamaha 01V96.