Grass Valley gains momentum led by Tim Thorsteinson

Now in the hands of Francisco Partners, Grass Valley plans, as Thorsteinson has admitted, “to continue designing the best products in its category, focus on our customers, and innovate in technology and business engagement.”

A true figure in the industry, Tim Thorsteinson, returns this year to star at the fair in his role as the new CEO of Grass Valley, a company of which he was already president in the late 90s.

Now in the hands of Francisco Partners, Grass Valley plans, as Thorsteinson has admitted, “to continue designing the best products in its category, focus on our customers, and innovate in technology and business engagement.”

Among the manufacturer's innovations in Las Vegas, the new GV Director stands out, a solution that integrates four functions: mixer, video server, graphics engine and multiviewer... and all of this simplifying the customer experience.

In reality, it is an integrated non-linear live production center. Much more than a mixer, with its way of producing and delivering live content on multiple distribution platforms, the new center represents a new dynamic paradigm for live production workflows of all genres. The GV Director is suitable for all production environments, such as houses of worship, image magnification (IMAG) applications, education centres, as well as established venues, production studios and mobile units.

The GV Director's simple touch screen, along with traditional mixer buttons and T-bar controls make it simple to use and familiar and logical for experienced technical directors and students alike. It is truly software-based and works with the most common hardware components forming a scalable CPU and GPU platform with robust I/O technology designed by Grass Valley. The center is also prepared for an unlimited number of M/E buses, keyers, 2D/3D graphics, localized clip storage and the ability to manage baseband and file-based sources.

Shows can be built offline with a Mac or PC using GV Director, the same production engine used in live programming; with performance to preview the processing and graphics power of the Mac or PC you are using.

In another vein, it is worth keeping an eye on the Grass Valley GV Stratus stand, a solution that provides a tool for ingest, for production, for editing and playout whose main novelty is the possibility of now working with an end-to-end workflow at low resolution and web publishing.

In capture, the new LDX Flex camcorder stands out, an entry-level model in this family of cameras.

Finally, we would like to highlight XCU (eXchabgable Control unit), as an interesting proposal for the next generation of 3G camera control units, and the new K2 Dyno, now capable of combining up to 6 inputs in a single Dyno and sharing transmission with other Dynos through ShareFlex.