Most video editing and transmission systems are proprietary but Tektronix Inc is trying to break the trend. I don’t believe anyone can do it themselves, we’ll work with any company to provide solutions, said Rex Ferbrache, vice-president of strategy for Tektronix’s video and networking division. Tektronix is currently developing a newsroom system that will handle graphics, audio and text and is working with a number of software companies in the field to make the system as open as possible. The Wilsonville, Oregon firm is working with Newstar Inc, Newsmaker Inc and Newswire Inc to ensure their new scripting systems will be compatible with Textronix’s newsroom system. It is also collaborating with BTS Broadcast Television Systems Inc, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co’s Panasonic unit and Avid Technology Inc among others to establish video compression standards for broadcast and production systems. However, Tektronix’s forthcoming newsroom system is only relatively open as it is not in the company’s interests to make systems that are fully compatible with its competitors. Players in the broadcast and production arena such as Avid, Sony, Quantel Ltd, BTS and ImMix Inc are all jostling to win customers in market Tektronix estimates will be worth $50,000m for broadcast, production and post-production systems in the next few years.
Far East will leapfrog videotape
However, each company’s share of this market will depend not only on the take-up of the technology but on how effective and cost-competitive their respective offerings are. There’s no doubt that there is a huge market for digital newsrooms and production systems, said Mark Overington, vice-president of world wide sales for Avid’s Broadcast Products Group. We estimate Asia Pacific is worth $2,000m. Broadcast and production companies in the Far East will leapfrog videotape systems which Europe and the US invested in seven or eight years ago and go straight to on-line digital editing systems. Overington said the US and Europe had been slower to move to full digital on-line editing systems. Traditional news editing systems have been much cheaper in the US and so broadcast and cable companies have already replaced them with full newsroom systems and are now buying commercial playback systems, like Newscutter, whereas the big thing in Europe is still newsroom systems but the markets are roughly the same size – around $1,500m, he said. In terms of system design, the basic architecture adopted by broadcast companies is the same, you need to be able to transfer large files containing text, compressed video and speech around a network and enable several users to have instaneous access to the same file at the same time, said Adam Brown, an engineering sales manager for Lightworks Editing Systems Ltd. Lightworks, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tektronix as a result of a $71m buyout in June, will co-develop the Tektronix newsroom system along with Grass Valley Group. Grass Valley is another Tektronix subsidiary, which produces the Profile video disk recorders on which the newsroom system is based. However, unlike other newsroom systems which use a dedicated video server to store video, audio and text the Textronix system stores files on desktop machines which are transfered across a Fibre Channel network using the Profile disk recorder as a router. This does away with the need to use an expensive video server and makes a system cheaper for to customers, said Brown. Textronix’s forthcoming newsroom system will run under Windows NT and will be able to handle four broadcast-quality channels running independently and 16 audio channels; the system will be ready for the NAB Broadcast show next April. Currently, Tektronix’s largest market for its Profile disk recorders, is video on demand, said Ferbrache. Textronix claims to have sold 500 Profiles, which cost $60,000 each, since ships began in April. According to Ferbrache the company has just signed a deal with a UK cable company for a further 80 Profiles. The Profiles will be used for an 80-c
hannel satellite system broadcast to UK homes. Tektronix merged its video and networking division back in February with a view to entering the broadcast, production and post-production market. The new division is headed by ex-IBMer Lucie Fjeldstad. Textronix plans to use the video business to double the size of the company. Elaborating on the strategy by which this could be achieved, Ferbrache said, the video and networking division will consider some alliances and further acquisitions to fill in the holes in our product set and generate additional revenues. One such hole is television cameras, he said. The division is expected to contribute $450m to the $1,400m group total.
